CT state leaders should walk the mass transit talk

This week’s column is an update on something I wrote last year. Alas, little has changed since then…

On this Labor Day weekend, here’s a question and a challenge: Do the folks in state government know what it’s like to be a commuter?

When’s the last time that Gov. Ned Lamont took a train… not for a photo op, but for real? He does have a home in Greenwich so he could be enjoying the great service on The Hartford Line and Metro-North. But it seems he’s always driving around in that big (chauffeured) SUV which, by the way, is not electric (despite his calls for Connecticut to “go green” and all-electric by 2035!)

C’mon Governor: walk the talk!

Does the governor know what it’s like to ride on standing-room-only Metro-North trains at rush hour? Or has he tried to take Shore Line East to New London with its two hour gaps in service from New Haven?

Is the train too slow? Welcome to our commuting realities, Governor.

Or how about our lawmakers? When the legislature is in session, why aren’t they on the train also? And yeah, I know they work weird hours. But so do their constituents and they too have trouble catching mass transit outside of the normal nine-to-five work day. I mean, wouldn’t we all feel safer if lawmakers were on a train or bus after a late night session instead of careening down I-91 or the Wilbur Cross Parkway at 70 mph?

And why do state representatives and state senators all have special license plates for their cars? Does that give them special parking privileges or an exemption from law enforcement?

Admittedly, if the people we send to Hartford to represent us are all driving, at least they know how challenging the roads are… not that they’ve done much to improve on that gridlock. But if they actually rode our trains and buses I’m guessing maybe they’d fix what’s wrong there, pronto.

Or consider our state’s bus system: How many elected officials, even local ones, have ridden the buses their constituents rely on every day? If they haven’t, how can they empathize with what it’s like, let alone fix it?

And then there’s the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Their beautiful headquarters in Newington on Berlin Turnpike is serviced by four CT Transit bus routes, including one from Hartford’s Union (train) Station. But I wonder how many staffers opt to ride the very mass transit system their agency funds as their headquarters’ giant parking lot always seems full.

Before Michael Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York City, and quite often while he was in office, he rode on the subways to get to work. His successors did not. In Boston, then-Gov. Michael Dukakis regularly rode “The T.”

These days the pols probably claim it’s “security” that prevents them from riding mass transit, but that sounds like more of an excuse than explanation. Heaven forbid that they’d actually have to rub shoulders with their constituents!