Jodie Mozdzer Gil Photo
Brenda Durden’s employer pays for her to take the F bus from Ansonia to downtown New Haven every day. But despite the gas and parking savings that come with the perk, Durden drove her car most of the way for several months last year—parking in the Stop and Shop lot on Whalley Avenue and catching the B bus for the last leg of the trip to avoid the high parking costs in downtown New Haven. She had no choice: the last F bus from New Haven to the Valley left at 7:30 p.m., and Durden was taking night classes after work.
The bus schedules keep some riders away.
“If the schedules were different, if would be different for people,” Durden (pictured above) said the other day as she sat on the F6 bus back to Ansonia. “Especially for the people who live outside of the city.”
Durden has worked for the Social Security Administration for the last 19 years. Up until three years ago, she commuted to the Church Street building from her home in New Haven, taking the bus about 20 minutes each way.
Then she moved to Ansonia.
She catches the 5:45 a.m. bus out of the Valley each morning, riding through Derby, then Shelton, then Derby again, before the bus hops on Route 34 through Orange on its way downtown.
The worst part, Durden said, is waiting for the bus. The F6 line back to the Valley runs only once an hour most of the day, with half-hour trips between 4 and 6 p.m.
“It would be easier to drive,” Durden said. “But it wouldn’t be cheaper.”
She once estimated she would pay between $150 and $200 a month on parking and would have to fill her gas tank twice a week if she drove to New Haven each day.
Her company offers flex time, so theoretically Duren could leave New Haven about eight hours after arriving. But she is also taking classes at Gateway Community College, an effort that sees her schedule changing each semester.
Last semester, courses had her in New Haven until after 9 p.m.
The last bus back to Ansonia leaves Chapel and Temple streets at 7:30 p.m.
Her solution: Drive from Ansonia through Woodbridge, about a 15-minute commute. Then park her car at Stop and Shop in New Haven and catch the bus downtown.
Then she could catch a bus as late as 10:45 p.m. back to the parking lot, where she would get her car and drive the rest of the way home.
She wouldn’t mind her commute so much if the bus took that route all the time, Durden said.
“If there was a bus that went down Fountain Street, I’d be on it every day,” Durden said.
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.
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