No Quick Transit Fixes Seen

Too little bus service at night? ​“Go home earlier.” Hike gas taxes to avoid painful budget cuts? Fuggedaboutit.

So responded Gov. Dannel P. Malloy when pressed on CT Transit’s broken system in New Haven and the possibility of taking advantage of plummeting prices at the pump to avoid slashing judicial and mental-health and addiction agencies.

Malloy was asked about gas taxes — and the prospects of reversing New Haven’s broken bus service — during a visit to WNHH radio’s studio for an appearance on the ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

He made the visit the morning after talking about the state budget at a ​“town hall” meeting at Wilbur Cross High School and before pitching a constitutional amendment to create a ​“lockbox” on revenues raised to support a 30-year, $100 billion transportation upgrade in the state.

In the interview, Malloy agreed with the need for dramatically improving New Haven’s bus service, which runs on half-century-old models of when the workday runs and routes where people need to travel to get to jobs. Unlike in the Hartford area — where his administration got federal money to build a new busway from New Britain — the state will need approval of that long-term $100 billion transportation plan to have the money to dramatically improve service here, he argued. Last week, Mayor Toni Harp argued on WNHH that because bus service is so substandard in New Haven, the city should look at possibly wresting control of it from the state or else supplementing it.

Also in the interview, Malloy ruled out tax increases to close a newly projected $266 million deficit in the state’s current fiscal year budget and close to $1 billion in the upcoming year’s. He argued that raising taxes would eliminate Connecticut competitive advantages over neighboring states, and possibly leave us at a disadvantage, in attracting and keeping jobs.

He was asked whether an exception could be made with gas taxes.

He responded that even though gas prices have plummeted, the public wouldn’t support paying, say, 30 cents more per gallon in gas taxes to help close the budget gap — to help prevent, for instance, $64 million in cuts he has proposed to the state judicial department and $71 million to the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Prices have fallen well below $2 a gallon from a one-time high of $4.24.

The public will support raising more money for transportation only if it can be promised the money will go strictly toward transportation, Malloy argued. And he argued that the state’s success in signing up more people for Medicaid under Obamacare will enable people to receive needed addiction and mental-health help even with the proposed state agency cuts.

The state taxes gas at the pump at 25 cents per gallon. Last year saw the first recent rise in annual gas-tax collections (because of increased demand), from $508.06 to $516.58 million, according to the state Office of Policy and Management. Drivers used to pay more in gas taxes until the state cut the tax by 14 cents under then-Gov. John Rowland. A special Transportation Finance Panel has proposed proposing gradually returning to the former level by raising the gas tax 2 cents per year for seven years, dedicating that money to transportation.

The state also collects an oil companies tax; because of declining oil prices, revenues from that tax are down $75 million this year, with a similar decline projected for next year.

Asked about the gas tax, New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar agreed with Malloy that any gas tax increases should be kept in a transportation ​“lock box” in order to win public support and address long-neglected needs. (He suggested reinstituting tolls as well to support transit, an idea the Mally administration has also floated.) Lemar disagreed about the need to avoid other tax increases. He suggested ​“closing the corporate tax loophole on carried interest, taxing sugary beverages, and raising [income] taxes on millionaires and billionaires” in order to avoid painful social-service and other budget cuts.

Excerpts follow from the WNHH Malloy conversation,which also touched on heroin overdoses and the battle over the vacant U.S. Supreme Court seat:

Bus Stalemate For Now

WNHH: You promised us as part of this [transportation upgrade] plan you’re going to have more bikeways and better bus service. In New Haven we have seen bus service decline incredibly over the past five or six years. Why has that not changed? Why do we need to have your major plan to make that change?

Malloy: To overhaul bus service in New Haven, you need my plan. Let me just point this out: Although you would argue that we should drop current routes and design new ones, there’s a bunch of people using those routes.

I didn’t say drop them. I ride these routes, Dan, and sometimes you have three people on the bus when it runs every 20 minutes [during times of the day] when people aren’t [riding]. Then I’ve been on the B bus when they can’t even stop because it’s so full. Once it’s 5:40 they stop the rush hour schedule. When people try to go form West Haven to [jobs off] Exit 9 on I‑91, you can’t even get there. …

You’re making my argument. I’m not arguing with you.

Why have we been able to improve Metro-North [train service] and not buses?

A couple of reasons. We haven’t really improved Metro-North all that much.

You have record ridership. I’m saluting you for that.

We do.

You came down here for a bunch of press conferences [about improved train service]. We haven’t had one of those for buses.

We have made investments in buses. You just referenced one that cost us hundreds of millions of dollars — the busway in the Hartford-New Haven area.

That’s not Hartford-New Haven.

Excuse me. That’s the Hartford-New Britain area. That almost overnight is leading to an extension east of the river. We’re designing [new] routes there. We need to expand bus service by 40 percent.

What did we do to you in New Haven that we’re not getting what you’ve got going up there?

I’ve been out to the garage that serves New Haven. It’s a pretty busy place. I happen to agree with you that it needs to be busier. And we need a second garage.

