Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.
Hartford Line To Do List
CTrail and Amtrak and whoever else might be responsible for communicating to the public about the Hartford Line’s impending construction situation had a major communication fail.
First of all, I should preface everything by letting readers know that I’m not angry. A few reporters have described me as that lately, and first of all. . . wow. Are we still calling women “angry” so easily? Way to mess up any chance of me being in a heteronormative relationship again. So. . . thank you for that, I guess? But really. Third of all, I have nuanced emotions. Fourth: if transpo dudes can talk about infrastructure without being called emotional, I know you all can handle omitting “she’s being emotional” implications to descriptions.
Me being all WTF Hartford Line is a logical reaction to pisspoor communication about what can be a major disruption to someone’s travel.
To break this down: with only about two or three weeks’ notice, it was announced that the Hartford Line would lose most of its train service from July 18 through September 11.
It doesn’t matter if there were rumors that frequent passengers heard. It doesn’t matter that a train guy on Twitter had posted a little about this. The official sources of information for infrequent travelers and those not on Twitter failed.
When you buy train tickets in advance, they are not refundable.
Under normal circumstances, there’s a generous expiration date.
Shutting down the tracks for two months at the height of summer travel is not normal circumstances.
This became a rush to figure out how to swing the trips I’d already planned, crunching what would’ve been spread out over the whole summer into a couple weeks. You all know I work full time and have other obligations. I’m not some independently wealthy chick who can just do whatever whenever. I had to use some vacation time. First world problems, maybe, but it was annoying. There was a lot of thoughts and prayers being sent up for decent weather. Nobody wants dreary pics.
Then, after the vague initial announcement, they finally posted the construction schedule, which sucks but sucks less than what their first announcement insinuated. On weekdays there will be one train running to New Haven in the morning, and two in the evening; there will be four weekday trains running to Springfield, all at night. On Saturdays, there will be eleven trains to New Haven and ten to Springfield, throughout the day. Eleven trains to New Haven and twelve to Springfield on Sundays.
So, the people getting screwed hard with this are the weekday commuters, and not those riding mostly on the weekends.
The second I found out this bit, I backed off on my travel frenzy. The #BeyondHartfordBeyondCars series will still, God willing, be what I’d planned it to be. Didn’t I just say I was robust?
But let’s back up.
It was cute when the initial announcement was made and people were like “oh, but bus replaces train so it’ll be fine.”
I’m not a snob. I do ride the bus. But a city bus isn’t the same as a long distance bus. Let’s talk about that for a moment.
There are delays sometimes when you ride the train, and you can’t exactly detour because of the whole trains being on rails thing, but, there are constant delays and sometimes closures when it comes to using highways. I’ve been on long distance buses where New York City traffic added an additional hour or more to a trip. Train travel is safer. The stop and go of highway travel can be hell for people with motion sickness.
I don’t think anyone worried about being 100% stranded when the Hartford Line construction was announced; bus substitution was expected. But is anyone going to wave pompoms over this?
A detail that is going to definitely trip up people who want to be told things instead of reading a schedule: there are often two buses running at the same time. One is express: get on at Hartford, get off at State Street or New Haven Union; one is local, with stops at every station between Hartford and New Haven. Judging by how emphatic conductors are when approaching New Haven and having to explain many times that State Street has no MetroNorth connection, I’m wondering how people are going to do when they get on the express and then panic because they’re not stopping in Meriden, or, when people get on the local and waste a lot of time because they should’ve been on the express bus.
Anyway, to make up for this massive communication fuckup, here are some things that I think would be ways to make nice:
- any tickets already purchased should have expiration date extended through the end of 2022.
- Hartford Union Station needs to practice its self-care, okay? Why is the women’s bathroom sign scotch taped on? That’s some bootleg shit that I would do. Actually, no. The women’s room sign I have posted in my house is affixed properly. I will buy you all the double-sided heavy duty tape to reattach the sign if I have to. Speaking of the women’s room: refill and/or fix those brand new soap dispensers. How are you already out of soap? How? Why? Why is the bag hook in the handicapped stall already broken off? I didn’t do a full inspection, but I’m sure there are other things that are amiss, and I definitely didn’t go in the men’s room. Can we talk about those water fountains? Why do they have bags over them? If it’s plumbing, fix it. People need water. There are vacant kiosks/booths. Fill them. I’m not going to cry over a Dunkin leaving, but how hard is it to keep one of those small newspaper stands with a few coffee urns, some pastries, and the basics? Where can people charge devices? I was happy to see that the bathroom remodel involved expanding the number of stalls and having long doors that lock, but everything else about Hartford’s Union Station was making me cringe. It’s not a great first impression.
