Buses for a Green City

by Amanda Kennedy, Associate Planner, RPA

This fall, I attended a community forum on sustainability called Stamford: The Green City. Business leaders, advocates, teachers and students met to discuss how Stamford can reduce its carbon emissions and solid waste streams, and ultimately, how to plan for a future in which energy costs may disrupt our reliance on personal vehicles and fossil fuels. The evening was one of several in a series designed to chart Stamford's course over the next several decades.

I felt a little sheepish driving to the sustainability event, which was held about two miles north of downtown. Getting there by bus would have been fairly simple, but getting back would mean a 45-minute wait and searching for a bus stop alongside a busy road on a chilly night.

The evening's talk was fantastic. The underlying theme to the evening was that Stamford needs to be more walkable and offer better transit options, so that people don't need to drive everywhere. Lots of the speakers were enthusiastic about sidewalks, bike lanes and a light rail proposal that would link downtown and the train station with neighborhoods to the north. I was feeling optimistic about the world until one panelist challenged the group: "How many of you have ridden a bus in the last 30 days?" About a third of the 50+ people raised their hands. A beat, then: "How many have ridden a bus in Stamford?" And everyone lowered their hands but me. I was sad to see that my fellow Stamford residents, who all seemed to have so much passion for the environment and for Stamford's sustainable future, weren't willing to make use of an existing resource: Stamford's bus system, run by Connecticut Transit.

America's resistance to buses is both mystifying and understandable. Heading home from the RPA Connecticut office in downtown Stamford, it's faster and cheaper for me to step outside and catch a bus than it is to navigate a labyrinth of elevators and parking structures to reach a car that I must pay to park and then pilot alongside Stamford's notoriously aggressive drivers. In the winter, I can usually time it so that instead of starting up a cold car, I can board a warm bus with minimal waiting time. On the other hand, riding the bus successfully in Stamford requires a thorough knowledge of timetables (since schedules are either not posted, or out of date), a good mp3 player (to tune out brake squeals and the conversations of other riders), and a great deal of patience for slow travel speeds and cold, dark bus stops. Riders must also put up with belching diesel fumes and dirty seats. Only about 5% of Stamford workers commute by bus.

If Stamford is truly to become a green city, it needs to go beyond sidewalks, bike lanes and the limited transit coverage provided by rail and light rail. Stamford is a suburban city, consisting of commercial and mixed-use corridors connecting small village centers surrounded by single family homes. Many households are several miles away from any of Stamford's three train stations. Buses are the only realistic way to reach most Stamford residents, but carbon neutrality seems out of reach unless we can find a way to boost bus ridership.

The US Department of Transportation recently announced that the State of Connecticut would receive $7 million in stimulus funding to upgrade new buses already on order from standard diesel buses to hybrid diesel/electric and fuel cell vehicles. New, clean vehicles are a big step towards improving the riders' experience, but it's time to make upgrading urban and suburban bus systems a real priority. Technology exists and has been implemented in many communities to create a network of clean and efficient bus routes that compare with rail systems in their comfort, frequency and accessibility, but have greater reach than rail and can service lower density neighborhoods. In my commuting fantasy, I would time leaving the office to real-time bus scheduling information, meeting the bus just as it pulls into a well-lit, covered stop. As more people became bus riders, more frequent service and additional bus hubs outside downtown would become viable. A bus system cannot succeed if it is an option of last resort; it needs to be of high enough quality that people seek it out.