Next Train Stop: The ​“iStore”?

Sorry I missed Lamont, I drove yesterday to enjoy my cars AC.

If you " quit raiding the [Capitol's] special transportation fund and put the petroleum gross receipts tax to its intended use: funding transportation," how are you going to replace the dollars you have removed from the General Fund? This is like a card trick in which you can see all the cards. The money ultimately still has to come from a new revenue source.

@famis,
i'm confused, you think transportation dollars shouldn't go to transportation?
gaps in our budget should be filled with money intended for something else, so that we can remain antiquatedly in love with driving everywhere?

Can you give us an actual apple store, too, Mr. Lamont? please?

Juli,
Transportation dollars should absolutely go to transportation. But as I understand from the story, Lamont is saying that some of those dollars are currently being used elsewhere. Let's say, for funding HUSKY, or schools, or state police. If you switch those dollars from where they are being used in the general fund back to transportation, fine. But now you have a shortfall at HUSKY, or schools, or state police, or wherever. That shortfall will still need to be plugged or services cut. The dollars still have to come from somewhere and it is disingenuous to represent it as otherwise.

WiFi is already available at New Haven and is being deployed on the trains in the very near future. The Waterbury branch already has more service than it needs the midday trains are empty and the line has one of the highest cost tax payers in the system behind the shore line east that cost tax payers $22 per passenger.

The commuter trains should be privatized. The competition will presumably create faster trains and better service. Connecticut is a small state and we don't need the expense of a massive transportation system that is publicly funded. Perhaps a German or Japanese firm could be tempted to come to Connecticut?
Also, Lamont and his buddy Malloy should propose a toll system for the borders with New York. I think the goal of any potential Connecticut governor should be to keep New Yorkers out of the Nutmeg State and New England in general.

WiFi capability is already pre-installed on the new M8 cars, hopefully the MTA will do their part and turn it on for every train.

Townie - good luck with getting the trains privatized. Last time we had that, there were - what, six different railroads running out of New Haven? This day in age here in the United States, privatization for railroads is not easy when running on the same tracks that Amtrak runs their acela on. Amtrak is doing a fine job operating the Shore Line East right now, and maybe, in the future, the DOT will take it up a notch.

"Also, Lamont and his buddy Malloy should propose a toll system for the borders with New York."

Build a toll plaza on the new Q-Bridge (we might as well put another one on the bridge next to it) and prepare to be wowed. It will accomplish two things - 1. Generate income from cars traveling. 2. More commuters from the Shore Line will travel by train. It's cheaper to pay a 2 or 3 dollar ticket than to pay a 5 dollar toll booth charge. Also - put a train station in East Haven, in the plaza (there are empty storefronts there with tracks right next to it!)

All Waterbury trains should rescheduled as one-stop ride, through trains to Grand Central Terminal. That eliminates the high cost per passenger argument because seats will fill as the train approaches GCT.

The seats on a seamless train from Waterbury that do not get filled in Waterbury or Naugatuck will surely get filled in Bridgeport, Fairfield, Westport, Norwalk, Darien, Stamford and Greenwich.

R: The Shoreline East is not as good as it could be. I use the train frequently on weekends to visit family in Saybrook. It is often late (over 30/40 minutes at times) and their customer service reps have no information regarding service delays or cancellations, I think they're only employed to read the printed train schedule. Also, the trains are painfully slow. On a recent trip we stopped for 10 minutes because there was only one track available for use and we had to wait our turn.
There is no reason why we cannot have a high speed Maglev system built and owned by a private company, or companies. CT government should be working on easing zoning restrictions and creating tax incentives for foreign rail companies in order to make this happen, since all U.S. companies are too far behind in their technology.

If the Government wants people out of their cars then why do continue to build highways? Did Ned look out the window of his train and see all the road work being done on I-95? Why do you think the rail companies went broke? The government is competing with itself and would make any privatization of the passenger lines would be unworkable.

