Makes the trains run, or else

There might be no better example of the need for some new political leadership around here than last week's appearance by the region's state lawmakers before a volunteer citizens group advocating for commuter rail service for New London.

This flock of legislators included two state senators and five House members, and apparently not one of them knew that Gov. Jodi Rell is already backing away, yet again, from promises for more trains to New London.

The lawmakers told members of the Shore Line East One More Stop Coalition Wednesday morning that five more roundtrip weekday trains would be added to the New London schedule by the end of next month.

Within hours, the lawmakers were contradicted by a Department of Transportation spokesman, who told a reporter the state had promised only four more new trains, and not necessarily by the end of next month.

By the end of the week, the DOT, perhaps goaded by the embarrassed legislators, was back into the new promise-making business.

This time, in an announcement released today, Gov. Rell and her transportation department are promising three more weekday roundtrip trains, beginning May 10, and maybe two more roundtrips at some undisclosed time in the future.

This, of course, is not to be confused with the promise made right here in New London in February by DOT Commissioner Joseph Marie, who said quite definitively that there would be at least four, and maybe five, new roundtrip weekday trains to New London by the end of May.

And so the press release for today's story about train service should really say that the Rell Administration has once again broken a promise for increasing commuter train service to New London. Instead, in Orwellian fashion, it announces an expansion.

This is, of course, only the latest broken promise from the Rell Administration about expanding train service.

Commissioner Marie feigned ignorance when he was here in February about how anyone got the idea that New London was ever going to get full commuter rail service. And yet he himself wrote a memo in 2008 promising to extend all 34 existing Shore Line East trains beyond Old Saybrook to New London by the spring of 2009.

That promise of service included weekend trains.

Rell's announcement today - more than a year after full weekday and weekend service was supposed to begin - says only that "talks continue" about providing any weekend service.

I think many people around here are tired of blaming only Rell and her unreliable lieutenants for not delivering the trains and listening to lawmakers whine about the governor.

State Sen. Andrea Stillman told the coalition she would be glad to join them in a protest march on the Capitol.

Well, actually senator, you were sent to the Capitol to accomplish things there, not join a protest outside.

At the very least, you or one of the others in your flock could have had someone on your vast legislative staff make a phone call to the DOT before meeting with train advocates.

The broken train promises are only a part of the state's dysfunction in mapping out a future for New London's transportation center.

The owners of Union Station have been waiting for years for the DOT to make some decisions about whether to buy or lease all or part of the station, even more of an imperative now that the DOT is actually running Shore Line East trains in and out of it without paying any rent.

It's hard to think of a single infrastructure improvement that could deliver so much promise of economic development to the entire region than reliable commuter rail service. And it is, relatively speaking, a bargain, something the state can realistically afford.

Delivering on that promise should be a new benchmark for how well local lawmakers are doing thier jobs.

And voters should hold them accountable if the trains aren't soon running in and out of New London on time, weekdays and weekends, and in numbers that would make true commuter service a reality.

This is the opinion of David Collins.