Hartford's Suburban Downtown

[MadVlad]

Todays Courant had an awesome article about the effects of suburbanization of the region on Downtown Hartford. As I have stated too many times in the past, surface parking is the single biggest waste of space in any city. I think it really is the work of the Devil....

Let's buold some transit!!!

[beash19]

Todays Courant had an awesome article about the effects of suburbanization of the region on Downtown Hartford. As I have stated too many times in the past, surface parking is the single biggest waste of space in any city. I think it really is the work of the Devil....

Let's buold some transit!!!

[beerbeer]

Hartford continues to pay for killing the Griffin Line. This single project would have stopped this trend, it could also help slow it down or reverse it.

[MadVlad]

Agreed, the Griffin Line would have been the first piece in the transit infrastructure, instead, people decided to pursue things like the NB-Hartford Busway....

[beerbeer]

They had the federal and state funding for the Griffin Line. They needed one million dollars fro the cit yof Hartford to begin construction and the council voted "no". Considerint hey probably could have kept MetLife in town if the G had been up and running, it looks duber by the day.

[mikel]

The Griffin Line is the most useless of all the rail corridors. It would have been nice to have, but wouldn't have changed much. The best thing to do would be to toll the highways and quadruple the gas tax, and watch the cities rebuild. Also, can the entire DOT.

[beerbeer]

Yeah, who needs to connect the city to the airport? Well, virtually every city in America finds that a priority. Not Hartford.

Not only that, building the GL would have enhanced the Bloomfield Windsor corridor taking some of the expansion pressure off I-84 west of the city and moving development north of town.

Oh, and let's not forget it would have allieviated much of the parking congestion in the city allowing employers to expand without needing more parking.

If that's your definition of useless, we need a lot more useless.

[mikel]

I didn't say useless, I said most useless. It would make much more sense to connect two populated areas with regular service like Middletown, Manchester, New Britain, and of course New Haven and Springfield to Hartford way before the Griffin Line. All should be restored eventually. It also makes little sense to blame the city for killing the Griffin Line as the DOT obviously was involved. The DOT kills anything not involving asphalt as we know.

[zimbu1228]

I didn't say useless, I said most useless. It would make much more sense to connect two populated areas with regular service like Middletown, Manchester, New Britain, and of course New Haven and Springfield to Hartford way before the Griffin Line. All should be restored eventually. It also makes little sense to blame the city for killing the Griffin Line as the DOT obviously was involved. The DOT kills anything not involving asphalt as we know.

[beerbeer]

Windsor was not against it. It would have been an economic boom for Windsor.

Yes, the DOT fought it like hell, but the money was in place for the first link (from the train station to University of Hartford) the Hartford city council put the death nail in it.