Hannah Spreckley

Aspiring journalist.British. Living in the U.S.

[hannahspreckley]

The cost of vehicle maintenance has increased for CT Transit, but why? 

[hannahspreckley]

Cleaner air means higher costs for CT Transit

Click here for published story on the New Haven Independent 

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- As technology is continuing to improve and develop, so is that of buses. With the new parts and machinery constantly being updated, more time, money and hours have to be spent on maintaining buses.

“Once upon a time the bus was a plain vanilla vehicle that had a diesel engine and old fashioned technology with no other electronics on it,” said CT Transit’s General Manager in Connecticut, David Lee. “Today buses have more sophisticated engines. Engines that have to comply with environmental requirements.”

Lee said now all buses have electronic controls for diesel particulate filters that are designed to reduce the black smoke seen from most diesel vehicles, which shows the complexity of the vehicles compared to what they used to be.

“The cost to maintain a bus today – even a brand new bus – is partly a reflection of how complicated the technology is and that is also reflected in what you are seeing in the trend,” said Lee.

Michael Volpe, CT Transit’s New Haven maintenance supervisor, said meeting the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines and laws is challenging to meet the requirements.

“We have more hybrid models now and they are very complex to work with,” Volpe said.

            Adding technology is helping to improve the environment, but Volpe said it creates more complex maintenance work for him and his team.

            Another challenge for the maintenance workers is that public agencies are required to go through competitive procurement, which means CT Transit writes a specification for what they need and they have to put it out for bid and the lowest bidder wins.

            Although it seems as though this would make it a cheaper and easier process for CT Transit to go through, it does have its own problems.

“Bus fleets go through stages of having some bad buses,” said Lee. “Because they are not all made equal, so it could have been that we had some problem children in the fleet.”

            This rule means that CT Transit has to train mechanics to maintain different bus manufacturers and new technologies.  

The company will also need to have different parts in stock for the several manufacturers they use, which makes it more expensive and harder to maintain than if everything was fairly uniform, according to Lee.

The inspections for the CT Transit buses have become much more rigorous with the buses coming into to get checked every 3,000 miles, said Lee.

Volpe, however, said the buses are being inspected every 1,500 miles in New Haven.

The increase in cost on vehicle maintenance in New Haven from 1991 to 2012 was almost $4.3 million. However, the total budget has also increased every year since 1996, except from 2009 to 2010. Therefore, the total percentage of the budget spent on vehicle maintenance has remained fairly constant.

            For example, in 1996, 22.2 percent of the total budget was spent on vehicle maintenance, and 19.1 percent in 2012. These numbers show that while the numerical cost has increased significantly in these years, the percentage of the total budget spent on vehicle maintenance has actually slightly decreased.

The cost of maintenance has increased from 1996 to 2012, but the total percentage of expenses of CT Transit has not. Part of the reason for that is that between 2004 and 2012, the fleet got bigger, according to Lee.

“But put some strings on that such as the useful life of a bus being 12 years,” said Lee. “So, in theory, every bus that you see on the streets is less than 12-years-old. But often buses have had to be kept in service longer.”

Lee said that currently the oldest bus in the fleet, that just about to be retired, is a 1996 vintage bus. This means it is 6 years older than the predicted useful life of a bus. 

All buses in the United States are purchased with 80 percent federal grants and the state has to come up with the 20 percent match.

            “This automatically requires more maintenance,” said Lee. “Spending the most money on old buses and maintaining them because the cost of new buses is not in our budget. Because that’s a capital cost, not an operating cost.”

            -30-

[hannahspreckley]

A cold wait for the B bus

The New Haven green was cold and dark. There seemed to be a surplus of benches when there was no one around to crowd them.

I sat on one of them closest to the street –light as I waited patiently for the B bus to arrive. I had no idea when the next one was due, but I knew there was at least one more for the night after spending all day downtown.

Rush hour had come and passed so the number of buses dwindled to every half hour or hour.

As I tried my best to keep out the cold by curling over – while still sitting on the bench – the cold found its way down the back of my neck.

“Where are you bus? It’s freezing,” I thought to myself. A sound may have escaped from my mouth, as the thought of sitting in the bitter November wind for much longer seemed painful.

Through my self-loathing I heard a shuffling noise in the distance become louder and louder, until it stopped.

Looking up from my crunched position I saw a woman continue her shuffle to sit on the bench directly opposite me – despite every other bench being completely empty.