Thomas: I think privatization would work for the exact reason you state it wouldn't work. If the state did not have to spend money on the train system than they could use the extra funds to repair the roadways and highways. Private firms, in competition with each other and the auto ethos would be compelled to offer clean, comfortable, affordable, and fast transportation for Connecticut's commuters. Also, I doubt the government's sincerity when they say they want people out of their cars. To me this is just political rhetoric not meant to have any substance or bearing on the issues.

@Townie,

I think you're overestimating the value of privatization of commuter rails. First of all, the prices would be too high, and if you think that rail is unfairly subsidized, consider the costs of driving the same rail route along I-95. Who's getting more of a subsidy there?

Secondly, what is this "competition" of which you speak? Multiple companies running trains on the same tracks? Multiple companies bidding for a single multi-year contract?

We once had rail competition. The trucking industry killed it by lobbying for interstate highways. It is what it is.

But killing rail - or putting it out of reach for all but the rich - is exactly the opposite direction of where we want to go. Southern CT and New Haven are linked to New York and the NE Corridor. Why not build on that, rather than embark on some libertarian privatization scheme (all it means is giving a monopoly to someone else who won't have the public interest at heart) or add another 50 lanes to 95?

That second picture, with the background showing cttransit info and "bus token sales".. haha. Why not take that out (we can put a couple of bus schedules anywhere we want to) and put a few comfy chairs and a copy of the times? That'd be an awesome station improvement.

Hey Ned,

How bout just extending Shoreline East's service to as far as Mystic, cutting out Amtrak's overinflated prices. Leave the nuts and bolts to the bureaucrats, not this discussion board.

This attempt at reform sounds like soft, technological grandstanding to me.

ps. The High Speed Train doesn't work. Go AMTRAK! (federal subsidy)

I always find it amusing that people wail about train subsidies, which can provide cleaner, safer, and more comfortable transportation, and will at the same time say more money should be put into roads.

Maybe the roads should be privatized. It was the "road and auto" subsidies that put the 6 train lines that ran in and out of New Haven out of business.

There is not a single private passenger railroad in this country and most likely there will never be one. The reason for this is simple there is no money to be made. The costs far out weigh the revenue. If a private company operated the rails they would still require a substantial government subsidy or the cost of riding would be astronomical.

While the MTA is flawed its still light years ahead of the CDOT. The state of New York has been building and maintaining the system for years while CT did nothing. Metro North in NY is quite better than Metro North in CT.

Cablevision will be offering free WiFi at MTA stations and on board trains, I don't know if this deal includes CT stations and trains as they are controlled by CDOT.

Paul Martin: I don't think privatization would effect high prices, if anything the prices would remain the same, if not lower than they are now. A business will see the demand for the trains and price accordingly, just as the DOT does now. Also the competition would come from different firms competing for track usage, or as you mentioned, bidding for a service contract. I don't agree that it was the trucking companies that destroyed the passenger train system. They might have contributed to the decline of commercial rail, but I doubt it had an affect on passenger service. More than likely it was our choice to prefer autos over trains. Germany, France, Japan, etc. all have very nice highway systems yet their rail systems are also top of the line and are used quite frequently for regional travel. In fact I think the competition between the interstate system and the rail system is an over-stated one. It comes down to personal choice and attitude. If the passenger rail system became more convenient than more people would use it. The interstates are going to be funded regardless of use.
A lot of people do not understand privatization and think that companies will not act in the interests of the public. But this argument is ridiculous and not logical. The passenger rail service is dependent on the public's interest, like all service industries. Any firm that runs a passenger train will always be aware of service issues and will be quicker to respond to customer attitudes and trends. Our current system ignores customer service and runs according to legislated budgets.
Privatization is essential to establishing an efficient customer rail service.

@Townie:

"A lot of people do not understand privatization and think that companies
will not act in the interests of the public. But this argument is ridiculous
and not logical."

