Malloy Looks to Complete Route 11

The Day - Malloy looking to put Route 11 on road to completion | News from southeastern Connecticut

The New London Day's new political reporter, Matthew Collette, who succeeds Ted Mann, reports that the Route 11 project appears to be moving toward the front burner.

As a general principle, advocates for sustainability take the position that spending our exceedingly limited funds on building new roads is exactly the wrong route to a sustainable, competitive green economy. Governor Malloy has tended to subscribe to this notion.

In the business world, we talk about "making the business case" for doing project x, y or z. As a parallel, what's the sustainability business case for proceeding with expanding Route 11?  Are decision makers use a common set of criteria to make go/no-go decisions on transportation projects? If so, what are they?

Here are some criteria by which we might evaluate projects going forward.  Will the project:

• Resolve safety problems?
• Create viable alternatives to driving?
• Reduce VMT (vehicle miles traveled)?
• Reduce greenhouse gas pollution?
• Discourage sprawl?
• Avoid runoff pollution?
• Induce transit-oriented development?
• Create long-term good, green jobs?
• Create some other quantifiable benefit that exceeds that cost?

Transportation for America has a good set of similar performance objectives here.  The site at http://www.nycroads.com/roads/CT-11/ makes for interesting reading, discussing the Route 11 Greenway concept that was funded in 2003.

What do you think?  What's the sustainability business case for expanding Route 11?