Carl Jordan Castro photo
The crowded D bus.
This is part of a series on CT Transit buses written by Southern Connecticut State University students in conjunction with the Independent.
The sound of rustling leaves surrounded me as I walked toward the bus stop on a breezy autumn day in October.
As I saw the D bus drive through the intersection of Skiff Street and Whitney Avenue toward the bus stop, I quickened my pace, holding the straps of my camera pack so it wouldn’t bounce against my back.
I was the last person waiting in a long line to board what would become a bus ride with very little personal space.
I finally arrived in front of the bus doors, opened my wallet and saw, nothing. No bus pass. I heard a few sighs, and a man sucking his teeth as I patted down my pants pockets like a smoker looking for a lighter.
“Where the hell is it?” I said to myself. “These people are going to kill me.”
I found my pass and paid the fare. The bus was packed with people, as it usually is on a Monday morning, and I immediately sat in the nearest empty seat. After three more stops, passengers took the remaining seats forcing others to stand. At this point 10 people were standing, including teenagers blocking the front of the bus, gossiping.
It was an uncomfortable 35-minute ride. A man took the seat next to me and forced me to straddle my camera pack on my lap, allowing him to sit.
A woman, short and hefty, took a seat on the handicap bench at front of us. Her legs brushed across a woman’s grocery bags that were hanging alongside her walker as she took a seat. Her body girdled around the arm rest of the seat, touching the legs of the man sitting next to me. He squirmed his legs out toward the middle of the aisle sitting sideways.
As I fidgeted back and forth, my shoulder was now pinned against the window. I couldn’t reach for my camera if I wanted to, but left my cell phone in my hands in case a photo opportunity appeared.
Keep Moving
I walked off the bus at the New Haven Green, rubbing and rotating the stiffness out of my left shoulder, and I started to put my camera equipment together. I was on a mission to get video footage for a project. As I adjusted my tripod Eddie, a man I had interviewed a few weeks ago, waved at me before crossing the street.
With my camera mounted on my tripod I started walking through the crowds of people while recording. I was surprised that no one yelled at me for recording them. A few people turned away or hid their face from the camera, but there were a few that waved back at me.
Carl Jordan Castro photo
Peter Taylor.
As I was putting all my equipment away, Peter Taylor, a 43-year-old Hamden resident, interrupted me.
“My man! Take a picture of us,” said Taylor before pulling his friend to his side.
His friend didn’t want anything to do with the photo; he insisted to take a photo just of Taylor. I placed my camera to my face and Taylor struck a pose. I explained to Taylor I was writing for the New Haven Independent’s CT Bus Diaries series and asked if he’d like to be part of it.
“Go ahead ask me anything,” he said.
I took off my camera pack and secured my tripod and camera inside. As I reached for my notepad, Taylor reached into my personal space as the people on the bus had done earlier.
He placed his headphones onto my ears. I immediately recognized the eerie piano licks, the heavy bass kicks, and the samples from old kung-fu flicks – Wu Tang Clan’s “Protect Ya Neck.”
As I bobbed my head and mouthed the lyrics Taylor smiled and said, “Yeah, that’s real hip-hop.”
I then poked into Taylor’s personal life, finding out about his job, his family, and his dream to make enough money to do more than just feed his children.
Taylor works for W.B. Meyers, a moving company that also specializes in commercial storage, and usually is assigned to jobs in New Haven. He rides the bus primarily to go to work and visit his girlfriend who lives in Stratford. But Taylor didn’t have to take the bus five months ago.
“Last June I got into a car accident and it got smashed up,” he said. “So now the bus is my main transportation.”
Even with the car, Taylor wasn’t a stranger to the bus system. He said he’s taken it for years and is glad he could “fall back on the bus” at a time where he has no car. Taylor is trying his best to become part of middle-class society while raising three of his kids – a 5, 11, and 15-year-old.
“When you’re broke you’re broke,” said Taylor. “Money is the biggest struggle right now, but I make enough so my kids can eat.”
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.
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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Finally a story about overcrowding!! This is a fairly regular though very uncomfortable situation that everyday riders experience. Many of us have no other choice than to put up with this level of service. What is our alternative?