This used to be a bus stop. Then it wasn’t. Then it was supposed to be one for a while. Now it won’t be. Does that make New Haven like New Orleans?
One elderly advocate for bus riders thought so Tuesday night. She and other advocates attended a meeting of the Traffic Authority at 1 Union Ave. They saw the commissioners scrap a plan, approved just last month, to test out a bus stop on Church Street near Chapel, across from the Green.
City and Connecticut Transit officials opposed the test. They said existing bus stops one block away in either direction are convenient enough for bus riders. They also said there’s too little space on that stretch of Church Street — about 150 feet, room for no more than three busses. When busses run late, up to five can get backed up, they said.
That spot had a bus stop until the mid-‘90s, when the city scrapped a bunch of stops around the Green to please to owners of the Omni Hotel and the Chapel Square Mall, who didn’t want poor people and black kids downscaling the ambience. Since then all but one of the stops have been restored, thanks to tireless activism by the group of advocates who showed up at Tuesday’s meeting.
This last stop has been the exception. Last month they convinced the traffic commissioners to try out the stop for a 60-day period.
The city didn’t get around to starting the trial in the 30 days since that vote. A traffic department staffer told the commissioners the city was still working out criteria for the test. The commissioners didn’t buy it. “It’s amazing,” said Commissioner Richard Epstein said. “It’s not like this is the first bus that ever was invented. To say you didn’t know what to do for 30 days … insult[s] our intelligence.”
But the commissioners did buy arguments from city traffic czar Paul Wessel and Connecticut Transit District Manager Victor Marques that the limited space for the stop posed potential safety problems, because busses might back up into traffic at the Church and Chapel intersection. The commissioners reluctantly voted to quash the 60-day test of the stop.
Wessel said that that corner has changed in the intervening years. New businesses and offices have moved in, like Channel 30, Ultrecht Art Supply and Casey Family Services. Five parking spaces have been added. Plus, he said, the sidewalk is too narrow for bus shelters.
The city’s and Connecticut Transit’s arguments reminded bus advocate Ruth Emerson of Hurricane Katrina.
“The powers that be took care of people who had cars. They didn’t pay attention to people who didn’t have cars. That’s a lesson New Haven could have learned from looking at New Orleans,” she said.
Fellow advocate Anna Aschenbach turned around the city’s concern for the loss of five parking spaces. Rather than worrying about parkers having to walk an extra block, the city should worry about old people, disabled people, and parents with young children having to walk the extra block, especially in bad weather, Aschenbach said.
“Everything seems to be geared to the people who have cars,” she said. “The people who can’t afford cars, the elderly people, they are the ones who suffer.”
Representatives of the Town Green Special Services District attended the hearing and distributed a letter opposing the 60-day trial stop. The letter argued that there’s “no evidence that the return of a bus stop … would enhance Connecticut Transit’s service. While the removal of the bus stop there may have caused some inconveniences for people transferring busses a few years ago, we are concerned that just as many current users would be again inconvenienced by the repositioning of the bus stop from its current location, forcing them to change their bus transfer patterns. From our perspective, then, the only reason to move the bus stop back … would be sentimental.”