The Bus/Buck Stops Here

"A Legislator/ Transportation Chairman focusing on bus/bike/pedestrian investments? Why hasn't the DOT industrial complex brain washing taken hold in the good reps head yet? This is sacrilegious propaganda as far as CTDOT is concerned."

There is no need to eliminate stops. A driver can see if someone is not waiting and just continue going.
Quite a few people wrote in to the NHI in previous articles to say that an increased walk for the elderly, disabled or people with children would make their lives harder.
Until you ride the bus, you cannot possibly appreciate the large variety of people using this necessary service.
Most of the drivers are saintly, waiting patiently for people or assisting a wheel chair person into a special spot or just greeting people with a hello.
And the riders are often very entertaining, sharing recipes, complaints about boyfriends or even a song from time to time.
Anything we can do to make buses serve the people better will be a big deal.
I still would like to see a competition to design better bus shelters. Right now "bus shelter" is an oxymoron. They are hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
Solar panels could solve that.

@Patricia Kane

Amen! Thank you for articulating my objections to all the suburban motorist idea of reducing the number of bus stops. When planners talk in terms of fractions of miles, they are obviously not urban pedestrians—we talk in terms of blocks, not the, for us, abstract notion of fractions of miles. And the number of stops is but one factor affecting om time performance.

As you say, if you ride the bus regularly, you will see numerous members of what I think of as the "cane club." We use canes (full disclosure, I'm a member) for balance and stability because we are disabled and walking is very difficult. Just as an example, 2 blocks is about my limit, after which my feet are so numb and painful that walking becomes more and more dangerous.

As for bus shelters and wintertime, it hardly matters whether the bus shelter is heated or not if they are not (easily) accessible, with a rampart of snow jammed up curbside by snow plows. The bus is unable to let passengers off on the sidewalk but has to leave us in the street. Likewise, passengers waiting to board the bus must also do so in the street And forget pressing the button for the walk light, those poles are likewise buried in snow & ice. I recommend that Mr. Hausladen & his colleagues take a look at the intersection of Whalley & Ellsworth Avenues after a sizeable snow event, and they will see all these problems in one place.

One small suggestion: build in an automatic walk cycle (all 15 seconds!) at every intersection along major bus routes. That would seem to be doable in the short term (I think) and solve at least one wintertime problem for bus riders.

I was part of the group involved in compiling surveys and hv testified at a couple of the transportation hearings held here in NH...what was clear then and what is still crystal is tht 2 things need to take place. First move the hub down to where the train station is ...all transportation in ONE place. Two get rid of the money payment on board. Require riders to use paper metro cards ...these 2 simple measures will go far to eliminating bus riding hell...I am always amazed at the plans ppl hv who don't ever ride the bus!!! As far as the violence on board..hv cops ride with K9 dogs for a period of time....ppl will calm down very quickly!

Patricia, I fully agree with you on the bus shelters and drivers. But the short distance between the stops is part of the reason buses run so slowly and infrequently. I bike down Grand Ave.a couple of times per week and regularly outpace the bus. As you know, I'm 65; I rarely bike faster than 12 m.p.h. If you can increase the average speed of buses by 30% (e.g., from 12 to about 15 m.p.h.) you can increase the frequency of service by 30% without adding buses or drivers. Moving to contactless fare cards will increase average speeds. But a substantial improvement will require having the stops be more than 900 feet apart, the current average.

Pat from Westville, it is vital that intersections work for pedestrians as well as drivers. But modernizing traffic lights is wicked expensive. That is a major reason why the conversion of Church Street downtown to two-way traffic is going to be so limited. https://www.ctinsider.com/news/nhregister/article/Costs-keep-rising-to-create-safer-street-14948575.php

Roland Lemar was very dishonest in this interview with regard to the toll plan - and his embrace of the slippery slopes of yet another tax. It will start with trucks and it will be expanded to cars.

The dishonest part is that he says the legislature has not ripped off the Transportation Fund. He calls it a myth and factually incorrect. This is a lie.

In fact, the legislator continued that practice with the current year - by intercepting the money before it got deposited in the transportation fund. In his twisted mind and the twisted politics and state budget of this state, that means the money was never there and therefore, was never taken.

Here's the thing: If the tax is charged to trucks and cars - and we pay - and the money is sent to the state. Who gives a damn if you steal it on the armored truck or you steal it once it's in the bank. It's still not where it belongs and is not being spent as it was intended.