I became slightly tense when I heard that she began to speak – or rather mutter under her breath something indiscernible.

I peered at her over the top of my scarf, which was pulled up over my nose, expecting that she was directing her mumbling at me.

I quickly returned to having my head down in my scarf once I realized she was not attempting to spark up a conversation, as she was quite happy talking to herself.

After waiting for 20 minutes, the B bus arrived and I jumped out of my seat as I had never felt so happy to see a bus before.

I noticed the mumbling woman did not get on the bus and I wondered if she was even waiting for a bus at all.

The B bus left the New Haven green and I glanced out the window and saw the woman stand up and shuffle away from the bus stop. 

[hannahspreckley]

"Everyone should ride for free"

As a cold November air blew through downtown New Haven, the Starbucks on the corner of Church Street and Chapel Street offered a brief sanctuary and a warm caramel macchiato to heat my numb fingertips.

After buying my drink and regaining some of the feeling back to my hands, I turned towards the door because all the seats were taken.

Desperate not to return to the brisk outdoors yet I stopped just before the door and turned to look at the room.

“Why don’t you take a picture of me?” said Robert Donnally, seeing the camera hanging from my shoulder.

Donnally is a New Haven resident who was sat in the corner at one of the high tables, without a drink.

“Want me to give you a reason why?” he said.

Before I could say a word, he told me he was famous. He then told me the second reason I should take a photograph of him was because he was rich. He told me he could prove it -- although we never got around to that.

After speaking with Donnally briefly, I sat down at the table with him.

I told him the camera I had was not to take pictures of the rich and famous, but to take pictures of people on the bus and learn about their stories.

“I think the buses are better up north than they are down south,” he said. “Here I can get to Hartford and back.”

“It might take me three hours,” he said, laughing, “but at least I’ll get there.”

Donnally lives on Dixwell Ave and uses the bus and his bike to get around the city.

If he could change anything about the bus system, he said he would make it free for everyone to ride the bus.

“Everything is about money these days though,” he said. “You don’t need money to be happy – you need a little – but I can’t complain, I have a roof over my head and food in my stomach. Oh and I also have a bike!”

[hannahspreckley]

The Change I’ve Seen: “I could have been anything I wanted.”

To this day, 87-year-old Mildred Klungman regrets not going to college.

“My generation catered to the men in our lives – our husbands and our sons,” she said.

Klungman was a homemaker her whole life and said that there is more equality to raising a family today.

 “I could have been anything I wanted,” she said. “I was a straight A student.”

When her granddaughters visit her in Florida where she now lives, she said when they go home, they have to “retrain their husbands.” Mildred has two children of her own and they are both boys.

  “To get up from the table and get whatever they need all by themselves, and fill up their coffee by their selves, and refill their plates,” said Mildred. “Take care of this, do you need this? Do you want that handed to you? How are you? What can I do for you?” she said.

“I still do it,” she said. “I still cater to my sons.”

Despite raising her family Jewish, her daughters-in-law are not of the same religious beliefs.

“As you grow older,” she said, “you go through life cycles, and you learn to accept things that generations before would have thought were horrible.”

It was the norm for the women of her generation to never work a day in their lives, she said. Today, there are many more professional and educated women, which is a positive thing, she said.

“I was appalled when I heard some of them (daughters-in-law) were putting their babies into day care,” Mildred said. “How can you do that, I thought?”

A report by The Social Issues Research Center on The Changing Face of Motherhood, said that in a study conducted by the Future Foundation that in the 1960s, women spent around 110 minutes per day on ‘housework’, including child care, while the average for men was just 10 minutes.

Mildred would have been in her 30’s during this decade and she remarried in 1961. Her second husband brought his two children from a previous marriage, both boys, which brought her family to five men and one woman.

“I apologized after,” she said about her comment to her daughter-in-law, “because I realized they (children in day care) were just fine.”

  Mildred was a stay-at-home mum her entire life, besides 3 years of work between marriages.

She described her every day life as a young mother living in Philadelphia where she was born and grew up.

“We had a nice little house in a tree lined street, and they were row houses,” she said. “It was all young couples – the men were home from the war, it was 1946 or 7. It was just a lovely, warm, friendly place.”

When she separated from her first husband and her two sons were older, she started working. She was a bookkeeper and also in worked in a drug store.

