This New England

I'd say that Connecticut, once famous in New England for its many highway tolls and its bump-bump-bump concrete highways, will bring the former back. (The tolls were removed in the 1980s; asphalt replaced the concrete.)

The need to pay for crumbling highways, the installation of transponders that collect tolls easily and electronically, without the need for human toll-takers, the gradual improvement of Amtrak and Metro North passenger railroads, environmental concerns and the desire to discourage payments for Saudi oil will come together to force a big comeback in toll taking -- and not just in Connecticut. And, though drivers will squawk, aren't such user fees fairer than taxes.

XXX

Public employment tends to have more, er, endurance than jobs in the private sector. Consider that 11 members of former Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi's staff are still on the payroll two months after he stepped down.

Consider it part of the Massachusetts economic-stimulus plan and a way to reduce stress on state unemployment-benefits offices.

XXX

The cost of repairing the cracked dike holding back the Connecticut River in Hadley, Mass., has jumped to more than $1 million since part of it collapsed earlier this month, reports The Daily Hampshire Gazette

Workers are trying to keep the levee up. More signs of decaying infrastructure. It's also a reminder that New England can get big river floods too -- either from spring snow melt or from tropical storms in the late summer or early fall. Anyone remember Hurricane Diane, in 1955?

 Tags  Connecticut tolls

---