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Preface

As a companion volume to my earlier book Post Roads & Iron Horses: Transportation in Connecticut from Colonial Times to the Age of Steam, published by Wesleyan University Press in 2011, this work completes an attempt to provide a four-hundred-year overview of how transportation technology and policy have shaped, and continue to shape, the history of our state. The story in the first volume was fairly straightforward, with new technologies replacing older ones as the nineteenth century progressed, culminating in a system of rail, trolley, and steamboat services controlled by the privately owned transportation monopoly that was the New Haven Railroad. This volume presents a more complex story line, where the new technologies of the automobile and the airplane replaced the railroad as the predominant modes of transportation, while the federal government, in partnership with the state of Connecticut, became major actors in the drama of twentieth-century travel, providing public financing for the infrastructure required by the new modes of transport—to the detriment of the existing rail system. In addition, the federal government used its funding influence to promote a policy of scientific management and long-range planning that came to define how states addressed the problems of population growth and land use. However, despite the complexities of this second volume, the story of Connecticut transportation in the twentieth century contains the same three themes that are woven through the earlier book: the evolution of transportation technology and its impact on the physical landscape, the difficulties of regulating and financing transportation systems, and the various attempts by agents of the state to alleviate those difficulties and mitigate that impact. These three story lines provide a unique overview of the first four hundred years of Connecticut history, and a primer on the continued importance of transportation to our state’s future.

It bears repeating that a project of this magnitude is never accomplished alone, and I was fortunate to receive more than my fair share of help from many different quarters: from mentors and colleagues, from librarians and research staff, and especially from writers of Connecticut history who came before me, and whose work influenced my own. Their works are cited in the bibliography, and this book could not have been written without them. In particular, I extend heartfelt thanks to the following persons and institutions: Walter Woodward, Connecticut State Historian, for his steadfast belief in this project; Laura Smith at the Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut for guiding me through the labyrinthine archives of the New Haven Railroad; Patty and Bruce Stark, Cecelia Bucki, Guocun Yang, Matt Warshauser, Kit Collier, and fellow members of the Association for the Study of Connecticut History for welcoming into their midst a freelance historian hungry for peer support, and for providing opportunities to share my research as it progressed; the management team of the Connecticut Department of Transportation who took the time to talk to me about their work and their world, including James P. Redeker, Commissioner; Robert Card, Finance Administrator, Thomas J. Maziarz, Chief of Policy and Planning, and Richard Armstrong, Principal Engineer; the staffs of the Connecticut State Library, the Connecticut Historical Society Museum, and the Law Library at Quinnipiac University; and Suzanna Tamminen, Director and Editor-in-Chief of Wesleyan University Press for her patient support of this project. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge my longtime friend and fellow planner, David Martineau, to whom this book is dedicated. Our friendship is one of the joys of my life and incontrovertible proof that the best things in life can never be planned. And as always to Phyllis, my wife of nearly fifty years, for whom no amount of thanks can ever be sufficient. Your sudden passing soon after this manuscript was completed was a supreme tragedy. My consolation is knowing that your love continues to make my life possible.