Mildred met her second husband at this job and when she remarried – she returned to being a stay-at-home mum again. This time she was a mother to four boys – two of her own, and two from her second husbands previous marriage.

            Mildred said her disciplinary methods of parenting are not seen as much from her daughters and granddaughters.

“They (her sons) knew, by god, that they had to be home by midnight,” she said. 

Her husband was not allowed to take the trash out. They had four boys in the house who were expected to take it out, she said. Getting up from the table and bringing their own dishes and picking up dirty laundry was something Mildred’s children had enforced throughout their childhood, but she said some of her grandchildren aren’t held to the same expectations.

“They were polite,” Mildred said about her boys. “They knew to open the door for you  -- that was discipline, manners, politeness.”

Trevor, one of her grandkids, is a 7-year-old hockey player who had a note sent home to his mother from school recently. She said he was practicing his hockey moves while the teacher was trying to read to them because he was bored.

“If my mother ever got a note… *slap slap*,” she said, as she chuckled at the contemplation. “We thought nothing of spanking our kids and they survived it. We weren’t child beaters, but they were afraid of us – no nonsense.”

            A teacher was God when Mildred was young. She said if anyone saw his or her teacher on the street, “it was like oh my god – there’s my teacher, the messiah came down.”

            Despite the tough love she showed her children, she said it made them into the great people they are today. Mildred quoted something one of her children said to her once they were older:

“You know mom—I didn’t appreciate the discipline we had growing up – but I appreciate it today.”

                  The biggest change Mildred has seen in her lifetime is that people were generally nicer when she was young.

            “I don’t know if it’s just because we didn’t have social media, so we didn’t hear about those things,” she said.

She said she wasn’t afraid to let her kids go and her mother wasn’t afraid to let her go play outside on the corner playing kickball or baseball. The only worry they would have is if the old lady on the corner would come out and say: “you’re making too much noise.”

            “We lived in our own little world,” Mildred said. “We felt comfortable and safe. World War II brought this country together beautifully.”

Mildred now lives in Florida and said she has a wonderful relationship with all her children and her 11 grandchildren. She used to golf, ski and travel, but her physical ability to do the things she loved has diminished with age. She walks with a cane and has had surgery on her hip and her knee.

“But I’m mentally just as acute now as I ever was,” she said.

By reading, keeping up with world affairs, using computers and cell phones, banking and continuing to drive, she said she continues to live a full life.

[hannahspreckley]

The Change I’ve Seen: “A person, an individual, a human being.”

A friend from Washington D.C was visiting 12-year-old Jonny, a white boy Joyce Lanier raised.

“He (Jonny’s friend) started talking to me real nasty,” she said, “and Jonathan, he went and he grabbed him, and he shook him and he said, “don’t you ever talk to her that way – we don’t talk to Joyce like that.”

Lanier, an African-American, worked in white families houses, cleaning and raising their children most of her life.

“And I just felt so good, I just grabbed him and hugged him and kissed him,” she said. “He was just like my son, he still is today – I just love him.”

Lanier had strict rules about making sure shoes were not left in the living room, and Jonathan was good at sticking to it. But when she asked the young boy from Washington D.C to move his shoes, she was met with hostility.

She said her son, as she called him, knew what not to do because she raised him – his mother never looked after him or did anything with him, Lanier said.

“The way they (white people) treat you is better,” Lanier said about the changes she’s seen in race relations. “They look at you now like you’re a person, an individual, a human being, and not that you’re just someone to pick up behind me.”

Lanier, 83, was born and raised in Waco, Texas as a Baptist Protestant. She moved to Connecticut in 1956 after marrying a young man who had relatives in the area. Her husband was in the army and served in the Korean War.

When she was younger, she worked in the cotton fields in Texas until she was old enough to begin looking after the white children. She said these were the only jobs available to African-Americans at that time.

Lanier and Jonathan still keep in touch to this day and he visits her. He is 68-years-old now, she said.

            “Well I was a person who loved children so it didn’t matter to me too much,” she said. “I loved them, I thought they was my little kids.”

“I felt as if they were a part of me, even though they meant nothing to me biologically.”

            Lanier said racial tensions slowly began to improve in the late 60s, 70s and 80s. Her grandchildren live in North Branford and she noticed all their friends are white, yet they all get along so well. They graduated from high school and went to college.

            “It was different but it was nice,” she said about the success her grandchildren have had. “I’ve seen a time that wouldn’t happen.”

