DutchRailnut wrote: ↑Tue Apr 21, 2020 11:31 am
from a CDOT insider , the rumor about MBTA wanting cars back is false, the lease is good for close to 5 years and MBTA has not asked for cars back.
When is the lease supposed to end?
This article from a couple of years ago says the MBB lease was signed in Dec 2017, and could run for a max of six years if it's extended, which would go up to Dec 2023. Was the agreement amended since then? If the M8s are not going to SLE after all, and if the MBBs have to be returned to Massachusetts before these new cars arrive, what will the Hartford Line use in the interim? I probably missed a detail along the way, somebody want to fill me in?
Anyway, it looks like some legislators/news outlets are framing CTDOT's 'mistake' as retaliation from the Lamont administration:
Connecticut Public Radio
Republican legislative leaders charged Gov. Ned Lamont with retaliating against toll opponents after the State Bond Commission scrapped financing at the last minute for rail cars for the Waterbury and Danbury lines.
The administration countered that the change was due to a simple, agenda error. But Lamont also told critics that the state’s transportation program is running dry and legislators must address that.
“We don’t have an endless supply of bonding money,” the governor told Rep. Chris Davis of Ellington, a commission [State Bond Commission] member and ranking House Republican on the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. “We had to make some choices and these were the choices we made.”
CT Post
Melissa McCaw, the secretary of the Office of Policy and Management who is the governor’s budget chief, said that Danbury and Waterbury cars were postponed for now because the protracted squabbling over how to pay for transit improvements (the debate over tolls) has led to reduced funding availability.
The Waterbury line has a stop in the hometown represented by House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, of Derby, a vehement opponent to highway tolls.
...
DOT Commissioner Joe Giulietti said the cost per car is about $5 million, so the cutting of the Danbury and Waterbury money, which would have purchased another dozen cars, saved about $60 million. He said that rail cars along the Hartford line have been leased from Massachusetts and the state needs to replace them.
The
Valley Independent Sentinel as well.
It looks like some of these news outlets are misunderstanding some of the numbers at play, but that's hardly surprising given how opaque CTDOT's communications are. It's also worth noting that CTDOT's original 'mistaken' description mentioned 72 cars for $300 million ($4.17 million per car), compared to the actual order which is 60 cars for $300 million ($5 million per car). During the meeting, some pols were understandably confused when it looked like the state was preparing to pay the same amount of money for fewer cars, but Giulietti clarified that an order of 72 cars would actually cost $360,000,000 which is consistent with the $5 million per car figure, and that was another mistake.
How much of this matter is CTDOT being incompetent and making a genuine mistake, and how much is malfeasance? Hanlon's Razor would point towards the former, but you never know. While I'm sure Lamont's political opponents wouldn't miss a chance to get a shot in at him, valid or not, it looks like CTDOT has certainly angered genuine Waterbury/Danbury branch advocates.