- Elsewhere on the Hartford Line: every single station should have at least one portable toilet that is routinely inspected. It’s not asking so much to have a place to pee. Indoor plumbing would be better, but absolute bare minimum, a portapotty with toilet paper and hand sanitizer.
- Elsewhere on the Hartford Line and Shore Line East, because why not: every single station should have a local map, complete with “you are here” marker. Why not make it easier for visitors to know where they are? If most restaurants or shops are in a certain direction, tell people. Take our money. The chambers of commerce can pay for these.
To recap: not angry, just expressing a rational expectation about being notified regarding how a several month construction project is going to impact my plans. I read The Rules in the 90s. I have standards for notice.
Again, not angry. . . just hungry.
Walkable WeHa
You can only turn down social invites so many times because getting home is irritating, so, I found myself in the Greater Bishops Corner area on a Friday night. On the way in, it was dicey enough between the bus stop and my friend’s house. I will never enjoy the Trout Brook Drive and Albany Ave intersection, but when UConn left its West Hartford location, they removed the mid-block crosswalk and pedestrian signal, so there is no semi-safe option to cross Trout Brook between Albany and Asylum. That’s 0.6 miles without a safe way to cross. But, moving around in the daytime (with a flower bouquet adding visibility) is different from the trip home.
I’ve written about this before. At night, there are long gaps between buses. The options involve crossing Trout Brook and Albany again to go to one of the well-lit bus stops with benches. That means walking away from where I want to go. Or, I can find a closer stop on a narrow sidewalk along a street where people are driving fast. There are no benches on Albany Ave or Asylum Ave. The street lighting is so poor that when I’ve done this I’ve hailed the bus by turning on my phone flashlight. One time the driver commented that he wouldn’t have seen me if I didn’t do that.
Biking home on a Friday night, I’ve learned through experience, is not good. If we had protected bike lanes, that would be different. Instead, we have a free for all of reckless and impaired drivers. Paint isn’t going to separate us.
So, I walked.
I spent over an hour walking home, hoping I’d encounter a scooter on the way. There were several on my street, but nothing in between. By now, I know when the sidewalk stops on which sides of Asylum Avenue in West Hartford, the “safe” town without sidewalk along Elizabeth Park or University of St. Joseph. There is also no sidewalk along parts of Trout Brook Drive. It’s so dark that you have no idea what’s underfoot — groundhog hole? broken glass? needles? dog poop? There could be anything, plus you’re walking through grass, so add “tick check” to the list of things you didn’t want to be doing after 11 when you finally get home at night.
I had walked along Asylum, hoping to get the bus, but as timing and luck would have it, paths did not cross — no doubt because I had detoured through Elizabeth Park to avoid a no sidewalk section, and that’s when the bus went by. Oh well.
I should mention the salt in this wound.
The former UConn parking lot on Trout Brook Drive is being used by Trinity Health (St. Francis) for off-site parking. They have a whole bus shelter and security. It’s well-lit. They also have a shuttle bus that runs “continuously” according to their site. I would’ve gladly hopped on this shuttle, gotten out at the hospital, and shaved that walk down to 20 minutes. It’s interesting that this was their solution instead of asking employees to take the existing buses and then demand more frequent service from those routes.
You do get a very nice paved path through the park at Asylum Avenue and Trout Brook Drive, but it’s not lit at night and it feels like you’re not allowed to walk through.
Fun With Schedules
Some buses, some days, offer frequent service. Going to West Hartford Center on a weekday? Going somewhere on the CTfastrak on a weekday? Don’t even check schedule. There’s a bus like every ten minutes. Cool.
However, there are the others.
The other day I found out how what was inconvenient and annoying could be potentially dangerous. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to share this because I don’t think it’s common. I’m out all the time, and mostly, bad things don’t happen between strangers. I had taken one of the very fast and frequent buses to an undisclosed (but very public and busy) location to get a connecting bus so I could visit a friend. This was my first time trying to take the bus to her because even though it stops across from her house, it comes only hourly and in a loop.
I arrive to this busy area and hear a guy yelling. There’s always some guy yelling in public, so I listen for context — angry, messing around, raging about a sports team? I figure out where it’s coming from and see him approaching various people and yelling threatening things at them. So, not even a standard dispute between two people who have entered into a disagreement.
