Train Progress Hailed; Buses? ​“Stay Tuned”

Local, state, and federal officials descended on New Haven Monday to celebrate the ​“resounding success” of a year-old commuter rail line that connects New Haven, Hartford, and Springfield.

They also said that a decade-in-the-works bus study is almost complete, and that long-awaited local transit improvements should be coming … sometime soon?

The day marked the one-year-and-two-day anniversary of the Hartford Line, the 62-mile passenger train line that began its 16 daily round trip rides between New Haven and Hartford on June 15, 2018.

The project took over a decade and $700 million in public money to build.

At a Monday morning presser in the main hall of New Haven’s Union Station, Gov. Ned Lamont, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, state Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Joe Giulietti, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and Mayor Toni Harp hailed the intensive public infrastructure project as well worth the investment and the wait.

“I can safely say it has been a resounding success on every level,” Giulietti said, ​“in terms of ridership, on time performance, transit-oriented development, all up and down the line.” The local, state, and federal politicians had less to say about the long-planned improvements to the city’s dysfunctional public bus system. (See more below for the DOT public transit chief’s plans to release those final recommendations later this year, and his request that city bus riders, ​“Stay tuned.”)

As for the Hartford Line, the politicians in attendance had nothing but glowing praise for the popularity and impact of the commuter rail line since last June.

More than 634,000 riders have taken the New Haven-Hartford line since it launched last year, Bysiewicz said. ​“That’s 51,000 more people than anyone projected. The success is astounding and amazing.”

Harp said that the hundreds of market-rate apartments sprouting up downtown at the Audubon Square and 87 Union St. complexes are being built where they are in large part thanks to their close proximity to functional mass public rail transit like the Hartford Line and Metro North.

“New Haven will be, as it should be,” the mayor said, ​“an easier-to-reach destination.”

According to the DOT’s one-year report, the line has spurred $430 million in transit-oriented development in Wallingford, Meriden, Berlin, Windsor, and Windsor Locks.

Guilietti also pointed to stats listed on the DOT’s website and in a Hartford Line one-year report for measurements of the line’s success that go beyond ridership and development numbers.

“Since opening, it is estimated that passengers have safely sent more than 50,000 text messages that otherwise may have been sent while driving (based on the average number of texts people send when driving),” the site reads. ​“There are enough words in those texts to fill almost 4 copies of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Over 1,700 US tons of carbon dioxide emissions have been avoided by passengers who have taken the train rather than driven, the site reads. ​“It would take more than 2 decades for the 2,500 trees at the Bartlett Arboretum in Stamford to absorb that much CO2.”

The train line’s one-year report paints a slightly less rosy picture of the nascent train line’s finances. According to the DOT, the Hartford Line cost $43.9 million to operate between July 2018 and June 2019, but it only brought in $7.2 million in revenue. ​“The expenses for these services include, but are not limited to, labor, fuel, rail car lease payments, locomotive and rail car maintenance, station maintenance, snow removal, and ticket vending machine maintenance and support,” the report reads. ​“The expenses do not include one-time mobilization costs to initiate service.”

“If you build it,” Blumenthal said about commuter rail lines like the Hartford Line, ​“they will come. They’re coming already.” The next necessary step for this line, he said, is for Massachusetts and Connecticut to work together to attract federal public transportation investment dollars towards building out a commuter line between Springfield and Boston.

“Rail is part of America’s future,” he said, ​“as well as its past.”

Bus Improvements?

The event was Lamont’s second press conference at Union Station in as many months.

In response to a question about the latest with the Move New Haven bus study, a years-long collaboration between the state, the city, and the Greater New Haven Transit District that has found that the local bus system is inefficient and dysfunctional, state transit officials said final bus system improvement recommendations should be ready later this year.

The last time the state held a public update on the project was nine months ago.

“The study is nearing completion,” said state DOT Public Transportation Chief Rich Andreski. ​“There’s discussion about the exact recommendations. The key will be not only to recommend changes to the system, but how to fund those changes. Stay tuned. It is a document that we’re planning to release later this year.”

Lamont also doubled down on his commitment to reduce public bus fares from $1.75 per ride to $1.

The state needs to ​“make it easier for people to get from here to there at less cost,” he said.

How We Doin’?

After the press conference, Lamont, Bysiewicz and Giulietti road the Hartford Line back to Hartford. They made their way to the front of the train they stopped to ask each passenger for complains or compliments on the railway.

Most passengers gave positive reviews of the line, emphasizing its efficiency and reliability. They encountered a number of passengers who are students and teachers from Southern Connecticut State University and University of Connecticut, highlighting the line’s importance for education.

The train made stops in Wallingford, Meriden, and Berlin, while staffers pointed out the locations for future stops including North Haven, Newington, West Hartford, Windsor, Windsor Locks, and Enfield.

Passenger Carter Prue, who commutes to Hartford from New York City, declared his riding experience so far ​“fabulous.” He prefers the train connection from New Haven to riding the bus. ​“With all the traffic, riding the bus makes scheduling anything impossible,” he said.

Carter added he would like to see the older cars get updated. He said the ​“antiquated” website for train schedules could use a revamping as well.

The train arrived one minute after the estimated arrival time at 12:26, and Lamont and Bysiewicz held a second press conference on Hartford Union Station’s Track One. They discussed ideas for further improvements on the line, including online ticketing and addition of handicapped-accessible bathrooms.

Bus Mini-Hubs; Farmington Canal Phase IV

If the bus progress Lamont promised Monday does finally come to New Haven, it will look in part like this: Mini-“hubs” will open in Westville Village, in Fair Haven, in West Haven, and just over the Hamden town line at Dixwell Avenue and Arch Street.

So said New Haven Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli.

Piscitelli, appearing on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program (and filling in Toni Harp’s weekly ​“Mayor Monday” slot as she rode the rails with Gov. Lamont), said the hubs will relieve some of the pressure on the formerly titled ​“B” and ​“D” routes (Whalley; Grand/Dixwell), which sometimes get backed up, sometimes two buses at a time, because of the heavy use. The idea is to create new cross-town routes from the hubs that enable people to reach north-south destinations more directly without having to travel all the way to the main hub on the Green and then back out again on a different bus.

Asked if he believes the state will follow through on its promises to invest in improving New Haven bus service, Piscitelli remarked that ​“it’s a little demoralizing” to watch the legislature come up short each year in trying to create a stable funding source for transit.

He was more confident about good news coming soon for the completion of the final, fourth phase of the Farmington Canal pedestrian-bike trail through the rest of downtown.

It took years for the city to negotiate and win local approval for easements from abutting property owners. That has all finally happened, Piscitelli reported. The only remaining steps involve winning state DOT certification of a final right-of-way agreement as well as for the final plans for the trail. Piscitelli credited activists like Aaron Goode (who posed the question during the program) and Abby Roth for helping push for completion of the project. (Click here for background on the subject.)

In retrospect, the process might have moved more quickly if the city and property owners had agreed to ​“friendly condemnations” instead with a fair value set on the land, Piscitelli said. ​“I think we learned that through this project” for the future.

Piscitelli, who serves as president of the Connecticut chapter of the American Planning Association, also updated listeners on plans for new hotels in town, the Downtown Crossing Project, and New Haven’s efforts to tackle affordable housing and neighborhood development along with center-city projects. ​“New Haven is not on auto-pilot,” he said.

Paul Bass contributed to this report.

Click on the Facebook Live videos to watch the Hartford Line anniversary pressers in New Haven and in Hartford.

WNHH’s ​“Mayor Monday” is made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.