When I read that I thought you were joking. Then I realized you were serious.

Have you read anything about privatization in, say, the last two decades?

Not the press releases, mind you. Not the before, but the after.

And I guess you have a right to think that trucking didn't kill railroads. But freight paid for passengers, and freight reached capacity in the 1920s. The trucking industry shaped interstate highway legislation and carriage laws in the 1950s, and the numbers just go through the floor after that, which was why government took over rail to begin with.

There are English language books about this. I don't want to sound snarky, but your beliefs and the documented history of this just don't line up.

Paul Martin: Private industry is not inherently bad. There are good and bad private companies just as there are good and bad governments. Pseudo-public and public companies, such as Amtrak or the US Postal Service are often over-sized bureaucracies that do not produce any real benefit for the people, but cost the taxpayers millions of dollars to operate. The passenger train service is one example, both state and inter-state service is nowhere near where it should be. I blame this on a combination of factors, the largest two being Government ownership and management and the other being the prevalent American attitude that prefers car ownership to collective transportation methods.
You can blame the trucking industry, but its erroneous to do so. As I mentioned before Germany, France and Japan (among others) all have modern highway systems as well as sophisticated high-tech passenger rail systems that offer fast and convenient regional transportation. The difference between those nations and us is a difference in attitude, that's all. As long as we remain in the collective stupor that has led to our present downfall nothing will ever really change, including the passenger rail system.
Another benefit to privatization is obviously the reduced cost to the tax payer. If the passenger rail system fails because of lack of demand than so be it, such is the nature of the free market system. However, I do not want public funds to keep paying for a system which the government has no real interest in improving and that enjoys minimal public support and/or interest.
If Lamont, or any Democrat becomes governor this state will be probably be facing bankruptcy in short order. Precisely because of ideas/programs like the one proposed in this article.

Townie the current rail travel prices are heavily subsidized. The Shoreline East service for example requires a $22 dollar per passenger subsidy just to break even and cover the basic operating cost. That does not include the procurement cost of the rail equipment or the stations. It does not even include the maintenance cost for the rails since its operating on Amtrak maintained rails.

As you pointed out not enough people utilize mass transit to make it profitable for any company to operate. The railroads were privately run and they failed, if the government had not stepped in there would be no passenger rail service. There is not a single private commuter railroad in this country and most likely there never will be again. There is no profit to be made so there is no interest.

@Townie
You are correct in that the main difference between, for example, Germany and the United States on passenger rail is about attitude: the German public is widely okay with the huge losses the Deutsche Bahn's service incurs. There is no private entity that would assume its duties because the costs, infrastructural and otherwise, are just too high. On the other hand, the trade-off for those huge operating losses are an effective, reliable passenger rail network that will get you pretty much anywhere you want to, any time. In that Amtrak and other public transport authorities losses here are moderate, American passenger railroads are among the most "profitable" in the world. But we get what we pay for - dilapidated equipment and infrastructure, and very limited services.

So you're right that an attitude shift is necessary: Americans would need to consider transit a necessity, and give up the pipe dream that it's a profitable enterprise. That also forecloses on the hope that privatization could do anything to help. The liability alone makes it unappealing. It is worth revisiting the eagerness of the Penn Central to shed its passenger service obligations; even that couldn't save it from bankruptcy, but it was certainly first on the chopping block in what was, until Enron, the largest bankruptcy in American corporate history.

WOW!

A "high tech" Apple Store within the next decade? That's awesome....maybe we can follow up with some other super high tech things on the train system like light bulbs and canned preserves.

Townie:

Read this. Shane Hamilton's "Trucking Country: The Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy" (Princeton, 2008).

Much better than a knee-jerk defense of trucking or meaningless comparisons to the autobahn.

Also - whenever I hear someone slam the Postal Service I wonder if they've ever been to a customer service desk at Best Buy or through the phone tree at their cable company or health insurer.

