By Jordan Fenster, Staff Reporter

Republican 5th District candidate Andrew Roraback’s first television ad cites the state senator’s opposition to the Hartford-New Britain busway project. “Endorsed Republican candidate and proven fiscal conservative Andrew Roraback fought Gov. Malloy’s record tax increase and the wasteful busway to Hartford,” the ad says.

The ad is correct, in that Roraback has been a vocal opponent to the project, voting and speaking against it several times since 2007.

But when the project was first brought up in the legislature, as a small part in a much larger transportation package more than a decade ago, he and every other Republican legislator voted in favor.

The busway project was the result of a 1997 study by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. In the most initial conversations, the project was discussed alongside another — A commuter rail line between New Haven and Springfield, Mass.

In a 2001 report, the state’s Office of Legislative Research described the busway project as “a 9.6 mile transitway for exclusive bus use. It would run from the downtown New Britain area to  Union Station in Hartford within or along sections of abandoned or active rail right-of-way.”

In 2006, the concept was brought to the legislature in the form of Public Act No. 06-136, “An Act Concerning the Roadmap for Connecticut’s Economic Future.” That bill, ultimately passed by the legislature under emergency certification, included 20 initiatives including, “restoring commuter rail service on the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line,” “upgrading the Pequot Bridge in Montville” and “implementing the New Britain-Hartford busway, subject to the availability of federal funds.”

When the act came before the State Senate, not a single legislator, including Roraback, voted against it. Back then, the project was expected to cost $300 million, $50 million of which would come from the state. The total cost has since risen to more than $560 million, with the state paying for $113 million.

As Sen. Tony Guglielmo, from Stamford, said of Public Act No. 06-136 this April when the busway came to the State Senate, “It was a general roadmap, a strategic plan. It was not a vote on the busway from New Britain to Hartford.”

Since 2006, Roraback has become a vocal source of opposition to the project, at the State Bonding Commission and on the floor of the senate.

Roraback was one of three bonding commission members to vote against the project in 2011. As the Connecticut Mirror reported at the time, Roraback said, “I’m not convinced this is the wisest use of scarce transportation resources.”

This year, on the senate floor, Roraback said for the same cost of the project the state could buy a new Jeep Liberty for every resident of the town of New Milford:

“That’s a lot of cars and — and that was the way that enabled me to kind of come to grips with the magnitude of this investment, what we could buy with the money that we’re spending and has as — per foot, well, I broke it down to $912 an inch. The State of Connecticut is spending$ 912 an inch for an 8.6-mile, whatever the length of this thing is, it’s a lot of money and it’s a lot opportunities that we are foregoing, too.”

When the final bill arrived on legislators’ desks, Republicans fought to keep it down, in part with an amendment that would have redirected funds away from the busway in favor of other transportation infrastructure projects.

Roraback was not a sponsor of that amendment. The amendment ultimately failed.