Buses might seem big, but that doesn’t mean they have enough room for people to sit, observed daily CT Transit rider Rudy Douglas.
Douglas, 62, is one of several riders who said CT Transit needs to make some major improvements to address overcrowding on buses.
“The seating capacities on the buses are way too small,” he said. “I don’t know if it is a matter of having more buses running or something else but it can get irritating when the seats are full and you just want to sit down. Sometimes, the bus rides are long depending on where you’re going and standing is very uncomfortable.”
Alexander Roberts graphic
Information from the National Transit Database asset inventory for 2012.
At any given moment in New Haven, 6,465 people can ride the local CT Transit system — 4,784 of those people in seats. The average seating capacity on the New Haven buses is 40, while the average standing capacity is 20, according to 2012 asset inventory data from the National Transit Database.
In Waterbury, 2,956 people can ride, with 1,702 of those people in seats, according to the same database. On the Waterbury buses that have both seats and standing room, an average of 30 people can sit on each bus, and 31 people can stand on each bus, according to the numbers.
No Hard Numbers
That’s the amount of room — but until CT Transit upgrades its buses to include automatic passenger counters, it has to rely on anecdotal accounts of how crowded the buses actually get during busy routes in order to determine if changes should be made.
New Haven’s transportation inventory includes 119 buses ranging from one year to 18 years old, according to the NTD. Depending on the bus, there is room for 45 to 85 people. New Haven’s fleet includes 12 “articulated buses,” the ones that look like they have an accordion attaching two buses together. Those buses are up to 60 feet long.
David Lee, general manager for CT Transit, said CT Transit has introduced the articulated buses to heavier traveled routes to help with overcrowding.
Even though CT Transit can track the amount of fares collected on each bus each day, it doesn’t currently have the ability to track precisely when more people are riding which buses.
Instead, CT Transit gets a lot of their information about overcrowding complaints from passengers and drivers.
Lee said staff is assigned to ride the bus in order to analyze ridership firsthand.
“That is something we pay really close attention to,” said Lee. “We will eventually have automatic passenger counters.”
Lee describes the way fare counters work, and don’t work, in the video above.
The seating capacities on buses have changed over time as the industry starting making every bus compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act in the early 1990s.
“Having to climb stairs to get onto the bus made it inaccessible to riders with disabilities,” said Lee.
According to Lee, low floor buses, the current industry standard, do not have as many seats per vehicle as the older high floor buses did.
Anecdotal Evidence
Ray Dooley, of Waterbury, has two prosthetic legs. He said he finds it difficult to make himself comfortable on the bus when it becomes too full. He lost his leg eight months ago from frost bite, he said, and he finds it difficult to walk around so he relies on the bus completely.
“It’s really hard for me to get around especially in the cold weather,” he said. “Who wants to walk anyways? I’ve been riding the bus ever since I lost my legs but it can get pretty rowdy and full. That’s what I don’t like.”
Dooley said there aren’t enough seats on the buses and that is the number one problem besides the buses being late and having to deal with “obnoxious” people.
“If they can make the buses bigger or at least have more buses running that would make everyone a lot happier,” he said. “For someone like me, I’d feel more secure on the buses if they had more space.”
Others find themselves standing on the side of the road due to overcrowding.
Tina Diorio, age 80, said sometimes the bus drives right by her while she waits at the bus stop in downtown Waterbury.
Diorio used to ride CT Transit to go to work in downtown Waterbury and would take the bus home from the North Main Street bus stop if she wasn’t able to find a ride. She now uses it to go to doctor’s appointments if she doesn’t feel like driving. Hear her story in the audio clip below.
Several others interviewed during this series have also noted the crowding, or the need to stand up during long commutes.
Henry Riddick, a CT Transit rider from Waterbury, has a different opinion about the seating capacities and amount of buses provided. He said he has never been turned away by a bus nor has he ever had to stand on a bus due to it being overcrowded.
“I think the bus system is beautiful just as it is,” he said. “Some people might complain about the schedules or it being late or too crowded but I never have those problems. I guess I’m just lucky.”
Riddick said he feels the buses have enough seats but they can be a little crowded at times. He takes the bus from downtown Waterbury to wherever he needs to go. It is his only way of transportation after selling his car ten years ago.
Cristina D’Almeida photo
Lilli Underwood (pictured), 51, is a regular CT Transit rider. She lives in Naugatuck and rides to Waterbury almost every day.
Underwood said the biggest problems on the bus occur when it becomes overcrowded and people become loud and obnoxious.
“People just won’t be quiet,” she said.
Sometimes, people won’t let others sit down who have a right to, such as a disabled person or a mother with a baby, according to Underwood.
“They should have more of the larger buses around. That would be much better,” she said. “People would have more room and can be comfortable.”
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.
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They should triple the cost of a ticket since CT transit already looses money. Get to a positive cash flow and fix all these problems. Most importantly of course open a transfer station with bathrooms so people don't have to sit at church and chapel all day long.