The idea that private industry - always and everywhere - does everything better and has incredible public responsibility flies in the face of so much actual lived experience that it's amazing anyone believes this is persuasive. It's argument by assertion.

As for Republicans not creating deficits, were you alive from 2001-2009?

Lamont also wants to "expand" Bradley International Airport for more international flights while Tweed and Sikorsky die on the vine. Same as it ever was.

Paul Martin: I wasn't defending the trucking industry, just simply stating that blaming it for the failure of passenger rail service is hyperbolic. And the comparison to the autobahn wasn't meaningless, it was meant to communicate the idea that a well maintained and efficient interstate highway system does not prevent the existence of a well maintained and efficient commuter rail service. Transportation must be thought of as a collaborative effort of multiple sources, i.e. planes, trains, and automobiles.
Also, I never said privatization was flawless and perfect, but it is better than companies/services owned and operated by the government. Regulation of private industry is necessary but public ownership is not. It is easy to cite badly run private companies and it is easy to cite well run private companies. Again, it all comes down to attitude and ethos. Socialism is a great idea, but first their needs to be a shift in the collective ethos, if that doesn't happen than we end up with what we have now, corporatism.
In a perfect world the workers would own the rail system, the airlines, the mail system, etc. But, this isn't a perfect world so I would rather have private companies run major industry than government. Larger government means less liberty.
Also, I never said Republicans don't create deficits. But, Democrats, especially New England Democrats , are particularly known for their spending habits.
But, it's typical two-party thinking, if someone criticizes the dems they must be a Republican. Step outside the box.
Finally, the USPS needs to be shut down. We have FedEx, UPS, DHL, email, and other alternatives. The service was at one time relevant and necessary, but now it isn't and it's a drain on our economy.

How many people can afford iPads? Lamont's a little out of touch.

Metro-North's schedule is a good system, I would like to see New Haven linked to Penn Station, no excuse it should not have been done years ago. It is the schedule that makes Metro North efficient. People can Depart and Arrive for points south at least once an hour. I don't think Privatization will work, passenger service has not been profitable since the turn of the 20th century. Of course the government is not capable of running anything efficiently. Amtrak'd Long Distance Service is propping up nostalgia. I'd rather see regional inter-state linkage between existing rail system. Any reason why Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts can't run trains between New Haven, Providence and Boston? Of course non of this will happen unless costs and inefficient bureaucracies that are killing the current systems.

New Haven's TIGER grants were written primarily to support a private developer in an area with no residents (Route 34). Why should New Haven be surprised when it doesn't get TIGER?

The Federal government's TIGER program isn't dumb. They have clear policy objectives, and are going to fund projects that do the following:

1) Decrease driving, greenhouse gas emissions and oil dependency. 90% of the American public wants this. New Haven's TIGER application supports the construction of new parking garages for hundreds of cars. There's no light rail planned for Route 34 so the TIGER grant just proposed rebuilding the high speed 4 lane highways in each direction, but at street level. There still isn't a good walking or biking infrastructure around New Haven (e.g., greenways, viable crosswalks) or to and from the train station and the TIGER application, focused on just a block of downtown, did not address how to fix this.

2) Connect to mass transit and urban development. New Haven should build off existing assets, e.g., the area around Union Station or Whalley Avenue, which has a huge bus line and a lot of businesses. These areas are ripe for development. Other than one private developer, there's not much evidence that turning Route 34 from a below ground highway to an above ground highway, with no concurrent investment in new transit systems, would produce a wave of new development. Sure, buses go to the Green, but how many people want to take a bus to Elm Street and then either walk all the way to Route 34 or take a connecting bus? TIGER doesn't fund projects that aren't realistic.

