It was still dark and I was half asleep on Friday morning as I stood at the end of my driveway on Garden Street in Seymour, tea in hand, making my way to catch the 5:30 a.m. F bus into New Haven.
If I aim to use public transportation — and Friday I most certainly did — catching this bus is my one chance to get to work on time to teach journalism at 8 a.m. at Southern Connecticut State University.
So my heart sank and my feet sprang to action when I saw the bus. I was still about a block away from the stop, which is around the corner in front of French Park on Spruce Street.
Google times the walk at three minutes. I made it there in one, awkwardly running in my work clothes and dress shoes, tea abandoned on a nearby retaining wall.
The following details of my 11-and-a-half-hour day will be the first in a series on public transportation in Connecticut.
The CT Bus Diaries project is a collaboration between the New Haven Independent, the Valley Independent Sentinel and ten students from my multimedia journalism class at Southern.
We’ll be blogging about experiences on CTTransit’s bus lines this semester. We hope to give a glimpse into the hectic, routine and off-beat commutes of the people using the bus system. See a previous article about the system here.
We’ll start with columns about our own commutes on the CTTransit lines.
Sadly, my 5:30 a.m. sprint was not the only time I ended up running toward a bus on Friday.
Despite my study of the bus routes and maps provided on CTTransit.com, I was close to missing my first connection, and missed my afternoon connection entirely.
Clarence Saves the Day
The entire New Haven system operates as a hub with spokes: Buses from the suburbs convene at stops around the New Haven green. From there, riders can pick up a transfer to their destinations around the city.
For me, it means backtracking about two miles.
The lone bus from the Valley into New Haven takes me a roundabout route to work: Instead of driving the 9.5 miles from Seymour to Westville, the F bus takes me through Route 8 in Derby and Route 34 in Orange — an almost 18-mile trip with connections.
The route is roundabout for my needs. It’s also timed in a way that requires the early morning bus. If I catch the next F bus from Seymour, with connections I won’t make it to Southern’s campus until 8:08 a.m.
The 5:30 a.m. F bus from the Valley stops at a transit hub on Elm and Temple streets, across from the New Haven Public Library.
Once deposited on the sidewalk on Elm Street, I realized the directions I had prepared said to get off on Broadway and York instead.
So I checked the map inside the bus stop shelter and saw a big B stamped on the corner of Elm and Temple. I must be in the right place.
As I turned to face the street, I noticed a bus pull back toward the sidewalk. It was the one I just left, and Clarence, the bus driver, was motioning for me to come toward him.
I stepped back on the bus.
“I overheard you saying you were taking the B1,” Clarence said. “You’re not going to find it here.”
He then pointed across the New Haven green and carefully explained where I should stand to catch the next B1 bus.
“Walk fast, it’s coming soon,” Clarence warned.
I half-ran the length of the green, beating Clarence’s bus to the corner of Chapel and Temple. When I got there I panicked: had we misunderstood each other? Did he think I said D? Did he say D?
As he approached the corner, I walked back toward the bus and Clarence leaned his head out the window.
“You said B like boy, right?” I asked.
“That’s right,” he replied.
In the minute while he waited at a red light, Clarence had just enough time to explain that I could avoid the rushed walk and get off on Broadway and York. That would give me more time to walk to Chapel and York, where the B1 drives on its way out of downtown.
I planned to try it on my return trip.
Running after the F6
Planning the trip back to the Valley involved a choice: I could take the 4:10 p.m. F6, which would allow me to attend a full meeting at work, but would bring me home almost 12 hours after I left that morning.
Or I could leave the meeting an hour early, in order to catch the 3:02 p.m. bus — dropping me off in Seymour at about 4 p.m.
I chose the 3:02 bus home.
It meant catching the B bus from Southern’s campus at 2:19 p.m. and waiting about 25 minutes at the corner of Chapel and York, the plan Clarence described earlier that morning.
During the 19 minute ride to York Street, I chatted with Tiara, a hoola-hooping Army veteran studying English at Southern. By 2:40, I was walking down York toward my final connection point.
Two bus stop shelters on the south side of York and Chapel were filled with people when I arrived. The Q bus drove by them, and pulled over at the opposite corner. Two more buses did the same: avoiding the established bus stop because of construction on that portion of the street.
The F5 was the third bus to do so, stopping at exactly 3:02.
Again, panic.
Did I write down F6 when I should really be taking the F5? I climbed up onto the bus.
“Is this the bus into the Valley, or should I wait for the F6?” I asked the driver.
“The F6,” he said. “It’s coming soon. Just wait here where it can pull over.”
Sure enough, less than 10 minutes later, I saw the F6 approaching. I stood at the side of the street, as if to hail a taxi.
Then I stared in disbelief as the F6 blew by the stop and continued up Chapel Street.
For the third time that day, I started to run toward a bus. It worked twice before, but failed this third time.
Half a block later, I stopped. The F6 continued on its way without me.
I cursed myself for trying this mid-route connection, as I walked the three blocks to the Chapel Street hub to wait an hour for the next F6 bus.
On the 4:10 ride home, I saw many of the same faces I saw on the 5:30 a.m. bus, people who came into New Haven from the Valley with me. I finally got home around 5:15 p.m.
It seems a 12-hour day is common when you commute from the Valley to New Haven on the bus.
My daughter attends SCSU and on occasionally takes this same bus when she has a different schedule than her usual ride…it is so crazy that her route goes to downtown NH in order to backtrack to Southern..there is one bus a day, I think, that goes up to the industrial park directly from NH up Rt. 63. Too bad this can’t be expanded.
“on occasion”…sorry.
Wow!! Are you sure you did the right thing? All those buses! I work at Southern an thought it would be awesome to take the bus but when I did a trial run, I realized it wouldn’t work.
I live in Derby so I’d take the F bus but I remember it going pretty much up 34 and to the New Haven Green with stops along the way. It didn’t take more than 15 minutes longer than if I’d driven.
But it was at the Green that the problem happened. I had to wait over half an hour for the B bus that goes to Southern. Again – it was one bus that goes to Southern with stops along the way. And then it went no further than the bus stop in front of Conn Hall so I had to walk the rest of the way to Facilities.
So it was only two buses but it took over an hour where driving takes me 20 minutes.
Same on the way back. I wouldn’t get home until after 5 p.m but it’s only two buses.
How did you get so many buses?? The bus I took came from Seymour and we went straight to New Haven.
Oh and I’m not sure if they still have it, but SCSU had shuttle busses to the New Haven train station. Only problem with that is that you have to take the train to Bridgeport, get off, get on the New Haven train and the be picked up at the station and driven to SCSU. The times wouldn’t be good for me since I start work at 7 a.m. And it’s stupid anyway.
Great subject. I commute from Seymour to Bradley International Airport daily. The time and expense of the commute is burdensome, to say the least. I have looked at CT Transit’s schedules but there is no practical way for me to take the bus. The routes don’t run early enough and my 11-hour work day would turn into a 16-hour day. There is no train service to Bradley either. The Amtrak station is several miles away and you’ll never find a cab there. We have a long way to go before mass transit becomes practical for the daily commuter.