Lemar has zero credibility and frankly, neither do the democrats on this issue. Mark my words - car tolls are coming. It will start with trucks and like every other tax, be expanded and include us all.

Thank you Pat for talking about the crosswalks. It's only by luck that someone hasn't been hurt crossing at Edgewood and Boulevard to get to the park and playground. It's past ime to get that taken care of.

Not clear to me after scanning this article and the 2019 report: will these improvements include GPS tracking of buses on an app so that riders can see how long one must wait for the next bus to stop? This is very helpful on the Yale shuttle system, and removes much of the anxiety and uncertainty and lost time associated with relying on public transportation.

I think there's a difference between eliminating bus stops and forcing riders to walk a few more blocks on routes where there are plenty of sidewalks versus routes where people have to walk on busy state roads or grassy hills to get to the bus stop (like Route1 in Orange). There are times that I've waited at bus stops and had bus drivers either drive past me or nearly drove past me despite my waving them down. As for not clearing bus shelters or stops after snow storms, especially in neighboring towns, when I called CT Transit, they said it was the town's job but the town would say it was the state's job or CT Transit's job. (So who is responsible for clearing bus stops along Route 1, a state road?) As for crosswalks and traffic signals being inaccessible after snowstorms, my requests to SeeClickFix about these issues went unheeded.

Kudos Rep Lamar on this. Perhaps he, Rep Dillon and Mayor Elicker could work together to "encourage" Yale to support the public system rather than engaging their own. An increase in ridership is a win for everyone.

You want the buck to stop here.Then do like i said.Bring on the two dollar Vans.

New York's Shadow Transit
Text and map by Aaron Reiss Videos by Nate Lavey and Aaron Reiss
New York's unofficial shuttles, called "dollar vans" in some neighborhoods, make up a thriving transportationsystem that operates where the subway and buses don't. This interactive project, with videos, maps out that system.

Click here to read more about the history of dollar vans.

https://youtu.be/75jxwNyVDtI

https://projects.newyorker.com/story/nyc-dollar-vans/


They even have a APP

Sulaiman Sanni, 34, developed the Dollaride app

Can 'Scooby Doo' and the Rest of the Dollar Vans Go High-Tech?
A shadow network of mini school buses that serves riders largely neglected by New York's transit system has a new app.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/nyregion/dollar-van-app-nyc-dollaride.html

Cellardoor, scheduled departure times for bus stops are available on Google Maps. According to CT Transit's website (https://www.cttransit.com/how-ride/tools-riders), the Transit app updates this information in real time. I haven't used it (I get around by bike) and can't say how well it works.

Mcg2000, Doug Hausladen's jurisdiction is limited to the city - I don't believe anyone is proposing to increase the spacing of stops in the suburbs. I wonder if anyone has filed an Americans with Disabilities complaint regarding the stops you describe.

Havenparent, I'm not optimistic that Yale will support CT Transit rather than running its own system. But I do think it would be possible to integrate the systems. In practice, people who are unaffiliated with the university regularly ride the Yale buses. Yale could make this practice a policy. If liability is a concern, Yale could post bilingual signs on the buses stating that non-affiliated persons use the buses at their own risk. I also think that Yale could integrate its Special Services vans with the Transit District's service for people with disabilities.

Rep. Dillon has been in office for 35 years and is just getting to these topics?

About time

The point that these legislators need to make more clearly is that spending state money on bus service benefits car drivers too. With downtown growing and attracting more jobs, there are three paths we can take

1) Continue business as usual, with more jobs downtown and widespread car dependence. This will create a traffic mess that only gets worse and will drive up the cost of housing as well, as the few neighborhoods that can allow people to get downtown without dealing with the traffic mess (not just East Rock and Wooster Square, but parts of the Hill and Newhallville too) become more desirable.
2) Stop creating jobs downtown. This is a nice scenario in which the changes of the past 20 years are reversed and the city goes completely broke.
3) Create lots of jobs downtown, and improve bus service so that (a) land downtown currently taking up by parking can be developed for more productive uses; (b) access to good jobs is increased throughout the city and its neighborhoods; (c) commute times are lessened; and (d) geographic proximity to downtown is less valuable -- letting some of the affluent people in the region live on bus routes in West Haven and Hamden instead of clustering around downtown is good for the region and will slow displacement