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Public Transportation in Connecticut

February 24, 2010

I have lived in Hartford almost seven months now and every once and a while I get an itching to go out and try public transportation. I see them everywhere, Connecticut’s DOT buses and all their blueness. But their usefulness escapes me. Granted I live in the major city and work in a suburb, but one would think that I would be able to get a bus from relatively close to my apartment complex and be able to have it drop me off at work. (And of course the reason why I think this is because I have a bus stop at the front door of my place of employement.) However, this is not the case. For some reason when Connecticut was determining the bus routes, they felt it was common knowledge that only people north of the city center would want to work in the northern part of the state; being closer to West Hartford than Bloomfield, I need not apply.

This is silly. Why can’t I catch one bus from my neighborhood of Parkville and get to Windsor? Why do I have to take a bus to the city center, and then get on another bus meant for people who live north of the center? To add insult to injury, I have to make my way down to CCSU every once and a while and forget trying to get from Windsor to New Britain in any reasonable timeframe.

I have to say that with the cold weather around us, my car coming to its 60,000 mile checkup, and the plethora of buses I pass on my commute to and from work, I should be able to take said buses! I don’t know what can be done about the current bus routes in Connecticut. I once tried to solve this issue at UConn as an undergraduate, but fell short. I think trying to take on a system as big as the one in Connecticut might be a lost cause.

And there is some good news on the public transportation front. There is a proposal for a light rail line to be installed from New Haven to Springfield (which will include a stop in both Hartford and New Britain. And there is a bus line that is being built especially for the New Britain to Hartford commute. Obviously these two projects haven’t even started yet, so it might be a loss cause on my part, but I am happy to see Connecticut thinking about commuters who want to use the public transportation that is offered. I just wish I could…