CT Transit Redesigning Parts of Central CT Network For November 5th, 2023

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

https://www.cttransit.com/news/proposed-cttransit-service-changes-fall-2023

CT Transit will be making changes to bus routes on November 5th, 2023. Public timetables have been out, and the comment period ended a little over an hour and a half ago (end of day on 9/15). While many changes include service expansions, there are various route changes and additions. Some of the notable changes include the following:

• 41 - Service will be reduced throughout the day on Weekdays and Saturdays.
• 470 - Service will be enhanced to operate up to midnight on Weekdays only (no Saturday or Sunday service...yet at least).
• 501 - Service south of New Britain City Line will be discontinued on most trip, service to Meridan completely eliminated (partially replaced by 511).
• 502 - Service in Bristol will be added to serve Amazon, ESPN, and other locations.
• 512 - Service will be split into three routes:
  • 511 - New Britain to Meridan Transit Center via CT-15
  • 512 - New Britain to Berlin Price Chopper Plaza via Berlin Tpke
  • 513 - New Britain to Cromwell via 
• 532 - New route provided service to Southington, will operate to/from Plainville with timed transfer to the 102.

[checkmatechamp13]

It's good that they're operating service to Southington, but it should be noted that service doesn't actually go to Downtown Southington, or to the commercial area by West Street & Hart Street. Hopefully they can include that in a future phase (maybe if they eliminate the actual deviations into the stores, they can save enough runtime to extend it to Downtown Southington). Either that, or have the 928 run up through Southington. 

In Downtown Bristol, they should've really straightened out that whole 541/542/543 situation they have going on there. It takes the same amount of time to walk from City Hall to Gaylord Towers (down relatively pedestrian-friendly streets) as it does to take the 543. At a glance, it seems like they could probably just through-route the 503 and 541 to provide another route between New Britain & Bristol (according to the current schedules, it seems like this is already done...they might as well just make it officially one route) and then through-route the 542 with the 102, while having the 502 serve Gaylord Towers.

The other major thing they could've done is fix the schedule of the 101/102. The 101 is literally a short-turn 102. They should've had the 502 extended to Hartford in place of a 101 trip per hour. (So there would be 30 minute headways from Hartford to Bristol, and 10 minute headways from Hartford to New Britain, rather than 12 minute headways on the 101, with a random 102 thrown in every hour).