            Lanier said she doesn’t see color – she sees a human being with different hair and different complexions.

            “The same God made me,” she said, “the same God made you.”

            Being exposed to two different states around the times of racial segregation, Lanier drew some conclusions about the two states.

            “They throw rocks and hide their hands,” she said about Connecticut. Her experiences left her feeling as though Connecticut residents were just as hateful, but they tried to hide it from plain sight, whereas Texans were open and honest.

            “Malcolm X said he would rather live with a (wolf), than to deal with a sly fox,” Lanier said as she compared Connecticut to Texas. “Because you would never know what they’ll be up to, but a (wolf) is open, he’s going to let you know what he’s up to.”

She said Texas is an honest state and the residents will tell you how its going to be, which she loves because she is the same way.

“We knew we were black; but I never felt that hatred (in Texas),” she said.

One time when she lived in Connecticut, she recalls a visit from her mother as she warned her, “Mama, it’s different up here than it is in Texas”.

They were walking down the street and her mother moved off the sidewalk as a white man approached them. Lanier never moved and told her mother she doesn’t have to do that.

“It (racial tension) affected my mother more than it affected me. She was always afraid for me because I was always outspoken,” Lanier said. “She used to be really afraid for me, but nothing ever happened.”

            When Jonathan was 13 or 14-years-old, Lanier would tell him to get dressed on Sundays and come to church with her, even though he was Jewish. She would see him walking down the hill to meet her on Division Street, and it would make her so happy, she said.

            In Connecticut, the segregation was obvious she said. Black people would sit in the back of the bus, and white people would sit in the front.

“I never paid that much attention to it – I knew it was there – but it never affected me in any way,” she said.

“I just never really felt like I had done something bad to someone else.”

[hannahspreckley]

"The B bus is bad, the G bus is bad."

Bus drivers get off the bus and take their breaks, a little longer than they should, according to Kevin Edwards.

“You could be trying to get to work but these buses will make you late,” he said.

Edward’s said he drives, but he takes the bus most of the time even though he thinks the scheduling is bad.

“The B bus is bad, the G bus is bad,” he said referring to the frequency of these services. “I’m standing out here waiting on the G bus right now.”

Edwards has lived in New Haven his whole life and has been taking the bus since he was 18-years-old, he said.

“The bus system is fair,” said Edwards, “but it’s not great.”

According to Edwards, buses are starting to get bad and nothing is improving. The D bus and the F bus are the most frequent buses and come every 10 minutes.

“Some bus drivers don’t have respect for pedestrians either,” he said. “You could be waiting for a bus and they would just drive right by you.”

This has happened to him on more than one occasion

“What can you do though? Even the sign on the bus says you can’t assault the bus driver.”

[hannahspreckley]

One woman and her dog

As the bus pulled up, almost a foot-or-so away from the curb, Jenny Guayquier leaned her carriage back. The front wheels only just reached the bus.

A small terrier dog stared out from the bottom of the carriage without making a sound. Clad in bright pinks and neon green socks, Guayquier boarded the G bus.

“By this time I would have been home already and having lunch with my dog and watching television,” she said. “What the hell am I doing here waiting for a freaking bus?”

As a New York resident, the longer waiting times for buses are not something Guayquier is used to. 

Since she often takes her dog and carriage on the bus, she has had trouble getting on the bus.

“A lot of buses don’t like to stop on the curb,” she said. “I have to step off the sidewalk with my carriage and then I have to lift my carriage up off the road on to the bus. That takes a lot of strength.”

She said when she asks the bus drivers to put the ramp down, they say they can’t do it due to time restraints.

“They (bus drivers) say ma’am,” said Guayquier, “I’m not going to sit here and argue with you when people have to get where they are going.”

She said she requests for the drivers to pull up again closer to the curb.

It would be easier to get on the bus if it pulled up to the curb, or it was lower, or if the bus drivers could lower the ramp, she said.

“They always have excuses and say they would have to close the doors, I would have to step back, and they would have to get on the curb,” she said. “But they give me the excuse that they’re running late.”

[hannahspreckley]

It isn't always plain sailing

Taking the bus everyday means sometimes having interesting, unexpected experiences. It isn't always a silent, uneventful journey like one might hope when commuting. 

Five people were asked one question: What is the craziest thing you've seen on the bus or while waiting for a bus?

