nothin Next Stop: Sobriety | New Haven Independent

Next Stop: Sobriety

Ratasha Smith photo

Jake, left, and Cody, right, on the D Bus.

For Jake and Cody, the city bus travels on the road to recovery.

They take the D bus from Fair Haven to Yale University, where they attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on Saturdays.

That’s where the two friends met.

For Jake, who hails from Georgia, riding the bus is a new experience.

I didn’t really need to ride the bus in Georgia. I drove,” he said. There is not really a bus except for in Atlanta; they had a train, so I would take that to Atlanta and walk.”

While it is also Cody’s first time in Connecticut, he has used public transportation before.

Cody compared CT Transit to the bus system in the Dallas, Texas, area, where he’s from.

Where I live in Texas, they have a bus system. It’s just really small,” Cody said. But I notice the buses around town like all the time so they’re very efficient. But it’s not really as big as an area as New Haven either.”

Cody and Jake said the buses can get crowded. Sometimes they don’t like the passengers on the bus.

There’s been a few times where there’s a few people who are just straight up mean, especially to this kid,” Jake said pointing to Cody.

Cody said he one time got into a argument with another passenger on a crowded bus.

The bus was just like really full one day, so I had to stand in the aisle and this lady just started yelling at me because she thought I was too close to her. I was like 15 feet away,” Cody said.

Rainy Sunday Ride

Ratasha Smith photo

McMichael on the D bus.

On the other end of the D bus route, Harold McMichael stood at the bus stop on Dixwell Avenue on a recent rainy Sunday, and looked at his cell phone clock.

1:17 p.m.

The D5 was supposed to have been there at 1:04.

The lateness is uncharacteristic,” McMichael said, noting he saw another bus across the street that was earlier than scheduled.

Despite some concern, McMichael is satisfied with the CT Transit bus system, which he uses every day for work and errands.

I’m a fan of public transportation. I believe in it,” he said.

McMichael has been riding the bus for about a year.

I’ve been taking the bus on pretty much a daily basis,” he said. I used to have car so at that point, I didn’t use the bus that much. I still used to take it occasionally. But I no longer have a car now, so I take the bus fairly regularly.”

McMichael commutes back and forth from New Haven to Quinnipiac University, where he works a part-time job.

While the day schedule fits his needs, it’s a race against the clock to make it home by bus at night.

According to Google Maps the latest bus leaving Quinnipiac on a weekday is at 8:32 p.m.

The only problem is the bus doesn’t run late enough to get me a ride back to New Haven,” McMichael says.

I usually wind up having to commute with people I work with to New Haven or over to Hamden Plaza, where I can catch the bus back to New Haven. But other than that the bus service has been fairly good,” he said.

The CT Bus Diaries project is a collaboration between the New Haven Independent, the Valley Independent Sentinel and students from the multimedia journalism class at Southern Connecticut State University. The students are blogging about experiences on CT Transit’s bus lines in order to give a glimpse into the commutes of the people using the bus system.

Follow Ratasha Smith on Twitter @TAS_Ratasha

Share your CT Transit experiences with us by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) photos or videos to Jodie Mozdzer Gil or tagging #CTBusDiaries on Twitter posts.

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