Connecticut needs a fast and reliable transportation system that is environmentally friendly, efficient, and affordable for everyone in the state. As someone who spends too much of his life either stuck in traffic or waiting for a delayed bus or train, it is fair to say that we are not really accomplishing those goals.
To his credit, Governor Lamont understands how traffic delays and congestion hurt the state economy, and his administration has made a significant commitment to updating our transportation infrastructure. Although funds are often spent quite inefficiently, at least there is an understanding that this is a problem that needs to be addressed.
The one thing we need to keep in mind when talking about transportation is that the car, whether powered by an internal combustion engine or electricity, is not a viable option to achieve these goals. Cars might be fast (when the roads are empty) and convenient (when not taking up tons of space with useless parking), but they are neither environmentally friendly or cheap. The average cost of ownership for a car is a bit over $12,000 a year, assuming 15,000 miles of driving, between fuel, maintenance, tires, insurance, license, registration and taxes, depreciation, and financing.
This is a ton of money, especially for low-income families; in fact, it is often the second-largest item in their budget (often close to 40% of their income), right after housing. And considering where you live plays a significant role in how much you need a car, transportation and shelter costs are one and the same.
By a happy accident, we have invented a whole slew of technologies that allow folks to have access to transportation without the need to own a two-ton piece of rapidly depreciating machinery that happens to be incredibly polluting. We call them public transportation, and Connecticut has quite a bit of it in place.
When talking about public transit, trains usually command the most attention. We do have several rail lines, including the busiest commuter rail in the country (Metro-North). Trains are incredibly efficient, can carry a staggering number of people, and they can be pretty fast, even in our state. They take some time to build and upgrade, so I will talk more about them in another article.
Buses, meanwhile, are often set aside and forgotten, even by transportation nerds and planners. They are deeply uncool, noisy, and slightly despised. That is unfortunate because they are also incredibly efficient and, when designed and used well, fast, reliable, and affordable for everyone involved.
Consider, for instance, CTfastrak, the bus line that links Hartford and New Britain. Daily weekday ridership stands at around 15,000, with most passengers traveling during rush hour, when it can carry 4,000 people an hour. As a comparison, one lane of traffic on I-84 can carry around 2,000 vehicles per hour before turning into a traffic jam. The buses on CTfastrak are the equivalent of two whole extra lanes on the highway, and they move that volume of passengers quickly, using much less energy and for much less money.
CTfastrak, obviously, is the best bus line in the state, with dedicated infrastructure to boot. But buses, even in our half-forgotten, deeply uncool CT Transit system, do carry a ton of people in many areas. Several routes in New Haven and Hartford carry more than 5,000 passengers daily (about one highway lane’s worth of traffic); they might not get as much press as CTfastrak, but keep thousands of cars off the roads.
Unfortunately, many of these bus lines are anything but fast and reliable. The common rule of thumb when operating bus systems is that passengers should not have to memorize a schedule for most routes. You should be able to go to the stop and never expect to wait more than ten minutes, with buses offering frequent, convenient all-day service. CTfastrak does offer exactly this on its main trunk, making it supremely convenient, and ridership has followed. The busiest routes in New Haven — 212, 238, 243, and 265, for those keeping track at home — are pretty close to that figure most of the day, and they are quite busy. The vast majority of CT Transit services, however, are dreadful, with hourly service or worse, unreliable schedules, and mostly empty buses.
Some of the lines take odd detours or have several different variations. My bus line takes two different (parallel!) streets at random intervals. Others serve areas that used to be busy but are no longer destinations, like the inexplicable insistence on having frequent bus service to Savin Rock Park. Lines often use adjacent streets for no reason instead of having a better-served common trunk. Others make weird loops, making maps unreadable. Many lines have used the same routing since their trolley days, explaining some of those oddities.
For years, ConnDOT has spent considerable amounts of money on reports and studies on how to improve bus ridership in the state. Their conclusions are always the same: fewer routes, much more frequent service, easier-to-understand lines, more reliability, and more spacing between stops (as buses tend to stop too often now). Where there is enough ridership and space, creating dedicated bus lanes or even bus-only routes would help. Frequency and speed are much more important than fares; time is money, and having to wait for a bus an extra 20 or 30 minutes is perceived as costlier by riders than having to pay for a ticket.
In New Haven, for a modest investment of $15 million, the two busiest trunk lines could see travel times decrease by 30–40%, with much higher frequency and double their current ridership. For negligible amounts of money, CT Transit could consolidate stops and redundant lines, providing much better service across the system.
As is often the case in Connecticut, these studies end up sitting on a shelf, not acted upon. CT Transit remains uncool, forgotten, and provides poor service to its riders while doing little to reduce congestion. To fix this and implement the necessary changes, ConnDOT first needs enough staff to roll out these changes (designing a bus schedule is not easy!). Second, we need state leaders to pay a bit more attention to our humble buses.
I know they are not cool. I know they are not shiny like trains and that no one will go to a ribbon-cutting for a painted bus lane or a new bus schedule. Implementing these changes, however, is cheap, and it would improve the lives of many, many people and get cars off the road.