This week, Connecticut Post reporters have been walking, biking and taking trains and cars to work and facing the challenge of getting around mass transit’s missing links. Read more about this story by clicking on this environmental headline above.

The Connecticut DEEP today issued a proposed final decision recommending the issuance of an inland wetlands and watercourses permit to the Connecticut DOT required for the construction of the New Britain to Hartford busway. The proposed final decision can be accessed on the DEEP web site. Click on this environmental headline for more on this story.

This week, the Alliance for Biking and Walking released its 2012 Benchmarking Report, and the timing is impeccable. As Streetsblog points out, the release coincides with the soon-to-appear national surface transportation bill, and in the tri-state region, it comes just after state legislatures have gotten into full swing. With statistics, case studies and loads of
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Improved service hours and increased connections combined to boost ridership on the shoreline’s 9 Town Transit bus service by 34% during 2011, the largest single year increase in the agencies history, according to Estuary Transit District Executive Director Joseph Comerford.

Gubernatorial aide Kip Bergstrom is ready to tell other states, “We will steal your scientists”—but he wants high-speed trains to help him do it. The New Haven Independent reports.

A legislative panel weighed implementing tolls and increasing the sales tax as a way to fund future investments in the state’s transportation infrastructure Friday at a forum sponsored by the CT Fund for the Environment.

With funds from the Obama Administration’s TIGER program and other sources, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. intends to replace the short Rt. 34 expressway with two wide streets—a circulation network that would do more to accommodate heavy flows of vehicular traffic than to make an environment conducive to walking and neighborhood life. Click on this environmental headline for more on this story.

Transit for Connecticut, a program of Connecticut Fund for the Environment, held a forum at the State Capitol discussing transportation funding and the current needs of the state. Click for more on this event from CFE.

TSTC analyses indicate that ConnDOT has been slowly improving since then, and they sat down with Commissioner Jim Redeker, who has headed the agency since last March, to talk about his work. He spoke at a recent transportation financing forum in Hartford.

Transit for Connecticut, a program of Connecticut Fund for the Environment, will host a forum Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, on transportation funding and Connecticut’s needs at the State Capitol in Hartford.

Catherine Smith, Commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development, will outline her proposals for sustainable economic development in Connecticut on Thursday, January 19, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM in the Great Hall of downtown Hartford’s Union Station. Click on this environmental headline for more on this great event.

An out-of-state contractor will secure the largest contract for the Hartford-New Britain Busway, a $567-million project launched, in part, to create Connecticut jobs.

Scattershot planning, false savings and neglect have eroded the infrastructure for years, but that’s not happening any longer, Malloy said in an interview with The Hartford Courant.

The state Department of Transportation has approved all 50 modifications requested for the first phase of the Route 34 conversion to urban boulevards that were changed to make them more pedestrian and cyclist friendly. The New Haven Register reports.

Downtown Crossing was awarded a $23 million U.S Department of Transportation TIGER grant, one of the largest issued from Washington, to do the job. Yet the plan’s current design does not align itself with the stated intent of the project. The Hartford Courant reports.

The program provides grants between $10,000 and $50,000 for municipalities interested in pursuing equitable transit-oriented development. The grants can be used for planning and public outreach in southwestern Connecticut (Fairfield and New Haven Counties), northern New Jersey (the NJTPA region), Long Island, Westchester County, and New York City. For more on this story, visit: Reminder:
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The idea is to link land use decisions with public transportation infrastructure to accommodate new traffic demands and reduce dependence on highway transportation.

James Redeker, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, wants to revamp public transportation in Connecticut. Redeker spoke before a crowd of around 40 Connecticut residents and government employees Thursday night in downtown New Haven, discussing his plans for advancing the Connecticut transportation system.

Economic Development Director Mark Barnhart was given the task of overseeing the public-private development project in 2010, when changes to the agreement put the onus on the town for finishing the commuter parking lot and roadway — a deal that eventually held the town liable for $7.5 million in construction cost overruns.

Less than a month after aldermen rejected a plan to help fund a $1 million streetcar study, the city is trying to get the project back on the rails.