3) Promote fairness. Downtown has received tons of funding and is looking pretty good already. Places like Whalley Avenue, the area of the Hill around Union Station, and Dixwell have been crying out for funding and streetcar lines for years and are severely disinvested. TIGER isn't going to fund projects that just widen the gap between rich and poor. Given the high unemployment rate in the inner city, the strategy should be to start with the areas of highest need and do Route 34 later.

50% of the operating costs for the US postal service in generated in the last mile of delivery service. Unlike FedEx and UPS, USPS cannot deny parts of the country service because they are too low-density, far from other places, USPS has to delivery to everyone. When 50% of the country lives in sprawling, suburban communities with inefficiently windy roads, the costs to deliver mail is enormous. Suburbia is why USPS is in trouble, and for no other major reason. In my neighborhood, for example, the postal worker parts at one corner and walks around several blocks, then comes back to the car and goes to another section of the neighborhood-this requires very little use of the car, very little time, and almost zero back tracking occurs. In suburbs the workers rarely can get out of the car because blocks are very long and often connect back to each other.

Originally, New Haven, along with settlements scattering most of America's eastern coast, was a port town that relied on a harbor for importing and exporting. Maritime trade was able to support small, walkable communities built around the water. New Haven wasn't a very successful town due to its shallow harbor and limited access thanks to Long Island. Luckily, rail technology came along and New Haven went from having an unfortunate location to having prime real estate between New York, Providence, Hartford and Boston. New Haven became an industrial powerhouse thanks to rail and new energy sources that could power factories much better than our weak water currents could power the mills. New Haven was often a national leader in US patents per capita thanks to our innovative populace, local university (Yale) and a burgeoning immigrant population. The rail lines carried cargo and passengers to various towns and cities in the area.
This rail network was supplemented by horse drawn trolleys and later electric trolley lines which allowed the city to grow from small, walkable communities into a much larger, well-connected city with various neighborhoods and a downtown. As conditions got increasingly cramped in the central part of the city and a middle class began to emerge, however, developers saw opportunity on the periphery of the city's core to build trolley line suburbs in the late 1800s. Developers would actually help pay for trolley lines to be extended to make the land viable for development. This is what generated places like the Edgewood neighborhood, Beaver Hills, Lower Westville, parts of West Haven, etc.
By the 1920s the automobile was becoming increasingly popular, which explains why the trolley line for Norton Street from Whalley to Crescent was abandoned in favor of a green median and perpendicular parking. In the 1930s, the city's downtown was becoming filled with automobiles and several buildings were demolished to create parking lots. By the end of WW2 the federal government had embarked on a massive plan to provide new housing on the outskirts of the city for millions of people that were affordable thanks to cheap mortgages that were often lower than monthly rent payments. This caused city populations to go into freefall for the next several decades as the middle class jumped on the government's offers for new housing, cheap cars and miles of federally build highways.
Trolleys stopped operating in the New Haven between 1945 and 1947 with the very last trolley making its final run in September of 1947. Rail wasn't far behind, but it was saved by the government and now is pretty much the joke of the industrialized world. It's true that rail is not cost efficient today, but that doesn't mean that it can't be in the future. The reason its cost inefficient is because we no longer have defined, compact towns and cities to service, we have all these little suburbs and the densities in cities and towns and much lower than they were a century ago. Suburbanism cannot support rail and trolley lines, just like industrial urbanism cannot be served only by maritime trade and travel.

As an example, the proposed trolley loop for downtown could be stretched out linearly and laied from Broadway to Skiff Street in Hamden along Dixwell Avenue using the same amount of track. This would not pay for itself initially, it would cost a ton but it would make Dixwell extremely attractive for development and not the kind of sprawling development that can be found on Whalley or the Boston Post Road, but small mixed use buildings that are narrowly deployed along the sidewalk. The type of urban growth that can occur thanks to a trolley line is evident to us in New Haven's thoroughfares since those places grew along trolley lines. It would help spur the rejuvenation of the Dixwell and Newhallville neighborhoods and would provide efficient transit for all kinds of people in Hamden and New Haven.