There are a few people who I am familiar with locally, who cause a ruckus but are just yelling at cars or shouting into the void with their terrible Bible interpretations. I was not familiar with this guy, and when he came up to me I was like, nope, not going to stay here for another 25 or so minutes to see if he is going to get physical.
Because I didn’t have this new-to-me bus route memorized, I couldn’t simply walk a few blocks and wait somewhere else. Because this town loves its weirdo circular and zigzagging routes, I couldn’t easily grab another one that put me somewhere near to what I wanted to do.
So, I walked a few blocks in an area I know and called for a Lyft, my first time in an Uber/Lyft since March 2020 and maybe my fifth time ever calling one. I was grateful to have this backup option, but also resentful because it’s expensive as hell.
For the return trip, I got dropped off at the bus stop with the fast service, and was on my way in two minutes — and I don’t know what happened to the screaming guy, but he was not there several hours later.
I do want to emphasize that I don’t think waiting for or riding the bus is inherently dangerous. This was the first time I ever had the instinct to leave an area entirely because someone was not acting right. But it is something else for the people who decide schedules to consider. Service every half hour is a dramatic improvement from hourly. If St. Francis (Trinity Health) can run a “continuous” shuttle between the hospital and its parking lot, well, there’s another question: why do parking lot shuttles at all run so frequently? Why is a certain class of people’s time determined to be more important than that of others? Why not run one of those mini buses every 20 minutes on these currently low frequency routes?
That wasn’t my only schedule fun this week.
There was trying to figure out train schedules for various trips on Hartford Line and Shore Line East but on different days of the week, and getting information scrambled. . . plus navigating what’s available with the upcoming #GetRailedCT Summer Of Being Grounded, or whatever you’d like to call taking away most train service (maybe) on the Hartford Line for two months.
I was going to do a Hammonasset Beach trip because I was feeling basic, but when I looked at the schedules — Hartford Line, Shore Line East, and Clinton Trolley (plus the other free buses down there) — I realized that it was not going to work out unless:
1. I was staying overnight in Clinton or Madison [not in the budget]
2. I was traveling from New London. [not in budget or plans] There really needs to be another one or two trains on the route traveling east from New Haven.
3. I was okay doing all that travel for a mere half hour or so at the park [two hours of solid park time was what I wanted]
4. I was okay burning to a crisp waiting for the later train back [nope]
5. I took my bike on board [now to figure out which trains are best bet for that]
Because I realized this on the morning I was going to go, I did a quick change of plans to go elsewhere on the shore. . . except I forgot that train times out of Hartford would be different and when I showed up to Union Station was greeted by lots of police. Like federal? Train police? I didn’t want to stare, but they were wearing black outfits that looked super serious and I was the whole time “don’t act suspicious, don’t act suspicious, they’re not here for you” but I can’t help but seem suspicious at train stations. That’s when I realized I’d looked at the wrong schedule and would either leave and return in more than an hour (looking more suspicious) or do something else which would’ve been fine. First world problems, but I did have but mind set on being elsewhere for the day.
I don’t know if they caught whoever it seemed they were waiting for, but I did not get to see whatever ended up going down.
Once down on the shore, I did my thing (more on that later) and when it came time to return, I found myself at another station with paper-only posted schedules. Except, here’s the fun, the schedule was marked “Effective July 11.” It was July 10. Logic told me what track I should be waiting on, but sometimes these things change. The Shore Line East alert account on Twitter told me nothing, so I asked the people waiting there and they seemed confident about where to be, so I watched an egret wading around next to the station and hoped for the best.
Sometimes it is so obvious that we haven’t evolved out of the trains/buses are for work commuting only mode.
I was talking to someone recently who was surprised when I said how busy the Farmington Avenue bus was in the middle of the day on weekdays. Well, yeah. There are people who don’t drive who intentionally move to where there is frequent bus service. There are people, like myself, who ride more frequently when the fare is dropped because it’s more convenient all the way around.
Imagine what service would be like if people without a car as backup designed routes and schedules?
This Is Fine
This is the view if you’re trying to be a good capitalist; this crossing is at 1500 New Britain Avenue, West Hartford:
This is the view under the Sigourney Street bridge. Capitol Avenue was not blocked, so I got to trim 10 minutes off the detour commute. . . but there was someone atop the bridge sweeping debris/dust onto the road below. No concern that anyone might be walking. So, won’t fall for that again, but look at how much lighter it is under the bridge with half its deck gone.
