Hartford Business Journal

4 Hartford Business Journal • November 16, 2015 www.HartfordBusiness.com w w w. H a r t f o r d B u s i n e s s . c o m (860) 236-9998 E D I T O R I A L Greg Bordonaro Editor, ext. 139 gbordonaro@HartfordBusiness.com Gregory Seay News Editor, ext. 144 gseay@HartfordBusiness.com Matt Pilon News Editor, ext. 143 mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com John Stearns Staff Writer, ext. 145 jstearns@HartfordBusiness.com Keith Griffin Digital Reporter Stephanie Meagher Research Director Heide Martin Research Assistant B U S I N E S S Joe Zwiebel President and Publisher, ext. 132 jzwiebel@HartfordBusiness.com Donna Collins Associate Publisher, ext. 121 dcollins@HartfordBusiness.com Jessica Baker Office Manager, ext. 122 jbaker@HartfordBusiness.com Kristine Donahue Administrative Coordinator, Ext. 137 kdonahue@hartfordbusiness.com Amy Orsini Events Manager, ext. 134 aorsini@HartfordBusiness.com Christian J. Renstrom Advertising Director, ext. 126 crenstrom@HartfordBusiness.com David Hartley Sr. Accounts Manager, ext. 130 dhartley@HartfordBusiness.com William C. Lambot Sr. Accounts Manager, ext. 128 wlambot@HartfordBusiness.com John Vuillemot Sr. Accounts Manager, ext. 133 jvuillemot@hartfordbusiness.com Katharine Ortiz Accounts Manager, ext. 129 kortiz@hartfordbusiness.com Donna Currie Human Resource Director Raki Zwiebel Credit and Collections Manager Valerie Clark Accounting Assistant/Office Manager Gail Lebert Chair, Executive Advisory Board P R O D U C T I O N Lynn Mika Production Director/Marketing Coordinator, ext. 140 lmika@HartfordBusiness.com Christopher Wallace Art Director, ext. 147 cwallace@HartfordBusiness.com Vlada Shelkova Graphic Artist, ext. 148 vshelkova@HartfordBusiness.com Peter Stanton CEO pstanton@nebusinessmedia.com Joseph Zwiebel President & Group Publisher, ext. 132 jzwiebel@HartfordBusiness.com Mary Rogers Chief Financial Officer mrogers@nebusinessmedia.com Subscriptions: Annual subscriptions are $84.95. To subscribe, visit HartfordBusiness.com, email hartfordbusiness@cambey- west.com, or call (845) 267-3008. Advertising: For advertising information, please call (860) 236-9998. Please address all correspondence to: Hartford Business Journal, 15 Lewis Street, Suite 200, Hart ford CT 06103. News Department: If you have a news item: Call us at (860) 236-9998, fax us at (860) 570-2493, or e-mail us at editorial@HartfordBusiness.com Hartford Business Journal accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or materials and in general does not return them to the sender. Hartford Business Journal (ISSN 1083-5245) is published weekly, 53 x per year including three special issues — one in September, one in November and one in December — by New England Business Media LLC, 15 Lewis Street, Suite 200, Hartford CT 06103. Periodicals postage paid at Hartford, CT. Tel: (860) 236-9998 • Fax (860) 570-2493 Copyright 2015. All rights reserved. Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Hartford Business Journal P.O. Box 330, Congers, NY 10920-9894 www.copyright.com Transportation Overhaul Our specialized business model and patent pending application procedures allow us to provide customers with top quality products as well as a safe and comfortable experience. FRANCHISE PACKAGE INCLUDES: • World-class franchise support which includes comprehensive training starting from pre-opening to ongoing support for your team using a cutting edge intranet infrastructure. • Top of the line retail products that have raised the bar on perfection and lasting beauty. • Marketing guidelines and access to the national print media library to help promote your location. • A well-recognized, proven business model concept that allows you to accurately project business volume and adapt for growth accordingly. Your Look. Your Style. Our Lashes.