Student To State: Let Teens Ride Free

Adrian Huq took a quick break between classes Tuesday to join a Transit Equity Day event on the Green — where they called for free bus rides for people 18 and under, before rushing to catch the 234 on Church Street to head back to school.

Huq, 22, was one of a half-dozen speakers at a midday press conference held at the corner of Church and Chapel Streets and organized by local transit and climate activist Melinda Tuhus.

The event was held on what would have been Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks’ 112th birthday, and saw bus riders, advocates, and city officials call for a cleaner and more expansive public bus system.

Huq focused their remarks on calling for the state to abolish fares for all public bus riders aged 18 and under.

A recent Metropolitan Business Academy graduate who is now a first-year master’s student at Yale’s School of the Environment, Huq said they still take the bus — the 255, to be exact — five days a week to go to and from their home in Derby. 

As a New Haven high schooler, Huq regularly took the public bus home from after-school programs, and has long spoken up about the importance of a reliable, efficient, comprehensive, and eco-friendly public transit system in their role as a leader with the New Haven Climate Movement. (They’re also now backing a ​“transportation transformation resolution” that the New Haven Climate Movement has introduced to the Board of Alders.)

Huq said that the state’s abolition of bus fares from April 2022 to April 2023 provided ​“essential financial relief” for all riders struggling with pandemic-era inflation. Ridership went up; the bus system worked better.

Now, they said, the state should do something similar — to encourage young people to ride the bus to school and work, and to provide financial relief for parents across Connecticut.

“It’s high time to invest in youth and subsidize free rides” for riders 18 and younger, they said.

“Transportation is no minor expense,” Huq continued. Thirty-one day passes cost $63. Yes, a state bill passed last year provided New Haven’s school system with $175,000 to buy bus passes for students. That goes a long way to helping young New Haveners use public transit. But, they continued, the state should ​“forego the middleman” of school districts — and just allow anyone up to 18 to ride free on CTtransit.

State Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesperson Josh Morgan told the Independent that the state ​“has been investing in longer, more frequent service hours and establishing new routes to fill gaps in transit service.” That includes extending service for 17 local routes in the Greater New Haven area to 1 a.m.

“As operational costs continue to rise, groups seeking fare exemptions are costs that would need to be made up elsewhere,” Morgan continued. He said the state offers the CTpass program, which already provides discounted fares to all schools. 

CTtransit also already offers free fares for children under 4 years old, and discounted fares for those aged 5 to 18.

As Tuesday’s Transit Equity Day event on the Green wound to a close, with speakers preparing to take a ceremonial bus ride along with a picture of Rosa Parks, Huq headed off to catch a bus of their own — in order to get back to the Yale School of the Environment in time for their environmentally themed writing class.