The Broad Street pedestrian-in-distress sign has committed to being this way.
I’m okay with this. Makes the sign more noticeable.
New Britain Avenue, Again.
I’d been thinking about the City of Hartford’s nothing of a response following the fatal collision on New Britain Avenue at Henry Street at the end of March. At the time, the day after the college student was killed and two others injured, I sent off emails to several government employees. All I wanted to know was how they were going to improve this stretch of road that had already shown a pattern of fatal crashes. I’d asked those whose job is very much to work on these kinds of issues. The City Council president told me it was not her job and passed the message along to DPW. I suppose she doesn’t understand her role. Council and Mayor create and pass budgets. If the Department of Public Works is underfunded, then they are going to have trouble implementing whatever plans they create for design fixes. There are other ways to pay for road fixes, but you got to have your DPW funded.
The bike/ped junior planner took several weeks to respond, but said a whole lot of nothing. She pointed to unrelated changes the City of Hartford had made, many of which do little-to-nothing, like paint-only bike lanes and a few signs added here and there. The head of DPW wanted to do a phone call, and I am not about verbal-only communications. Commit your response to writing or don’t bother.
I was told about some significant design changes for the New Britain Avenue/White Street mega intersection — necessary and good, but out of the area I was most concerned with, and without any other changes planned, wondered if that would have impact beyond its immediate area.
When two miles of Farmington Avenue were recently closed for a street festival, I thought about how many resources were poured into this event, and how few have gone into meaningful, immediate changes.
Don’t get me wrong — culture work is important. We should be reframing how public space can be used. However, when you ask questions like why are people still getting killed on New Britain Avenue, Albany Avenue, Farmington Avenue, Main Street north of downtown suddenly there’s no progress or inadequate progress.
Look at Farmington Avenue. People are still speeding where the medians were installed a few years back, but less so than on the stretch that has seen no improvements. Albany Avenue saw some but not enough renovation.
It’s always either budget or this bizarre notion that there’s a need to “strike a balance.”
What “strike a balance” means is not upset drivers or people who want on-street parking, even though the result of this compromise ensures continued high risk behavior where roads remain too much like a speedway.
When I ask what City Council is doing, I’m not asking for favors, I’m asking to see their checkbook. Does it reflect our values? Are we dumping money into non-solutions? When I ask what the bike-ped planner is doing, I want to know how she is using her position to improve the most dangerous intersections and stretches of roadway.
After attending that Yard Goats game recently, I noticed how many resources were thrown into a temporary fix at that terrible design around Main/Albany/Trumbull etc. How much are we spending on police to help manage pre- and post-game traffic, when we could make permanent changes and assign fewer police to traffic duty during large events? Is it possible we could make this area safer (and more pleasant) for those using it during non-game times?
Part of the response I’d received from the City in mid-April following the pedestrian murder on New Britain Avenue was mention of how there would be design improvements on Bartholomew Avenue. Anyone who has been over to that area recently can attest to how no pedestrian access has been preserved during construction. You have to walk in one street or the other. Sometimes machines are parked under the train bridge, so you may have to cross Park Street several times depending on where you’re going. There’s a pedestrian light by the Parkville Station, but not another one until the intersection of Park and Laurel. While the outcome might be great, no thought has gone into pedestrian access during construction.
On the morning of July 11, 2022, there was another fatal car collision on New Britain Avenue. The road was closed between Zion and Summit. This is the same area of a fatal car crash a few years ago — the one that knocked down part of a Trinity College gate at the corner of Summit Street. This is the fifth fatal crash in just four years on the 0.7 mile stretch of New Britain Avenue between Hillside Avenue and Julius Street.
This morning, a vacation day, I emailed government employees again. Two fatal crashes in four months within 0.2 miles of each other on same road. How will they, in their respective roles, take action to make New Britain Avenue safer?
As of publication, I heard back from the junior planner — the next day — who shared actual plans.
She says that the City of Hartford is looking for contractors right now to implement, within the year, these changes and retouches:
- Diverter post bumpouts, diverter post road diet (narrowing from the north side), new pedestrian crossing signage, and refreshed crosswalks will be added on New Britain between Crescent and Henry
- New speed humps along Summit and Allen
- New painted stop bar and flashing solar stop sign at College Terrace
- Refreshed crosswalks at Crescent and Broad
- New crosswalk, curb ramps, and stop bar at Allen and Affleck
- Painted setback marks on Broad at Crescent and Ferris Roadway
This is mainly the area around Trinity College. Of these changes, the speed humps on Summit Street and Allen Street, and the diverter posts on New Britain Avenue will likely do the most to slow down speeding drivers.