Cesar "CJ" Perez

“Drunk people,” he said. “There was this really racist woman who called me a drug dealer and said I wasn’t raised right.”

“I enjoyed it. It was hilarious," Perez said. "I just brushed it off and said I didn’t care because she was obviously crazy. Usually the bus ride is just the bus ride though – that’s it.”

Perez, 16, lives downtown New Haven and takes the bus to school every day. He is a student at Notre Dame High School in West Haven and uses a 10 ride bus pass.

Perez said he is excited to get his own car and start driving, because it will give him more freedom.

“I have to base my schedule on their (CT Transit’s) schedule, and that sucks,” he said. 

"G" 

“I’ve seen people smoking crack at the bus stop,” he said.

“G,” said he has been recently dealing with some issues with identity theft and was reluctant to give up his name.

The 41-year-old Hamden resident said he doesn’t catch the bus every day, but has noticed on several occasions the younger people disrespecting their elders.

Jeff Brown

“I see fighting and arguing over who’s selling how many cigarettes,” he said.

 Brown is originally from Miami, but he has been in Connecticut for three or four months.

Most days he catches the bus downtown from Whalley Ave. to hang out with friends.

If he could change one issue about CT Transit, it would be their promptness.

However, he said he doesn’t think it’s specific to the bus systems in Connecticut.

“It’s pretty much the same as Miami,” Brown said. “Different state, different climate -- that’s about it.”

Jamie Herbert

“Last week there was this guy who I could tell had a mental disability," she said, "and he kept on screaming ‘I need help, I need help.’”  

"No one was helping him and people were pushing him around," Herbert said."

"I was like, what could I do? I'm a little girl – I don’t want to get involved in this. He was just hysterical and he wouldn’t get off the bus. He kept asking people if he could call his girlfriend on their phone."

Hebert is a student at Southern Connecticut State University and takes the bus downtown every day to work at Panera Bread. 

Despite having her driving license, she still takes the bus everyday. She said it's a pain to park and it costs money.

SCSU provides students with a U-Pass bus pass, allowing free bus travel.

Jenny Guayquier 

"Black bus drivers; they are very sarcastic," she said.

 "I give them a taste of my own medicine – I curse the shit out of them – I tell them don’t mess with me. They argue back."

Guayquier said she only takes the bus on Sundays to go to St. Mary's church in New Haven. 

Originally she is from New York and said she can't wait to go back in three months. 

“In a couple more months, I won't have to worry about J, X or B (buses), because i'm going back to New York," she said. "I can’t take it anymore." 

[hannahspreckley]

It's quiet on Sundays

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 sat Akil Willoughby, 37, who has used CT Transit most of his life.

“When I was young, my commute was real easy,” said Hamden resident, Willoughby. “The population was lesser than what it is now and buses were quicker.”

He wasn’t waiting for a bus this time, simply sitting and talking to the occasional acquaintance that passed by.

With no one at the bus stops and no buses in sight, an older woman abruptly interrupted Willoughby and asked if anyone 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 passenger’s 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, is a way to improve the bus system for passengers, according to Willoughby.

“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.”

[hannahspreckley]

"Don't mix heroin with power tools"

After being released from prison for drug possession, Jonathan Conroy said now he takes the bus to the drug rehab program on Congress Avenue.

“I used to do lots and lots and lots of opiates and it cost me everything,” said Conroy. “I’m almost 40 and I’m starting over.”

He commutes from the far end of Chapel Street to the New Haven green. Then Conroy said he often has to wait, as the F buses are every half hour.

“I don’t know, it just sucks,” he said. “I used to have it all. You know I used to own my own business?”

Conroy said he owned his own home improvement company where he had three trucks and several crews working with him.

“You’re getting handed money left and right, all under the table,” he said. “I was making like five or six grand a week, but money is power. And I don’t care who you are, if you have that much power, it goes to your head.”

Lost it all, in the blink of an eye

Since the age of 16, Conroy has been involved in drugs. He doesn’t have a job or a permanent place to live. He currently stays with his brother on Chapel Street.

According to City-Data, the unemployment rate in 2013 in New Haven was 12.4 percent, while in Connecticut it was 8.4 percent. 

Conroy spent three years in prison after the person he would go “boosting” with got caught and set Conroy up with the police

“Boosting” is a slang term for stealing to support a drug addiction, according to No Slang.

