Thomas Breen Photo
Aboard the 206.
Roland Lemar decided to pass up a free ride to supporting constituents’ quests for free bus rides.
The New Haven state representative co-chairs the legislature’s Transportation Committee. So he potentially has influence over whether people should pay $1.75 to ride buses again starting April 1, when a pandemic-era suspension of fares expires. Some of Lemar’s constituents — and the New Haven Board of Alders — support keeping the rides free for good.
“I want the bus service to be free — but I want the general fund to pay for it,” Lemar said when asked about the subject Thursday during an interview on WNHH FM.
But, he added, “that’s an easy thing for me to say.” Too easy.
Because any effort to spend $45 million needed to keep bus rides free would return to … Lemar’s Transportation Committee for review and approval.
That would mean Lemar would have to make a tough choice between which environmental and public-transit priorities to pay for. Because you can’t pay for every good idea.
After reviewing the results of the popular free-ride experiment for the past year and holding a recent hearing, Lemar concluded that other transit-boosting measures are a higher priority.
The suspension of fares did boost ridership, Lemar said. But it didn’t bring people out of their cars to take the bus instead, as advocates hoped.
“People aren’t making the choice: ‘Instead of driving today, I’ll take the bus because it’s free.’ It looks like what’s happening is a lot of people who would otherwise walk or ride bikes or take that transportation now, instead of doing that, jump on the bus.” (Fact check: This reporter is one of those latter people.)
“So it’s not having the mood shift, [the] benefits that we originally I thought it would,” Lemar said.
Further, in questioning riders about how to improve bus service, they heard less about the $1.75 cost than about “route predictability, route frequency, and whether or not you could get on the bus safely during a snowstorm. Or [if] a shelter properly is located where there are rats , [or if] the destinations make sense in the 21st century. “
“So to me, if we want to encourage mode shift, those are the issues we have to focus on,” Lemar said. Even if that means not taking the easy pass to public approval by backing a popular idea that he could blame on other officials for not funding.
Green Light For Cameras
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
State Rep. Roland Lemar in his Hartford office.
In the interview, Lemar expressed optimism about being able to say yes to a different popular idea in New Haven: passing a bill to support New Haven in installing automated “speed cameras” to catch dangerous drivers at identified dangerous intersections.
That bill for years has died at the legislature. This year’s version made it through Lemar’s committee. He said he has heard from legislative leaders that it will make it to the House floor for debate and a vote.
“I feel we’re in a much better spot than we’ve been in years past,” Lemar said.
He was asked about a criticism made by former State Rep. and gubernatorial aide Michael Lawlor: That the state doesn’t need to pass a bill. That New Haven already would have the authority to install cameras without enabling legislation — but without setting up a municipal system to keep the money, as Lemar’s bill envisions. (Lawlor repeated that critique this week in this WNHH interview.)
Lemar responded that he ran that critique by attorneys for his committee, for the state House, and the Department of Transportation, and they disagree: They tell him their understanding of state law is that New Haven needed authorizing language.
He noted as well as the bill requires communities to spend all money raised from speeding fines on traffic-safety measures in the context of a broader existing “safe streets” program. Which New Haven already has in place.
Hamden Legislative Council member Justin Farmer posted a question to Lemar during the interview: Who will hold and control data from the cameras? And what happens if the data is misused.
Lemar responded that he worked with the ACLU to craft a “national model” of a data retention policy that would prevent misuse by requiring the destruction of collected data upon adjudication of each case.
Click on the video for the full WNHH interview with State Rep. Roland Lemar, which included discussion of efforts to prevent the Department of Transportation from destroying trees in the course of road or sidewalk construction. Click here to subscribe to “Dateline New Haven” and here to subscribe to other WNHHFM podcasts.
You forgot to add "only for privileged, middle-class White people who don't have disabilities" to the "safe streets " program that New Haven has.