Connecticut Governor Rell: CTTRANSIT Ridership Continues to Surge

June 14, 2008 -- With ridership numbers growing, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell today applauded “smart Connecticut commuters” who are increasingly using the state-owned bus system, CTTRANSIT.

“Part of the growth on the system is doubtless due to increased fuel prices,” Governor Rell said. “And we also think some portion of this growth is due to service initiatives that have been undertaken in the past two years.”

These additions include adding Sunday service in the Waterbury Division of CTTRANSIT, new connecting bus services between New Britain and the Berlin Turnpike retail corridor, adding extra midday trips on the commuter express bus routes, and adding additional service to the Commuter Connection bus routes that connect with the New Haven Line rail services.

The CTTRANSIT system provides fixed-route city bus services in the Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, New Britain, Bristol, Meriden and Wallingford areas as well as an extensive system of express bus services into Downtown Hartford from around the region.

CTTRANSIT bus system ridership has been on a fairly consistent upward trend since gasoline prices began to escalate after Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. Fiscal 2006 (which began in July of 2005, just before Katrina struck) showed an increase in ridership of over 3.7 percent. Fiscal 2007 showed an additional 3.2 percent increase in statewide bus ridership. And for the first nine months of fiscal 2008, ridership is up about 4 percent over the previous nine months.

But the rate of ridership increase is higher in recent months. For the first five months of 2008, the CTTRANSIT system provided more than 8.9 million passenger trips, an increase of 6.5 percent over the same five months in 2007.

Ridership growth on the commuter express routes is lagging the growth rate on the urban system slightly. The reason for this could be that the commuter routes, most of which run into downtown Hartford from surrounding suburbs as far-flung as Old Saybrook, Cheshire, Bristol and Enfield, cover much longer distances. These routes showed very strong increases when gasoline prices first began to rise. The express routes on average have shown a ridership growth rate of about 11 percent over the 33 months since Katrina.

“Smart Connecticut commuters are listening to our message about getting people out of their cars and onto mass transit,” Governor Rell said.

Source: Connecticut Governor

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