Paul Bass File Photo
Harp signs a goNewHavengo! bus pledge.
New Haven should seek more control over how public buses run — or else start its own microbus service to fill gaps in the state’s broken system.
So suggested Mayor Toni Harp.
She made the suggestion during the most recent episode of “Mayor Monday” on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program, during a discussion of a public event her transportation chief held at BAR last week on promoting alternatives to car commuting.
Harp has previously called for better bus service in New Haven, which is controlled by CT Transit, an arm of the state Department of Transportation. A recent report found, for instance, that lower-income New Haveners would have to travel 90 minutes or longer — on a good day, much longer at night or on weekends — to reach entry and mid-level jobs in suburbs. If they can get there at all. Bus routes are geared to commuting models from a half century ago, when people traveled in town to factories or other city jobs, rather than at odd hours to, say, retail positions on Boston Post Road or North Haven’s Universal Drive. Meanwhile, a quarter of New Haveners, and far more than that in lower-income neighborhoods, have no regular access to a car to go to work.
“All the decisions are made regionally and in Hartford. Often they don’t take into consideration the needs of the people in the city. Then they make plans in terms of routes. It takes forever for them to figure out that a route is not an appropriate route. It doesn’t get people where they need to go,” Harp said during the WNHH interview. “I really think the planning of all that needs to happen a little bit more locally.”
Harp also suggested that Yale open its shuttle service up to all people in New Haven.
Barring more control over CT Transit routes, Harp floated the idea of the New Haven government launching a “microbus system that overlays the Connecticut Transit if we can’t wrestle it away from them to make it more efficient.”
She hasn’t explored the details of such a plan yet, she said. But she imagines it involving the city purchasing minibuses. Drivers would pick up people at a central spot in town to take them, for instance, to jobs at the Connecticut Post Mall in Milford during times when CT Transit service is limited.
“You would take [a regular bus] to a certain point and get some credit and then take the microbus to where you need to go. Everybody going out there would meet in a certain place in a certain time,” she said.
She suggested the city could use federal block grant money to support the service, and perhaps help a small business get started to operate it.
“It just seems to me that if we can’t get CT Transit to actually get people to where they need to go in an efficient way, then we have to create something on top of it,” Harp argued.
During the program, Harp also discussed the role of nonviolence in lessons taught during Black History Month, sparked by a reading of a passage in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ National Book Award-winning Between The World And Me.
Click on or download the above sound file to hear the entire “Mayor Monday” episode. The segment about transit begins at 17:45. The discussion about Ta-Nehisi Coates and Black History Month begins at 41:50.
Subscribe to WNHH’s new podcast “Dateline New Haven,” where episodes of the show will be delivered directly to your phone or smart device. (Click here for details on how to subscribe.)
Monday’s episode of “Dateline New Haven” was made possible in partnership with Gateway Community College.