CTFastrak Finally Set to Open March 28
By Chris Seymour | Correspondent at March 19, 2024 | 6:30 pm | Print
In just eight days, CTfastrak, a new rapid transportation bus system, is set to open and is set to revolutionize the way people in New Britain—and the Central Connecticut area—get around in their day to day lives.
CTfastrak provides a traffic-free ride “with the convenience and flexibility that the bus provides to deliver riders directly to their destinations,” according to its website; those who ride fastrak will experience a quick 20-minute trip on the dedicated CTfastrak line between downtown Hartford and New Britain, avoiding traffic on I-84 and local streets in this heavily-congested corridor, adds the website.
Draft schedules are now posted online at ctfastrak.com, and to mark the opening of this highly anticipated public transportation system, a ribbon cutting will be held at the Downtown New Britain station next Friday, March 27 at 1 p.m.—just one day before service begins.
“We will be doing the ribbon cutting and there will be a ceremonial first ride starting in Hartford and ending in New Britain so I will be greeting Gov. Malloy, Lt. Gov. Wyman and all the other dignitaries as they get off the bus in downtown New Britain,” said Mayor Erin Stewart.
Stewart also noted that CTfastrak is offering free rides to patrons during its first nine days in operation. CTfastrak has three New Britain stations, located downtown and on East Street and East Main Street.
Stewart explained that the city is trying to make it easier for residents to park and ride in the downtown area using the new bus service.
“A lot of people want to use the Fastrak for park and ride and although I know the DOT isn’t looking at CTfastrak with a park and ride philosophy, we have made some changes to our downtown parking garage that are going to allow for that to be more feasible for people,” explained Stewart.
Those changes at the Szczesny Garage include $3 daily parking (with a CTfastrak ticket) and adding an additional half-shift of security guards and a cashier in the evening.
“Parking there is going to be $3 a day for riders who present our cashiers with the fastrak ticket … that’s a lot less than what some employees pay right in Hartford,” said Stewart.
“But we are also adding a half a shift [because] right now the garage basically closes up at 5 p.m. because most of our people are out and gone,” she noted. “Because we want people to feel safe, we have added an additional half a shift for security guards so there will be security there later into the evening and also a cashier that’s there later too for people who get out of work later.”
Parking in the downtown garage is free on weekends so Mayor Stewart noted that, for example, if a resident wanted to go to a UConn basketball game in Hartford, they could park in New Britain, ride fastrak into Hartford and “not have to worry about paying high event rate parking there.”
Stewart said the new transportation system will also bring an economic boon to the city. “Look at what’s been happening in New Britain over the last two years—we have received so much interest from new developers and new housing developments are going up; we are getting all sorts of grants from the federal and state governments,” she said.
“The city is doing its part to make our own investment to make sure that our infrastructure is good,” she added. “We have our streetscape project that is going on right around the busway entrance [downtown] so what we are doing is digging the roads up, reconfiguring them to be more pedestrian friendly so you can utilize the bike routes in town as well.”
The city has received over $250,000 of planning grant money from the state to be able to make future plans around its other two fastrak sites, according to Stewart. “The first priority is seeing the development around the downtown station,” she said. “What we are hoping too is that people from the central Connecticut area will utilize the busway to come to downtown New Britain.”
When it comes to the new transportation system, “A lot of this is about choice, giving alternatives to people,” explained Connecticut DOT Transit & Ridesharing Administrator Michael A. Sanders. “A lot of it is about reliability and dependability and because we won’t be on I-84, you’ll have a much more reliable travel time; it’ll be the same every day because we don’t have traffic interfering with us.”
Each of the three New Britain stations “does a little something different,” said Sanders. “If you start on East Street, that’s somewhat of a neighborhood station but also the CCSU shuttle will run from the CCSU campus out to the East Street station and over to the Cedar Street station then back up to campus so it’ll be a good feeder for CCSU students.”
The East Main Street station is “right in the middle of the eastside” of the city, so Sanders noted the station is “walking distance to an awful lot of people, many of whom are already transit dependent.”
The downtown station “has a totally different value as far as access to all the other connections in the New Britain CT Transit system and as a feeder for employment [among other things],” furthered Sanders.
Sanders also pointed out the potential for increased property value due to the new transit system.
“You could rent an apartment in New Britain and get into Hartford in 17 minutes,” he observed. “Does that increase the value of the apartment for the landlord? There isn’t necessarily a lot of new development but certainly we would expect increased property values—but we don’t promise that.”
In addition, express routes that used to bypass New Britain will now be stopping in the city too. “The express routes that we have that now run from places south and west of New Britain and bypass New Britain and go into Hartford will now be stopping in New Britain so it’s a new opportunity for people who work in New Britain to come in from the outer suburbs,” said Sanders.
For more information, visit ctfastrak.com.