® Ph: 631.827.1497 elyse.pedersen@amazinglashstudio.com www.amazinglashstudio.com/franchise Become a part of the ever-growing billion dollar beauty industry by owning your own AMAZING LASH STUDIO. ALS_Franchise_ad_V2.qxd:Layout 1 9/9/15 3:36 PM Page 1 achieve more than simply reducing accidents or congestion. Economic growth and "preserving, Con- necticut's quality of life, particularly in terms of helping make our communities more liv- able and sustainable," are two other main focuses, he said. "If one of our goals is to support revital- ization of our community centers and make them more desirable to live and work … how do you attract and retain young talent?" Mazi- arz said. Making community centers more livable and connected is part of that, he said, including expanding bike, pedestrian and other transit options. "To get those young, talented professionals to stay in Connecticut … they're not looking for a three-bedroom ranch or colonial out in the suburbs, especially early in their careers," Maziarz said. "They're looking for something in an urban center where they have a lot of mobility options and choices where they can walk to dinner, walk to a train station or a bus station. They want the availability of transit so that they don't have to rely as much on a car." The bike/pedestrian connectivity and expan- sion plan could also include better connection of transit and work centers to pedestrian and bicycle trails and neighborhoods. DOT is still defining how money for these projects will be spent. It has not yet been determined, however, how Malloy's Let's Go CT! initiative will be fully funded, although lawmakers have approved $2.8 billion in bonds for the plan's first five years. For the first year, without a predefined selection process, DOT sought bike/pedestrian connectivity projects that are ready to go or that it could undertake quickly, Maziarz said. They include design for bike and pedestrian trail connections to the William H. Putnam Memorial Bridge walkway from Wethersfield and Glastonbury and one of two projects in New Haven, either a commuter corridor to improve bike and pedestrian connections between downtown and residential areas west of downtown, or a protected bike track to allow bicyclists a safe route for traversing the Tomlinson Lift Bridge and continuing east and south along the east shore connecting several parks, according to a DOT document. DOT also is making bike/pedestrian con- nectivity funds available for its road safety audit program to help 20 or 30 communities a year audit bicycle and pedestrian issues on local roads where improvements can be made. Projects that are identified will focus on how to get bicyclists safely into community centers and, once there, ensuring good walking and on-road biking conditions, Maziarz said. Kelly Kennedy, executive director of Bike Walk Connecticut, a nonprofit working to make Connecticut a better place to bike and walk, sees progress in the state allocating funding for bike and pedestrian uses in its long-term plan. "Having a line item and signaling that bike/pedestrian active transportation is a real serious component of our transportation plan is success and having dedicated funding for that is a success, too," Kennedy said. But the devil's in the details, she added. "What's the business case for how we're going to apply that money?" she said. "How do we make sure that the projects that get funded are the most useful projects?" That includes relieving vehicle miles trav- eled and congestion, and connecting places people want to go, she said. There should be connectivity between towns, too, not just within towns, and connections between com- plete streets and trails. DOT last year adopted a complete streets policy. Its website defines complete streets as safe, comfortable and convenient transportation systems that serve everyone, whether they travel by walking, bicycling, riding transit or driving. "Getting it on paper is great; seeing it applied in the real world is another chal- lenge," Kennedy said, adding that her orga- nization sees instances where complete streets aren't being integrated. "We need to stop designing roads just for cars." Added Kennedy, "I think we need to think of active transportation in terms of Connecti- cut's overall economic competitiveness and we're behind. There are many states that are much farther ahead than we are on being bike- friendly and walk-friendly and that's where the knowledge workers want to go and that's where Millennials want to go, and the longer it takes for us to catch up, the longer it's gong to take for us to restore some prosperity to Connecticut. So we need to consider this as an economic competitiveness factor." n Five-year ramp-up $45 million for community connectivity projects $56 million for trails and trail maintenance (trails are roughly $50 million and trail maintenance is roughly $6 million). S O U R C E : S T A T E D E P T . O F T R A N S P O R T A T I O N

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