Hannah Spreckley photo
The New Haven Green is always bustling with people throughout the day, with buses lined up along the side of the street.
Sundays are a different story though, as the workweek is over and the bus schedules become more infrequent.
Alone on one of the many benches on Sunday sat Akil Willoughby, 37, who has used CT Transit most of his life.
“When I was young, my commute was real easy,” said Willoughby, who is from Hamden. “The population was lesser than what it is now and buses were quicker.”
With no one at the bus stops and no buses in sight, an older woman abruptly interrupted Willoughby and asked if he knew when the D bus was leaving.
Willoughby had seen one leave 15 minutes before.
The visibly distressed woman, carrying several bags, walked away from the bus stop mumbling under her breath and dragging the bags behind her.
“It’s not efficient anymore,” said Willoughby, who works at Quinnipiac Polling Institute. “They’re not on time, and buses are taking forever to get where they need to be.”
A self-declared “relationship expert,” Willoughby walks when he can, despite having direct bus lines wherever he needs to go.
He also said he thinks the bus drivers don’t put the passengers first.
“They stop on brakes and pull away real fast and don’t let the old folks sit down before the buses leave. They have no respect,” he said.
Being more friendly and allowing people on the bus for $1.25, when they don’t have the standard $1.50 fare, would help improve the bus system, in Willoughby’s view.
“At certain times of the day, buses come on time,” he said. “Then in the afternoon it slacks up and they don’t come quickly and it takes longer than it should take.”
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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