Despite significant declines in ridership, Connecticut’s Department of Transportation will remain committed to public transportation as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, a top DOT official said Tuesday.
During a Tuesday afternoon webinar sponsored by the state’s ride-sharing program CTrides, the Hartford Business Journal and New Haven Biz, DOT Bureau Chief of Public Transportation Rich Andreski touted the state’s decision to maintain full service on bus lines throughout the pandemic. He said curbing public transportation would have negative effects on equity, environmental protection and economic development.
“Many places in the country were curtailing service levels, and we felt it was important to continue to offer full service, even though ridership was down,” he said.
National transportation expert Sam Schwartz, who also participated in the event, said Connecticut’s public transportation ridership appears to be in line with the rest of the country in some areas, and better in others.
Ridership on the Hartford Line commuter rail is currently down about 75% from the same period a year earlier; it was down as much as 95% last spring, Schwartz said. Those numbers are similar to national trends.
But bus ridership in Connecticut is better than what Schwartz is seeing nationally, he said. Ridership on the CTfastrak rapid bus line between Hartford and New Britain was a particular bright spot; it’s down about 39% from this time last year. Last spring bus ridership was down more than 50%.
“Buses are doing better, and Connecticut fastrak buses are doing better — still heavy hits — but much better than even the national averages or even the New York Metro area,” Schwartz said.
Andreski said DOT does not plan to curtail public transportation service despite lower ridership, because people who take public transportation often have no other way of getting to their jobs or anywhere else.
“Although ridership is down, the people who are still riding our buses and trains are doing it because they absolutely have to,” Andreski said. “They have no other way of getting around.”