Further southwest on New Britain Avenue, there is a roundabout planned for the intersection at White Street. Chandler and Harvard have been, for awhile, temporarily closed at their intersection with New Britain Avenue; these will be part of the roundabout.
This doesn’t go as far as I had hoped — there’s still room to get up to speed between the incoming roundabout and the campus fixes, but it’s better than merely installing some digital signs as if that’s any kind of solution.
WHAT NEXT
This is a different suggestion than usual, and it’s specifically for the male guys reading: when you see a fellow male guy tone policing transpo broads, in person or online, this is your time to shine as that intersectional feminist you say you are. Call them out, privately or publicly. Let them know that their disrespect isn’t cool. We’ll do it ourselves if we have to, as we’re used to it, but this is how we change the culture.
Car-Free Diaries: Week 32
Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.
Hartford Line To Do List
CTrail and Amtrak and whoever else might be responsible for communicating to the public about the Hartford Line’s impending construction situation had a major communication fail.
First of all, I should preface everything by letting readers know that I’m not angry. A few reporters have described me as that lately, and first of all. . . wow. Are we still calling women “angry” so easily? Way to mess up any chance of me being in a heteronormative relationship again. So. . . thank you for that, I guess? But really. Third of all, I have nuanced emotions. Fourth: if transpo dudes can talk about infrastructure without being called emotional, I know you all can handle omitting “she’s being emotional” implications to descriptions.
Me being all WTF Hartford Line is a logical reaction to pisspoor communication about what can be a major disruption to someone’s travel.
To break this down: with only about two or three weeks’ notice, it was announced that the Hartford Line would lose most of its train service from July 18 through September 11.
It doesn’t matter if there were rumors that frequent passengers heard. It doesn’t matter that a train guy on Twitter had posted a little about this. The official sources of information for infrequent travelers and those not on Twitter failed.
When you buy train tickets in advance, they are not refundable.
Under normal circumstances, there’s a generous expiration date.
Shutting down the tracks for two months at the height of summer travel is not normal circumstances.
This became a rush to figure out how to swing the trips I’d already planned, crunching what would’ve been spread out over the whole summer into a couple weeks. You all know I work full time and have other obligations. I’m not some independently wealthy chick who can just do whatever whenever. I had to use some vacation time. First world problems, maybe, but it was annoying. There was a lot of thoughts and prayers being sent up for decent weather. Nobody wants dreary pics.
Then, after the vague initial announcement, they finally posted the construction schedule, which sucks but sucks less than what their first announcement insinuated. On weekdays there will be one train running to New Haven in the morning, and two in the evening; there will be four weekday trains running to Springfield, all at night. On Saturdays, there will be eleven trains to New Haven and ten to Springfield, throughout the day. Eleven trains to New Haven and twelve to Springfield on Sundays.
So, the people getting screwed hard with this are the weekday commuters, and not those riding mostly on the weekends.
The second I found out this bit, I backed off on my travel frenzy. The #BeyondHartfordBeyondCars series will still, God willing, be what I’d planned it to be. Didn’t I just say I was robust?
But let’s back up.
It was cute when the initial announcement was made and people were like “oh, but bus replaces train so it’ll be fine.”
I’m not a snob. I do ride the bus. But a city bus isn’t the same as a long distance bus. Let’s talk about that for a moment.
There are delays sometimes when you ride the train, and you can’t exactly detour because of the whole trains being on rails thing, but, there are constant delays and sometimes closures when it comes to using highways. I’ve been on long distance buses where New York City traffic added an additional hour or more to a trip. Train travel is safer. The stop and go of highway travel can be hell for people with motion sickness.
I don’t think anyone worried about being 100% stranded when the Hartford Line construction was announced; bus substitution was expected. But is anyone going to wave pompoms over this?
A detail that is going to definitely trip up people who want to be told things instead of reading a schedule: there are often two buses running at the same time. One is express: get on at Hartford, get off at State Street or New Haven Union; one is local, with stops at every station between Hartford and New Haven. Judging by how emphatic conductors are when approaching New Haven and having to explain many times that State Street has no MetroNorth connection, I’m wondering how people are going to do when they get on the express and then panic because they’re not stopping in Meriden, or, when people get on the local and waste a lot of time because they should’ve been on the express bus.
