Confession: I don’t plan on living in Connecticut forever.
But I might stay if I felt I could get to Boston or New York with no hassle, and without having to drive.
Forbes magazine calls Boston and New York the second- and fourth-best cities for young professionals, respectively. Both draw international attention for their residents’ accomplishments in science, education and the arts.
It’s easy to see why someone, particularly someone my age, would want to live in cities such as Boston or New York. But increasing opportunities to telecommute also mean that young professionals willing to work from home can live almost anywhere. In theory, we could settle down here, equidistant from two major metropolitan areas, and have the best of both worlds: the small-town, know-your-neighbor sensibilities of much of central Connecticut and the hubbub and high life of the city.
So make it easy for us, Connecticut.
Start with buses.
Farmington has Greyhound bus pickup and ticketing in a Park and Ride lot. Hartford, of course, has a regular bus terminal right off the highway. And New Britain has Jimmy’s Smoke Shop.
Jimmy’s is half Smoke Shop, half bus station, with a walk-through connecting the two. The Greyhound waiting room has a few seats, a ticket counter that doubles as a cashier’s station for the Smoke Shop side and a window that looks out onto the bus depot — a curve in the curb just large enough to let a bus pull in and out without getting in the way of local traffic.
There’s only room for one bus at a time in front of Jimmy’s, and no room for unmetered parking for people who drive into New Britain to catch the bus.
It’s hardly the glittering gateway to the city I might prefer — but worse is that it’s not even practical.
Jimmy’s is an independently contracted agency for Greyhound rather than a Greyhound-run bus terminal, and so falls under the jurisdiction of the Smoke Shop owner and city rather than the bus company.
The bad news is that this means Greyhound won’t do any development work for the bus stop.
The good news is that we can. The city of New Britain, for instance, could designate free parking for bus riders — and there’s no better time to begin thinking about and planning for this than now, with the New Britain-Hartford busway in development.
On a regional level, the busway, the extension of Route 72 into Bristol, the current Metro-North plans to extend commuter rail from New Haven through Hartford to Springfield and plans to increase rail passenger service along Route 7, Norwalk to Danbury, will all contribute to the creation of a workable public transit system, especially if they are able to work together.
Ken Shooshan-Stoller, deputy director of the Central Connecticut Regional Planning Agency, which handles central Connecticut transportation planning and concerns, says many of these major projects should help with connecting central Connecticut residents to New York and Boston, eventually. "We’re looking for ways to improve transportation by transit within the region, and if we improve it, those should help improve those interstate options, too," Shooshan-Stoller says.
But the agency only has jurisdiction over a portion of central Connecticut.
So here’s my big idea, the punchline to the past three weeks of columns: Let’s designate a special committee or board or form a citizen’s group advocating for a comprehensive, efficient system of public transit reaching from Faneuil Hall to Times Square — with a stop in our neighborhood.
Let me know what you think.
Friday, August 1, 2008
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4 comments:
We went to NYC on a Saturday in March and parked free in the city garage on Washington St. all day. If you don't want to drive into NB, you can get buses from out of town, but you have to be back in NB pretty early. There's also no place nearby to get a large cup of coffee and a snack/meal for the trip.
I thought the Washington St. garage was free, too -- though when I went over there, I found meters on the first level. (I didn't walk up to higher levels.)
I doubt those meters are monitored, and I'm glad to hear you didn't get ticketed, especially since there isn't much other unmetered parking for people taking a weekend trip to the city -- but what if they are? The garage is right next to City Hall, and the parking enforcement does monitor street meters. (As my brother once learned!)
Free parking is a real plus, and something the city (and Jimmy's) should advertise if it has it available. When I called Jimmy's to ask where people park, the unidentified man on the phone said he supposed they used the garage, but couldn't confirm that people actually used it, and didn't know whether it was free or not.
A cup of coffee and snack to take on the bus would be nice. A Snapple was the best I could find from Jimmy's when I was taking the bus regularly.
Leaves and Pages book store and coffee shop is downtown, across the street from Jimmy's, and the owners are very friendly and accommodating, but their weekday hours are early a.m. to mid-afternoon, and I'm not sure when they're open on weekends. An expanded schedule would make this a nice pitstop for riders.
I remember when Joy's Sandwich Shop was open on that block. Yum. I'd love to be able to get a root beer float from a place like that in downtown NB again.
The buses from out of town are alright, if you can navigate the system and if, as you say, you don't mind planning your schedule around some pretty anemic bus schedules. And if, of course, the town-to-town bus route goes past your house.
Thanks for your comment.
It's my understanding that Leaves and Pages is closing, more's the pity.
In case you haven't checked it out yet, the new computer cafe is now open on Washington Street. It's open at 7am. I'm not sure what time it closes. The coffee I had there was decent. I haven't had a sandwwich yet. This is a step in the right direction. I hope it can stay open.
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