John Hopkins: While I do enjoy your rather long diatribes, I cannot fully agree with your conclusion. While suburbia definitely is in an impediment to successful passenger train service, I do not think it is the actual cause of the demise of efficient rail service in this nation. Many nations enjoy suburban sprawl while at the same time make use of light railways and other regional train services. In the nations I have visited it seems that these options were just as popular, if not more so, than automobile use. Europe's high gas prices are in part to thank, but I also think they understand transportation as simply a means to get somewhere and not as an indicator of one's independence. The automobile is part of the American ethos of individualism and self-reliance, therefore any use of public transportation would be seen as a surrender of one's freedom. I can't tell you how many people on the bus utter the phrase, "If I only had a car". Some might think my analysis is too philosophical, but all of our actions are provoked by personal sentiment and ideology. Until gas prices skyrocket or are taxed to levels comparable to European prices, or until all the oil runs out, I do not think the American population will seek out alternative, more public, methods of local/regional transportation.
And I also disagree about your conclusion concerning the USPS. The postal service has been operating almost since the birth of our nation, they adapted well to suburbia, but the technological advances of the 20th and 21st century, along with the emergence of private courier services as well as the enormous costs of pensions, healthcare and other benefits given to current and former employees, has turned the USPS into an albatross that should be cut loose from the Federal payroll. It's not a necessary agency.

oh my god, we have a third anon/hopkins

Townie, why should the government stop funding rail and not roads? I'd rather the roads were privatized. I don't mind paying a toll to use them.

Jon Hopkins is never satisfied unless suburbia is fully bashed....

You liberals make me laugh. You're never happy unless you're spending someone else's money. Why don't all of you put your money into improving New Haven's rail and public transit system?

crickets

Thought so.

USPS is in trouble because of suburbia. 50% of the operating cost for USPS comes from the last mile of delivery. If in suburbs, the mail was delivered to community boxes located 1 mile from each community member's house instead of delivered to each individual address, USPS would cost half as much as it does today. Imagine that in New York instead of mail being delivered to the lobby, the mailmen had to go up every floor and deliver to mail to each door-that is precisely the kind of mandated inefficiency that sprawl creates. The internet, email, etc has effect mail for only the last 15 years, USPS has been in trouble way longer than that, but it is certainly making the problem much much worse.

As for ethos, I think that is mostly a result of the government essentially sponsoring certain modes of transportation over others and the population responding to this. Car commercials, expensive transit costs, automobile lobbyists, etc are all a part of what contributes to the overwhelming American preference for cars, which is often met with immense levels of stress and costs once the reality of car dependence emerges from the imagined ideal.

As for Europe, after WW2 their cities were in ruin and bombed out, they didn't have the opportunity to grow outward like north America did. They spent many decades rebuilding their cities, so the demand and cost efficiency of rail never went away there. Paris is still the densest city in the world even with places in India and China experiencing rapid urban growth. Europe is also about the size of Texas, which makes it much more efficient to have rail since so much of the world's wealth is concentrated in such a small geographic area. Canada, as another example, after WW2 spent several decades making their cities nicer and didn't really get into the suburban expansion project until the late 1970s. Dubai's transit systems and highway networks were paid for with the accumulated wealth of the US that we happily export to them in return for oil. Their cities have grown from sand to a metropolis with our money, and all we've managed to do is sit back while our infrastructure crumbles.

Rail cannot be efficient if it has to service extremely low-density, spread out places, which defines the majority of the American landscape. Until that issue is addressed, rail does not make sense for private ownership in the US. Also high speed rail might make sense to cross the country, but in New England it doesn't. Hartford is 45 miles away, high speed rail requires parallel, independent rail systems that have to remain extremely flat. The reason metro north in CT sucks so much is because it has to stop in every little towns station along the way, making a 1 hour trip take 2 hours. CT used to be a few small urban centers with agricultural peripheries, now that is all suburban sprawl that has a powerful, voting population that demands ridiculous things like train stops in the stupid little tiny piece of crap suburbs.