Anyway, to make up for this massive communication fuckup, here are some things that I think would be ways to make nice:
To recap: not angry, just expressing a rational expectation about being notified regarding how a several month construction project is going to impact my plans. I read The Rules in the 90s. I have standards for notice.
Again, not angry. . . just hungry.
Walkable WeHa
You can only turn down social invites so many times because getting home is irritating, so, I found myself in the Greater Bishops Corner area on a Friday night. On the way in, it was dicey enough between the bus stop and my friend’s house. I will never enjoy the Trout Brook Drive and Albany Ave intersection, but when UConn left its West Hartford location, they removed the mid-block crosswalk and pedestrian signal, so there is no semi-safe option to cross Trout Brook between Albany and Asylum. That’s 0.6 miles without a safe way to cross. But, moving around in the daytime (with a flower bouquet adding visibility) is different from the trip home.
I’ve written about this before. At night, there are long gaps between buses. The options involve crossing Trout Brook and Albany again to go to one of the well-lit bus stops with benches. That means walking away from where I want to go. Or, I can find a closer stop on a narrow sidewalk along a street where people are driving fast. There are no benches on Albany Ave or Asylum Ave. The street lighting is so poor that when I’ve done this I’ve hailed the bus by turning on my phone flashlight. One time the driver commented that he wouldn’t have seen me if I didn’t do that.
Biking home on a Friday night, I’ve learned through experience, is not good. If we had protected bike lanes, that would be different. Instead, we have a free for all of reckless and impaired drivers. Paint isn’t going to separate us.
So, I walked.
I spent over an hour walking home, hoping I’d encounter a scooter on the way. There were several on my street, but nothing in between. By now, I know when the sidewalk stops on which sides of Asylum Avenue in West Hartford, the “safe” town without sidewalk along Elizabeth Park or University of St. Joseph. There is also no sidewalk along parts of Trout Brook Drive. It’s so dark that you have no idea what’s underfoot — groundhog hole? broken glass? needles? dog poop? There could be anything, plus you’re walking through grass, so add “tick check” to the list of things you didn’t want to be doing after 11 when you finally get home at night.
I had walked along Asylum, hoping to get the bus, but as timing and luck would have it, paths did not cross — no doubt because I had detoured through Elizabeth Park to avoid a no sidewalk section, and that’s when the bus went by. Oh well.
I should mention the salt in this wound.
The former UConn parking lot on Trout Brook Drive is being used by Trinity Health (St. Francis) for off-site parking. They have a whole bus shelter and security. It’s well-lit. They also have a shuttle bus that runs “continuously” according to their site. I would’ve gladly hopped on this shuttle, gotten out at the hospital, and shaved that walk down to 20 minutes. It’s interesting that this was their solution instead of asking employees to take the existing buses and then demand more frequent service from those routes.
You do get a very nice paved path through the park at Asylum Avenue and Trout Brook Drive, but it’s not lit at night and it feels like you’re not allowed to walk through.
Fun With Schedules
Some buses, some days, offer frequent service. Going to West Hartford Center on a weekday? Going somewhere on the CTfastrak on a weekday? Don’t even check schedule. There’s a bus like every ten minutes. Cool.
However, there are the others.
The other day I found out how what was inconvenient and annoying could be potentially dangerous. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to share this because I don’t think it’s common. I’m out all the time, and mostly, bad things don’t happen between strangers. I had taken one of the very fast and frequent buses to an undisclosed (but very public and busy) location to get a connecting bus so I could visit a friend. This was my first time trying to take the bus to her because even though it stops across from her house, it comes only hourly and in a loop.
I arrive to this busy area and hear a guy yelling. There’s always some guy yelling in public, so I listen for context — angry, messing around, raging about a sports team? I figure out where it’s coming from and see him approaching various people and yelling threatening things at them. So, not even a standard dispute between two people who have entered into a disagreement.
There are a few people who I am familiar with locally, who cause a ruckus but are just yelling at cars or shouting into the void with their terrible Bible interpretations. I was not familiar with this guy, and when he came up to me I was like, nope, not going to stay here for another 25 or so minutes to see if he is going to get physical.
Because I didn’t have this new-to-me bus route memorized, I couldn’t simply walk a few blocks and wait somewhere else. Because this town loves its weirdo circular and zigzagging routes, I couldn’t easily grab another one that put me somewhere near to what I wanted to do.
