NEW HAVEN, Conn. — After years of hearing from the community to make changes to its transit system, the City of New Haven has finally received the federal money to do so. On Thursday morning, local, state, and federal officials gathered at the Dixwell Q House to announce $25 million in federal funding for "MOVE New Haven": an on-street bus rapid transit project.
"It is an exciting day here," said Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro as she opened up the press conference at the Q House.
DeLauro said the inception of MOVE New Haven came about in 2014, when DataHaven released a study titled, "How Transportation Problems Keep People Out of the Workforce in Greater New Haven."
Following that, the community started paying more attention to the problem, trying to figure out ways to solve it.
"This is a quote from former mayor, Toni Harp, and she may have really put it best when she said and I quote, 'transportation is a civil rights issue. It is an economic development issue, and it is a jobs issue,'" Rep. DeLauro said.
Rep. DeLauro said she and U.S. Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal have been working for years to get the federal funding they need to start the project. Overall, the commissioner with the Connecticut Department if Transportation said it'll cost $150 million. $25 million is coming from the federal government through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) Discretionary Grant program, $75 million will come from 'federal formula funds', and the rest will be funded through the state.
The actual project will involve the purchase of 15 new all-electric buses, 18 new stops, four mini-hubs, center transit lanes for buses only (in some areas), and changes to the traffic lights so buses get priority to pass through.
"It's a place to improve service and make service more frequent, faster, and more convenient for people to use," Zinn said.
The improvements will involve two major routes, with the first one coming down Dixwell Ave from Hamden, across Elm St. at the north part of The New Haven Green, ending at Grand and Ferry in Fair Haven. The other route starts in Westville at the intersection of Whaley and Fountain, heads downtown and into West Haven.
"These four routes represent over 50% of ridership of CT Transit in the New Haven area. So this is really where we see a lot of our core bus ridership," Zinn said.
Those who will benefit from the project are excited to see it put into practice.
"I was elated. I got the call yesterday about this and, I'm still processing how transformative. This is like radically going to change what it means, how easy it is to get around New Haven," said Kai Addae, a member of Safe Streets Coalition of New Haven.
The coalition was created in 2019 to "make sure that anyone in the city of new Haven can get around without a car. And have access to safe, sustainable, and reliable transportation options," Addae said.
Addae moved to New Haven years ago and noticed the transit system needed some work.
"When I moved here, I struggled. I would go to the grocery store every week in Orange and the bus took an hour and a half. And it was late, and I had to wait in a literal ditch to catch the bus to go back. It was hard to get to my doctors appointments in West Haven, and there were many times where I was late to work trying to use the bus," Addae said.
Since then, Addae said there have been improvements, but more work needs to be done.
"It could be faster, it could be more reliable. And it's really hard for people like me without a car to use the bus if you can't trust it. If it's going to sometimes be late or sometimes not show up at all, you can't rely on that as your main source of getting around town," Addae said.
Up next, the CT DOT and the City of New Haven will work on the design of how the project will actually work. That will take a few years with construction set for 2026, with the goal of completing the project in 2029. Throughout the process, Zinn said there will be public input.
"We want to make sure we get this right, and that's where talking to the public is going to be very important," Zinn said.
Julia LeBlanc is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jleblanc@fox61.com Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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