Emili Lanno Photo
Marlene Anderson sat at the bus stop on Chapel Street in New Haven on a recent Saturday, waiting for her bus to come pick her up even though she had no idea when it was coming for her.
“Nowadays to know what bus you have to take, you have to have the Internet,” Anderson said. “What if a citizen doesn’t have a phone to call in and ask what bus they have to take?”
That’s Anderson’s situation.
She knows the Q bus will take her to work. But with no Internet and no cell phone, she had no way of checking the weekend schedule before arriving at the bus stop.
Her plan: Arrive around 7:30 and hope a bus picked her up in time to get to work for 8 a.m.
Anderson doesn’t take the bus often, but due to car issues she is trying her commute via public transit.
“The bus route is terrible on the weekend,” said Anderson. “I’ve been waiting since 7:30 this morning and it’s now 8:30 and look, I’m still waiting.”
According to the CT Transit schedule posted online, the Q3 bus should have come by the Chapel Street stop at 7:35, 8:15 and 8:55 a.m.
The bus finally picked her up around 8:45 a.m.
“I see everyone catching the bus that they need to, either the D bus or the F bus, but not mine,” said Anderson, shortly before her bus finally came. “I’ll just sit here and keep waiting.”
To get to work, she can catch the Q2, Q3, or Q4. The weekend schedule shows only the Q3 runs by her stop on Saturday mornings.
“Just look,” said Anderson. “Everyone is sitting on these benches at the bus stop like they are comfortable. But not me.”
No everyone drives a car. And not everyone has the Internet, Anderson said.
So CT Transit should make the bus schedule more accessible, said Anderson.
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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