Malloy Defends Transportation Policy While Calling For Solution To Looming Insolvency
HARTFORD, CT — Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Thursday that the state is at a fork in the road when it comes to funding transportation projects and it will have to decide soon what projects it wants to fund, what fares it wants to raise, and what services it wants to provide.
“The state’s Special Transportation Fund can no longer support normal operation or planned levels of capital investment,” Malloy said. “We are at a fork in the road. We can either raise fares, cut services, cancel important projects in towns and cities across Connecticut or we can embark on a serious conversation about how we plan to support and grow the Special Transportation Fund in the years to come.”
The Special Transportation Fund was expected to be insolvent by 2021, but that process has sped up and it will start running a $38.1 million deficit in 2019, according to the latest estimates.
A new report from Malloy’s budget office paints a grim picture.
If the state does nothing to resolve the situation, it would have to reduce highway, rail and bus services for the public, and reduce the capital program by over $4 billion over the next five years.
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