Bridgeport resident Patricia Ginoni rides the bus all the time. To work, to go shopping, you name it. Ginoni needs the bus to get around.
Being a denizen of the Park City, the bus company that services Ginoni is the Greater Bridgeport Transit. The GBT is a quasi-public agency that services four core communities: Bridgeport, Trumbull, Stratford and Fairfield. Through various routes, the GBT also provides trips to Derby, Shelton, Monroe, Westport, Norwalk and Milford.
The jewel of the GBT is probably the Coastal Link. This route is designed to provide commuters who normally would have to navigate through several transit systems and switch buses the convenience of traveling on one bus.
The route starts at the Connecticut Post Mall to Route 1, winds through Stratford Center and into Bridgeport. From the Bridgeport Bus Terminal it travels down Fairfield Avenue to Post Road in Fairfield, into Westport and through Norwalk to the Norwalk Transit Center. Obviously, it travels the same course on the way back.
Unfortunately, the Coastal Link is overcrowded on almost every trip, causing extreme discomfort for passengers and driver, but that is the least of the GBT”™s many, many problems. But for the purposes of this column we will address only the most important of those issues.
But, first the good news.
Congressman Jim Himes, 4th District, and Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch were on hand recently as Himes announced more than $1.4 million in federal funding for the GBT. Here is part of the press release issued by the GBT: “We are pleased to announce that GBT will be the recipient of a grant of $1,167,945 for the construction of the first phase of the Facility Expansion and Improvement Project (FEIP). The funding is from the Federal Transit Administration”™s discretionary State of Good Repair program and will be matched with $291,981 from the Connecticut Department of Transportation.”
You can almost see GBT CEO Ron Kilcoyne jumping for joy.
Even though that”™s great news, it should be pointed out that Kilcoyne and the GBT should have plenty of money in its coffers because at $1.75 the GBT is the most expensive bus service in the state by far. By contrast, CT Transit, which services Greater Hartford, Greater New Haven and Greater Stamford, charges its passengers $1.25 per trip.
Yet as of this writing, Kilcoyne and the GBT board of directors are poised to raise their fares even higher.
This is somewhat mind boggling since the agency serves the poorest city in the state. Most of its riders are the working poor, who don”™t take the bus because they are going green and public transportation takes more cars off the road. They are taking the bus because they have no cars and no other way to get to work.
This is an intriguing situation politically and economically. We are told we should be riding public transportation to conserve fuel and protect the environment. Yet because of the struggling economy, more people have to use public transportation than ever. Those are still two good reasons to use GBT.
More than likely, Patricia Ginoni will have to dig deeper to go to work now.
But there will be many who simply cannot afford the rate increase and will decide to leave their jobs. That means more people in this region will go on unemployment. That means more small business owners will have to stretch their resources because they have one or two fewer employees.
Makes great economic sense doesn”™t it?
So as Ron Kilcoyne and others raise the bus rates on the working poor, riders will be returning cans to pay for the higher rates. But we can all be secure in the knowledge that the GBT will soon be filing for another federal grant.
Come to think of it, that was Ron Kilcoyne jumping for joy.
Rob Sullivan is the publisher and executive editor of the Bridgeport Banner daily website and monthly print edition. The website can be accessed at www.bridgeportbanner.typepad.com. He lives in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport.