So, I walked a few blocks in an area I know and called for a Lyft, my first time in an Uber/Lyft since March 2020 and maybe my fifth time ever calling one. I was grateful to have this backup option, but also resentful because it’s expensive as hell.
For the return trip, I got dropped off at the bus stop with the fast service, and was on my way in two minutes — and I don’t know what happened to the screaming guy, but he was not there several hours later.
I do want to emphasize that I don’t think waiting for or riding the bus is inherently dangerous. This was the first time I ever had the instinct to leave an area entirely because someone was not acting right. But it is something else for the people who decide schedules to consider. Service every half hour is a dramatic improvement from hourly. If St. Francis (Trinity Health) can run a “continuous” shuttle between the hospital and its parking lot, well, there’s another question: why do parking lot shuttles at all run so frequently? Why is a certain class of people’s time determined to be more important than that of others? Why not run one of those mini buses every 20 minutes on these currently low frequency routes?
That wasn’t my only schedule fun this week.
There was trying to figure out train schedules for various trips on Hartford Line and Shore Line East but on different days of the week, and getting information scrambled. . . plus navigating what’s available with the upcoming #GetRailedCT Summer Of Being Grounded, or whatever you’d like to call taking away most train service (maybe) on the Hartford Line for two months.
I was going to do a Hammonasset Beach trip because I was feeling basic, but when I looked at the schedules — Hartford Line, Shore Line East, and Clinton Trolley (plus the other free buses down there) — I realized that it was not going to work out unless:
1. I was staying overnight in Clinton or Madison [not in the budget]
2. I was traveling from New London. [not in budget or plans] There really needs to be another one or two trains on the route traveling east from New Haven.
3. I was okay doing all that travel for a mere half hour or so at the park [two hours of solid park time was what I wanted]
4. I was okay burning to a crisp waiting for the later train back [nope]
5. I took my bike on board [now to figure out which trains are best bet for that]
Because I realized this on the morning I was going to go, I did a quick change of plans to go elsewhere on the shore. . . except I forgot that train times out of Hartford would be different and when I showed up to Union Station was greeted by lots of police. Like federal? Train police? I didn’t want to stare, but they were wearing black outfits that looked super serious and I was the whole time “don’t act suspicious, don’t act suspicious, they’re not here for you” but I can’t help but seem suspicious at train stations. That’s when I realized I’d looked at the wrong schedule and would either leave and return in more than an hour (looking more suspicious) or do something else which would’ve been fine. First world problems, but I did have but mind set on being elsewhere for the day.
I don’t know if they caught whoever it seemed they were waiting for, but I did not get to see whatever ended up going down.
Once down on the shore, I did my thing (more on that later) and when it came time to return, I found myself at another station with paper-only posted schedules. Except, here’s the fun, the schedule was marked “Effective July 11.” It was July 10. Logic told me what track I should be waiting on, but sometimes these things change. The Shore Line East alert account on Twitter told me nothing, so I asked the people waiting there and they seemed confident about where to be, so I watched an egret wading around next to the station and hoped for the best.
Sometimes it is so obvious that we haven’t evolved out of the trains/buses are for work commuting only mode.
I was talking to someone recently who was surprised when I said how busy the Farmington Avenue bus was in the middle of the day on weekdays. Well, yeah. There are people who don’t drive who intentionally move to where there is frequent bus service. There are people, like myself, who ride more frequently when the fare is dropped because it’s more convenient all the way around.
Imagine what service would be like if people without a car as backup designed routes and schedules?
This Is Fine
This is the view if you’re trying to be a good capitalist; this crossing is at 1500 New Britain Avenue, West Hartford:
This is the view under the Sigourney Street bridge. Capitol Avenue was not blocked, so I got to trim 10 minutes off the detour commute. . . but there was someone atop the bridge sweeping debris/dust onto the road below. No concern that anyone might be walking. So, won’t fall for that again, but look at how much lighter it is under the bridge with half its deck gone.
The Broad Street pedestrian-in-distress sign has committed to being this way.
I’m okay with this. Makes the sign more noticeable.
New Britain Avenue, Again.