I’m not fighting you. I happen to agree with you. But I need the assets to do it. I haven’t had the assets to do it.

To go back to the Hartford-New Britain line, a lot of that was federal money that was garnered on a competitive basis. When I became governor, more people wanted me to cancel that project than build out that project. I was told by Republicans it would be an albatross around my neck. I made the decision to build it anyway. It has been a gigantic success. It’s the kind of thing we need to do in New Haven.

Most of our early money [in the 30-year proposed transportation improvement plan] is actually going to be spent on mass transit, buses and rail. The big megaprojects on highway systems and bridge replacements will take longer. So we’re getting underway.

You did invest in nicer buses. They’re clean, and they run well. The drivers do a good job, to be fair.

I think that that’s true.

But I still swear every night when I have to walk in 20 degrees, two and a half miles because there’s [hardly any] service after 8 o’clock. I think of your guy [transportation chief James Redeker] telling me the system is ​“wonderful” and ​“convenient.”

All right. All right. Go home earlier.

Gas Taxes

Why can’t we raise the [gas] tax then and not cut all this money [for social services and the judicial system]?

You could. But the legislature’s not going to do that.

Why?

First of all … until they pass the lockbox I’m not going to increase any taxes for transportation. And we’re now in a situation …

In this political environment you get killed if you want to raise taxes. … But on the gas tax, if we used to be pay over $4 a gallon for gas, and we’re now paying $1.70 or $1.77, why can’t you say to the public, ​“I’ll raise your [gas] tax 30 cents a gallon. Fifteen cents will go to the transportation upgrade. Fifteen cents will go to make sure we won’t have to cut [mental health, addiction and judicial programs]”?

Here’s the problem. Connecticut is not an island. We share a border with New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. For a large portion of our population — not New Haven’s population — can opt to buy things like gas or liquor.

The majority of people in Connecticut would cross state lines if they had to pay 30 cents more for a gallon of gas?

I think a substantial numbers of people along the borders would …

… along the borders…

Right.

But when you’re talking about the total revenues, if we raise the taxes and they’re still paying so much less [overall] than they were paying before for a gallon of gas, why wouldn’t we want to do that?

Because we still want people to stop on our highways to buy gas where we sell tens of millions of gallons of gas. We also want truckers to fuel up.

If we raise the gas tax 30 cents [per gallon], which I know is a big lift …

I feel uncomfortable even talking about raising the tax 30 cents.

Why? It’s gone down dollars per gallon.

If we’re going to raise taxes on gas, it should be for transportation. And there should be a lock box [to guarantee it’s not spent on other uses].

We don’t say that about any other tax revenue we raise, with a few exceptions.

[Laughs.] ​“No other except a few exceptions.

But in general the idea of taxes is we raise money for government in a democratic society, whether it’s sales tax or income tax, and then we decide democratically how to apportion that money based on needs. Why is transportation different?

Because we underinvested for 40 years.

We’ve underinvested in schools too. I don’t see why this is different. Isn’t it just catering to the car lobby?

No. I don’t think it is. I think if Connecticut is to be successful in the future, it has to reverse the damage it inflicted itself on transportation.

How do you plan to spend the [$100 billion over 30 years on planned transportation upgrades]?

Completely modernize the rail system in Connecticut. Expand the bus system by 40-plus percent. Modernize, replace, repair the very high percentage of bridges that are out of compliance. Address major projects. We’re going to have to raise money. The only way to get a buy-in from the population is to say, ​“OK if we tell you we’re raising this tax for something, we [guarantee] we won’t spend it any other way” [through a state constitutional amendment creating the transportation ​“lock box”].

“Racist” Republicans, Cheap Opiods

Also in the WNHH interview, Malloy:

• urged President Obama to proceed with nominating a new Supreme Court justice to replace recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia despite Republican Senate leaders’ vow not to hold hearings, let alone vote, on a replacement until after November’s presidential election: ​“I think he has an obligation to do it [under] the Constitution of the United States. They have an obligation to give that person a hearing and give advice and consent to the president of the United States. I don’t think the president should break the constitution. I don’t think the Senate should violate the Constitution. Listen, I think some of this is … racism. I don’t think they like the idea of a black president making another appointment to the bunch.”

• attributed the rise in heroin overdoses to the fact that the drug ​“is cheaper than it’s ever been. And in America it’s purer than it’s ever been. When I was growing up, a junkie was buying heroin that was 15 to 30 percent of actual heroin that was mixed with other stuff. Now we’re seeing heroin being sold on the streets as high as 72 percent purity. You can buy heroin for as little as $3.50 up to about $10 per hit. When I was growing up, if you were a heroin junkie, you had to put a needle into your arm to use the drug. And you had to either be very wealthy or be a criminal because it was so expensive. Now you don’t have to. It’s so cheap. And that’s the problem.”

On Wednesday the legislature’s Public Health Committee voted 22 – 0 to approve a bill Malloy promoted to equip first responders with the drug naloxone, which can reverse an overdose on-scene.

Click on or download the above sound file to listen to the full ​“Dateline New Haven” interview with Malloy.

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