Transportation Commissioner Charles O'Leary

Why does DOT steadfastly deny that there will be huge traffic impacts on the Lakes Region by the widening of I-93 and simultaneously slash spending on road improvements. It seems to me that the I-93 widening does not benefit existing residents and penalizes them by draining the fund. While it is true that DOT has mismanaged funds, the real problem is the 500 lb gorilla called the I-93 project that is draining the fund.

The commissioner claims that passenger rail doesn't go everywhere. This is because the investment to upgrade existing B & M and other old freight railways hasn' been made, while billions of dollars are spent on the building and improvement of highways, which later are clogged by increased traffic. The expreience with highways is that they are extremely expensive to build and attract urban sprawl. We have seen nationwide that "if you build it -highways- they will come.

Before facilely dismissing the economic and environmental potential of passenger rail in New Hampshire, the commissioner and other state leaders should consider that NH has had the Downeaster for only a few years and that ridership continues to increase. This means fewer cars on the road in three states and lower overall cost per passenger mile on that train. Maybe passenger rail operates at certain types of loss early in its existence, but so do mushrooming highways systems, in spades. You cannot decry the continued congestion on highways and the cost of upkeeping them without considering greater public support for public transportation of various modes.

Would the commissioner care to comment on the land use and environmental costs of more highway right-of-way purchase as opposed to relavitely narrow railways, especially as we look ahead fifty years? How many more thousands of acres of land will be taken to expand highways for private automobile use before we get serious about expanding public transportation?

The short shrift given to publicly supported bus and train service is, in my mind a major failure of our state's gevernance over the past decades. The willingness to spend huge sums on transportation funds almost exclusively on highways is not prudent.

Mark in Exeter

did i hear correctly that the commissioner will be increasing DOT support to regional planning organizations to improve/increase regional transportation planning efforts? if so he's to be commended. NH currently suffers from a failure to plan that's now bleeding over to the transportation funding side of the equation.

I disagree with Mr. O'Leary's comments regarding train(AmTrak) service here in NH. The DownEastern has proven to be highly successful and continues to grow in ridership. In fact they have just added a fifth train which my wife & I plan on taking up to Portland to spend a day.

It is a shame that we don not have train service in & out of NH largest city, Manchester. As a small business person I would make use of train service to travel in & out of Boston. Now, I have to drive down to Woburn, park my car to take a train into Boston. I prefer trains over buses as they tend to run on time, don't get stuck in traffic and I can get up and move around. Had we kept our rails up over the years we wouldn't be saddled with the high cost of track upgrades. Also, our neighboring states have done a commendable job of subsidzing train services into their respective states and it has paid off in bringing in more commerce and tourists from NYC & Boston.

I am appalled to hear the anecdotal story that Commissioner O'Leary relayed about putting state troopers on road construction detail. If I heard the story correctly, he indicated a drunk driver was stopped driving through the work zone on Rt. 101 by the trooper. He went on to say that the same woman was stopped the next day, drunk again, driving through the same construction zone.

In an effort to support the argument that troopers (vs. machines with blue flashing lights) should be on construction detail, the issue that a drunk driver was set free was completely glossed over. Why wasn't this woman arrested, license revoked, and had the book thrown at her? I'm glad the trooper was protecting the construction workers from this drunken mennace, but what about the rest of us commuters who may have been on the road driving next to her! Geez.