I’d been thinking about the City of Hartford’s nothing of a response following the fatal collision on New Britain Avenue at Henry Street at the end of March. At the time, the day after the college student was killed and two others injured, I sent off emails to several government employees. All I wanted to know was how they were going to improve this stretch of road that had already shown a pattern of fatal crashes. I’d asked those whose job is very much to work on these kinds of issues. The City Council president told me it was not her job and passed the message along to DPW. I suppose she doesn’t understand her role. Council and Mayor create and pass budgets. If the Department of Public Works is underfunded, then they are going to have trouble implementing whatever plans they create for design fixes. There are other ways to pay for road fixes, but you got to have your DPW funded.
The bike/ped junior planner took several weeks to respond, but said a whole lot of nothing. She pointed to unrelated changes the City of Hartford had made, many of which do little-to-nothing, like paint-only bike lanes and a few signs added here and there. The head of DPW wanted to do a phone call, and I am not about verbal-only communications. Commit your response to writing or don’t bother.
I was told about some significant design changes for the New Britain Avenue/White Street mega intersection — necessary and good, but out of the area I was most concerned with, and without any other changes planned, wondered if that would have impact beyond its immediate area.
When two miles of Farmington Avenue were recently closed for a street festival, I thought about how many resources were poured into this event, and how few have gone into meaningful, immediate changes.
Don’t get me wrong — culture work is important. We should be reframing how public space can be used. However, when you ask questions like why are people still getting killed on New Britain Avenue, Albany Avenue, Farmington Avenue, Main Street north of downtown suddenly there’s no progress or inadequate progress.
Look at Farmington Avenue. People are still speeding where the medians were installed a few years back, but less so than on the stretch that has seen no improvements. Albany Avenue saw some but not enough renovation.
It’s always either budget or this bizarre notion that there’s a need to “strike a balance.”
What “strike a balance” means is not upset drivers or people who want on-street parking, even though the result of this compromise ensures continued high risk behavior where roads remain too much like a speedway.
When I ask what City Council is doing, I’m not asking for favors, I’m asking to see their checkbook. Does it reflect our values? Are we dumping money into non-solutions? When I ask what the bike-ped planner is doing, I want to know how she is using her position to improve the most dangerous intersections and stretches of roadway.
After attending that Yard Goats game recently, I noticed how many resources were thrown into a temporary fix at that terrible design around Main/Albany/Trumbull etc. How much are we spending on police to help manage pre- and post-game traffic, when we could make permanent changes and assign fewer police to traffic duty during large events? Is it possible we could make this area safer (and more pleasant) for those using it during non-game times?
Part of the response I’d received from the City in mid-April following the pedestrian murder on New Britain Avenue was mention of how there would be design improvements on Bartholomew Avenue. Anyone who has been over to that area recently can attest to how no pedestrian access has been preserved during construction. You have to walk in one street or the other. Sometimes machines are parked under the train bridge, so you may have to cross Park Street several times depending on where you’re going. There’s a pedestrian light by the Parkville Station, but not another one until the intersection of Park and Laurel. While the outcome might be great, no thought has gone into pedestrian access during construction.
On the morning of July 11, 2022, there was another fatal car collision on New Britain Avenue. The road was closed between Zion and Summit. This is the same area of a fatal car crash a few years ago — the one that knocked down part of a Trinity College gate at the corner of Summit Street. This is the fifth fatal crash in just four years on the 0.7 mile stretch of New Britain Avenue between Hillside Avenue and Julius Street.
This morning, a vacation day, I emailed government employees again. Two fatal crashes in four months within 0.2 miles of each other on same road. How will they, in their respective roles, take action to make New Britain Avenue safer?
As of publication, I heard back from the junior planner — the next day — who shared actual plans.
She says that the City of Hartford is looking for contractors right now to implement, within the year, these changes and retouches:
This is mainly the area around Trinity College. Of these changes, the speed humps on Summit Street and Allen Street, and the diverter posts on New Britain Avenue will likely do the most to slow down speeding drivers.
Further southwest on New Britain Avenue, there is a roundabout planned for the intersection at White Street. Chandler and Harvard have been, for awhile, temporarily closed at their intersection with New Britain Avenue; these will be part of the roundabout.
This doesn’t go as far as I had hoped — there’s still room to get up to speed between the incoming roundabout and the campus fixes, but it’s better than merely installing some digital signs as if that’s any kind of solution.
WHAT NEXT
This is a different suggestion than usual, and it’s specifically for the male guys reading: when you see a fellow male guy tone policing transpo broads, in person or online, this is your time to shine as that intersectional feminist you say you are. Call them out, privately or publicly. Let them know that their disrespect isn’t cool. We’ll do it ourselves if we have to, as we’re used to it, but this is how we change the culture.
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