...If you look at past videos when Lamont ran for the senate seat--Kimber was proudly standing right behind Lamont at the election night party.

Don't waste your vote on this guy.

Jenn,
I have no idea what is liberal about anything I say, can you point it out to me instead of just throwing words around?
If I could control where my money was spent, then yes I'd have it go towards rail and away from highways, but the government mandates that I pay for highways I rarely, if ever, use.
Suburbia is the largest public housing project in the world. The suburban middle class lifestyle is the most heavily subsidized and entitled lifestyle on the planet. That lifestyle has infiltrated our cities, even, which account for most of the problems in cities. To compete with strip malls, cities demolished massive amounts of city blocks to build highways, parking lots, and big retail and it didn't bring in suburban shoppers, it just destroyed our cities. Rising health care costs can be attributed to poor diets, no exercise and bad air quality. Each of those things is thanks to suburbia. I don't want to go into that in detail right now, but if you don't believe me, we can meet in person and I'll prove it to you.

Also, in my last post I said Europe was the size of Texas, I meant the largest countries in Europe are about the size of Texas geographically.

Streever: I think that privatizing the roadways would not be a good idea. Tolls are a good idea and I'm all for them. But, tolls are always established and maintained by the state government. Privatizing the rail systems is more feasible and, in my opinion, would produce an efficient and affordable means of transportation for Connecticut's residents. I am not automatically opposed to public ownership, but the current system is woefully mismanaged and I think it is time to re-establish private ownership of the passenger rail system. As I have stated before, the ideal would be for the rail-workers to collectively own and manage the rail system, but the labour unions in this nation have proven themselves ill-prepared and unable to take on such a task.
And contrary to some people's opinions, high speed rail can be used effectivley in New England. The Acela, although a failure, proves that high speed trains are able to run in New England's uneven terrain. I would argue that high speed rail systems are well suited for non urban environments because they have the ability to connect the villages and towns of Connecticut with its cities. Wasn't that one of the main points of railroads from the outset, to connect villages, towns and cities? I am all for small towns and villages, and I am opposed to urbanism for many reasons. High speed rail systems or even just moderate speed systems, might encourage a return to light industry, agrarianism and small town efficiency. If recent history has taught us anything, cities are one of the main causes of this earth's current environmental crisis.

townie,
Cities, in their current form, are definitely a major contributor to poor air quality, carbon emissions and general environmental problems, but those are results of more modern planning principles and the suburbanization of our cities and the replacement of their agricultural surroundings with low density suburbs.
A city like New Haven is really not much different at all than a small town like the old part of Branford, or Madison or Guilford. Metropolises like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are as different from New Haven as those large cities are from rural villages. Even small cities like New Haven, however, offer the kind of livable density that small towns and villages cannot supply. Livable density is important because it allows people to live compactly, whereas in a suburban setting those 10 families in an apartment building on a narrow lot on a street full of multi-family dwellings in a neighborhood would take up 5 acres of good farming land and walking would be unlikely. In the case of people who live on large lots and use it to farm-that's great, but some people don't like farming, so they should be provided with a choice of desirable housing that doesn't contribute greatly to environmental problems, which is why urbanism is so important.
I think small towns and villages are great, the problem is that there are very few of them left. While the cities were being gutted and experimented on, our towns and villages were being developed into housing subdivisions, further concentrating our agricultural land to the mid west. The old Main Streets often faced the same fate as Hartford, New Haven, and Providence's downtowns just at a smaller scale.
Its also not that high-speed rail is impossible in New England its just not practical. New England is the size of New York State, it takes only a few hours to get somewhere on a regular train. The issues are with too many stops at suburban towns, infrequent train departures, and lack of diverse train routes (ie Worcester to Providence, Hartford to Manchester).