He said he never liked doing it because he liked to work for his money.

“My boss at the time won tickets to Cancun on Kasie 101 for a month,” he said. “What am I supposed to do? – I have a drug habit.”

His partner was caught stealing from a house without Conroy. In order to get PTA (promise to appear), without a physical arrest, he set Conroy up with the police.

“I bought 100 bags of dope,” said Conroy. “As I’m walking back over Kimberly Avenue Bridge, I get caught by the police.”

After breaking the rules of his parole, he was sentenced to six years, but only did 50 percent of that, he said.

“I’m just a guy who had a rough life and is trying to make it,” said Conroy.  

Some perks 

Food stamps and a free bus pass are all a part of Conroy's life now, but he said he doesn't like to abuse the system.

"When I have money, I don't use this," he said as he pulled out his 31-day free bus pass from Logisticare, with only four fingers. 

"Don't mix heroin with power tools," Conroy said about his missing finger.

After his mother died rapidly from cancer, and his father, who lived with HIV for 20 years, also died before Conroy reached 23-years-old, he said he has basically been on his own. 

Despite his struggle, Conroy said he has never had any issues using the bus and that he is very polite to everyone.

One experience he had on a CT Transit bus line, left him questioning the bus driver's morals, he said.

A man on the bus began to have a seizure, and Conroy sprung into action to help the man in need, he said.

Everyone watched as he jumped down and stuck his fingers down his throat, so the man didn't choke on, or bite his tongue.

"No one was doing anything, not even the driver," said Conroy. "He just said 'we’re going to have to get him off the bus at the next stop.'"

“I had to call 911 from my own cell phone while these dudes [bus drivers] have an 'effing' radio,” he said. 

"All it comes down to is that everyone’ s out for themselves," Conroy said. "If I was laying over there, covered in blood, i'm sure people would just step over me."

[hannahspreckley]

Passengers thrown off CT Transit

Anthony Scott said he has seen bus drivers throw passengers off the bus on the D line from the New Haven green to Quinnipiac University.

“Sometimes people on the bus argue with the bus driver, but the customer is always right,” said Scott who works as a cook in the kitchens at Quinnipiac University in Hamden.

“Why do you go back and forth with the customer?” he said. “Just don’t say anything and next time just don’t let them [passengers who argue] on your bus.”

Scott said he has never been involved in such an altercation, but has seen it happen many times.

His experience on CT Transit has been favorable, depending on who is driving the bus, he said.

“I don’t know them by name,” said Scott, about the bus drivers, “but I know them by face.”

The bus he takes to work everyday is direct and drops him off right by Quinnipiac, he said.

It's not always so simple

CT Transit New Haven, however, is not quite as straightforward for those who are not already based in downtown New Haven. All the bus lines lead directly in to the city center, therefore most commuters are required to take two buses to get to their destinations.

Photo courtesy: CT Transit

The need to make a transfer can add an extra hour or two to commuters travel time, according to Google Maps. 

Despite his easy commute, Scott said he thinks attitudes need to be better from bus drivers and passengers alike.

“I’ve seen it happen many times,” he said, “[when] someone is acting a little ignorant on the bus, instead of trying to calm things down, they [the bus drivers] might stop the bus and not go anywhere. And we have to wait until the cops come.”

He said CT Transit could improve its service to the public by ensuring that the buses get passengers where they need to be, on time.

“Don’t just throw people off you bus like that or stop the bus,” said Scott. “Other people have to go to work.”

He said he has come across nice bus drivers and thinks that, generally, people need to think before they act.

“It’s not always about the bus driver though,” he said, “its about people being better, they need to be better.” 

[hannahspreckley]

CT Transit drove me to Zipcar

I spent this summer taking CT Transit buses to and from my internship at the New Haven Register on Sargent Drive. The experience left me deflated and ready for a new way to get around the city.

I discovered Zipcar, a car rental service that is a step up from taking the city bus, but it’s far from perfect.

I thought Zipcar would save me from the commuting hassles, but soon realized there are different problems associated with the car service. 

Where CT Transit left me stranded once, and waiting several times, Zipcar once charged me $50 for returning a car 20 minutes late. 

<strong>Taking the bus</strong>

To get to my internship at the New Haven Register, I caught the D bus on Dixwell Avenue. The bus comes roughly every 10 minutes. I could catch any D bus to get downtown for my connection. 

