Connecticut plans to apply for $220 million of federal funds to upgrade a rail corridor between New Haven and Springfield, Mass., Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced last week. If approved, the state would match the funds with $260 million of bond proceeds. The state Bond Commission will consider the issue when it meets Aug. 11.
The debt would be issued as special tax obligation bonds secured by motor vehicle, petroleum and other transportation-related taxes. The state sells bonds on this credit as needed for transportation capital projects.
“We should know in October if we have been approved and we are very optimistic that we will be,” State Transportation Department spokesman Judd Everhart said in an e-mail.
The bonds won’t be sold until the state needs the money, which Everhart said could be later this year or in the spring. If the federal funding is not approved, the state will have to come up with a “Plan B” to fully fund the upgrades, he said.
The debt and federal monies would fund one stage of a long-term project to support trains that reach 110 miles per hour on the 62-mile corridor that runs through Hartford.
