mikel

I fly Alitalia all the time. But Amsterdam is a real hub. I almost flied out of Amsterdam to Rome once but I decided to pay more to get a direct flight. However, if there are daily flights to Amsterdam out of Hartford, I'd definitely go there and save myself a trip to JFK.

Right but I've driven past it at least every week since it was torn down maybe a year ago, and it's still a parking lot. Why is there so much pre-emptive demolishing in Hartford? At least the Colonial Theatre actually was used afterwards, but many of the others stay as parking lots.

Whenever it was built... it's just a parking lot for now.....

Hartford Times building should NOT have been demolished until there was actual work happening around it.

We need skycrapers not housing and retail. Scrap it and just put in a tall skyscraper with parking lots all around it.

What I'm most dissapointed in is that few years back, I had a discourse with Jim Cameron regarding the Hartford rail through email, and he was all for it, at the time. I almost joined the "Connecticut Rail Commuter Council", but it's based in Stamford and would have been difficult to get involved with it. Now, I see he's trying to derail commuter rail through Hartford before it even starts.. Perhaps he should change his group's name to 'Fairfield County Selfish Slimebag Commuter Council'.

I'm just appauled that this Jim Cameron is trying to derail Hartford's train. Having commuter rail is a luxury that people in the Hartford area have not had in many decades. They plan hasn't even been completely finalized, and he's already attacking it. We still don't have a single piece of commuter rail yet, but Jim is saying that we're spoiled... I know... we need our own Jim Cameron who will try to attack Metro North in southwestern CT and proclaim himself a mass transit advocate, but yet just attack Metro North. We'll have our own rivalry and fight with their riders and mark each other's trains. "Hartford Rail Fanz wuz here" Just kidding, but seriously Jim Cameron is a misguided jerk.

Some interesting news quotes on the proposed commuter rail line: "-- New Haven-to-Springfield commuter rail, which would run on an Amtrak-owned line, should be electrified and should accommodate Acela trains. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a new slow-moving, diesel-propelled line would be like building the two-lane section of I-95 noted above." http://www.projo.com/opinion/columnists/co...tt.1b39e06.html " State Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, said the state has "warped priorities" if it plans to subsidize nearly 90 percent of the New Haven-to-Hartford line when only about 30 percent of the Metro-North line between Greenwich and New Haven is state funded." " Jim Cameron, chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said he understands the need to keep fares affordable on the proposed New Haven-Hartford line but said it shouldn't come at the expense of Metro-North riders. "Is this like Robin Hood? Steal from the rich and subsidize the poor?" Cameron asked. "How should Metro-North riders feel when they're on older trains, already paying $300-plus a year for parking and then see their mid-state cousins riding new trains, getting free parking and much lower fares?"" http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local...local-headlines Ugh.

Saw this on a blog.... he put it VERY well: "These are the same people that spend money "studying" a plan to tear up high-quality existing rail between New Britain and Hartford so they could give money to the road construction firms like Tomasso to build a "busway" - a dedicated highway. We could have run existing trains over the existing rails starting decades ago, but that would only help the commuters, not the politicians, so we didn't take that approach." http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archive...s_trains_pl.php

My hope is that a second track is laid alongside the single track from New Haven to Springfield (after Amtrak ripped up the old second track track and sold it for scrap metal). It was recommended in the study to add a track in the corridor. This way, there may not be enough room in the rail right-of-way for 2 paved busway roads, and the busway idea might have to be switched to light rail.

Well, when did Shore Line East start? That article was correct on that. But, I've always wondered why the corridor that includes Hartford wasn't done first? Shore Line East is great but this area is even more populated and needs it soon.

The reason the busway idea is silly to me is that it's being built on a dedicated rail line... It's terminus is a rail station.... which both completely throws out any rational for making a busway, which usually runs along highways and city streets. It absolutely should be light rail. But in a state that is OBSESSED with paving and asphalt, I'm not surprised at this huge blunder. I wrote countless letters, to no avail, that we are once again making a huge mistake in Hartford...

http://www.ct.gov/dotinfo/lib/dotinfo/nhr/...ton_Station.pdf Read the 'Project Reports' and 'Final Report' on that website. That map is of the current Amtrak stations, the area that was to be studied.

Yeah, that's pretty much a definite. There is a diagram of it on the website in pdf format. Yes they will build a new one. There is also an abandoned railroad station in Newington today, but you have to know what you're looking for. Hopefully those old stations will all be preserved.

It's not going to Northampton, at least at this time. It's up to Massachusetts to help fund the rail to Springfield, and most people think they will go along with it to help Springfield. The stations and plans have actually already been done. The DOT just has to choose which plan they are going to use (cheap plan, middleground plan, expensive plan). Most likely, the stations will be: New Haven Union, New Haven State St, Hamden, Wallingford, Meriden, Berlin, Newington, Hartford, Windsor, Windsor Locks, Enfield, Springfield.

No way. The Amtrak shuttle goes to Springfield and back many times a day (yet costs too much and too infrequent to be commuter service). Anything beyong that is Vermonter territory, which is really just a (very slow) daily sightseeing trip. It would be ridiculous to electrify anything beyond Springfield. Amtrak won't want anything to do with that anyway. It's up to the DOT to give us decent train service.

Well, the problem with that is that the New Haven-Springfield corridor is not electrified and we cannot use the electric engines on this line. My hope is that another track is laid (Amtrak tore up the second line in the early 90's to sell as scrap metal...) and that the line is electrified like the rest of the northeast corridor. That way, trains will be able to flow through New Haven with ease instead of requiring transfers and engine changes.

State aiming for 2011 start date: http://www.courant.com/hc-aptrains.artjul3...19850.story I was hoping for it to be sooner, but let's make sure this gets done. Jodi Rell appears to support it from what she's said, as does John Destefano, who says it would be a priority on his website. I didn't see anything about it on Dan Malloy's campaign site.. It would be crazy not to do this, Hartford must be involved with commuter service that hits just about every other major CT city.