 Once downtown, I had to walk two blocks to catch the Z bus to Sargent Drive. The bus comes every half hour. 

On a typical day it would take me about an hour. But if I miss the D bus, it could extend the commute by a half hour. The times I was able to get a ride to the New Haven Register, it took approximately a 10 to 15 minute drive, depending on the traffic.

The $1.50 bus ticket has a two-hour transfer time, so the need to take two buses doesn’t affect your bank account the same way it affects your journey time.

 When it comes to a persons daily commute, time constraints seem to outweigh the cost of having a car. The bus may be cheap, but it’s certainly not convenient.

 Toward the end of my time at the New Haven Register, I left my house one afternoon to catch the 11:44 a.m. bus.

The long, uphill walk from Pine Rock Avenue in Hamden to the bus stop on Dixwell Avenue, in my work clothes, was tolerable only because I knew there was a Dunkin' Donuts waiting for me at the top.

 As I stood in line I looked out the window and I saw the D bus arrive, then leave without me. Luckily, my internship at the New Haven Register was flexible with my hours. Otherwise, I would have been breaking into a sweat running out of Dunkin' Donuts, without the coffee.

 I didn’t have to wait long for another D bus to come along. The 11:54 a.m. arrived not long after I made myself comfortable on a dented metal bench.

 I fumbled around my slippery coffee cup, my phone and the $2 I needed to get on the bus. CT Transit doesn't give change for the $1.50 fare.

 There were no seats available when I peered around bodies and scanned the back of the bus; only several pairs of eyes stared back at me.

 The connection bus stop on Chapel Street was also crowded. Buses came and left frequently. 

 The J, O, M, and G buses seemed as though they were taunting me, as I remained standing. After almost an hour, the Z bus had still not arrived.

 By 1:30 p.m., I was still waiting for the 12:40 p.m. bus. So I gave up and walked to the nearby Starbucks to use the wifi to get some work done. 

Thank you, Zipcar

After experiences like that, and knowing that I could not buy a car, I searched for other options and stumbled upon Zipcar.

 It is an organization which allows members to rent cars by the hour for that quick trip to the grocery store or picking a friend up from the train station.

 It was the perfect solution to the inconvenience of CT Transit.

 With the university sponsored plan, it is $25 annual membership and you are then charged an hourly rate of between $8 and $10, depending on car and location. Each car has its own gas card, so I don't have to pay for gas on top of those fees. 

 First you have to become a member by paying an annual membership fee that varies depending on how you apply and having your driving records checked. Once you have been approved, you will receive a Zipcard in the mail.

 The card becomes like your car key as you use it to lock and unlock the car you have reserved.

Here's the sensor where the Zipcard is held against to unlock the car.

When your time is almost up, you have to return the car to same parking spot you found it in. 

Two cars that are available in SCSU's West Campus parking garage.

A Zip trip to New York

This is where the convenient and cheap Zipcar becomes an expensive race to be back on time.

 The excitement I had at my new found freedom, led me to offer my services to pick up my friend from JFK airport in New York, as she was returning from her summer at home in Spain.

 I booked the car from 6:30 p.m. until 1:30 a.m. the next morning, which gave me some extra time for flight delays.

 As I left the airport to return home, my phone battery died.

 No GPS to get me back to New Haven.

 As we drove around trying to find a familiar highway, I couldn’t take my eyes off the clock.

 Midnight hit. Still lost. 

 Finally, as I was driving through a street in who-knows-where, I spotted a sign for I-95 North. North. That’s all I needed as I darted onto the highway and stepped on the gas.

 As the 1:30 a.m. mark arrived, we were still 45 minutes away and I couldn’t log onto my Zipcar application to extend my time, because my phone was dead.

 So, after the tense and hectic drive home, the following day I received an email from Zipcar informing me that I had been charged a late fee of $50 in addition to the $68.50 I had paid for the reservation. The trip cost me $118.50. 

 A shuttle bus from JFK to New Haven would have cost my friend only about $70. 

Back to square one

 Both CT Transit and Zipcar require lots of planning before my commute. But Zipcar gave me more control over when and how I get where I need to go. 

 The bus service is fine when you are not on a strict schedule. But for the majority of the working world, work starts at a certain time.

 A daily commute to work would be impossible or at least excessively expensive with Zipcar. For the full day it costs almost $70, and the car has to be returned to the exact same spot it came from.

Not a minute late.