By Laura Glesby
“Over time,” he said at a town hall meeting Thursday, “I’ve gotten to a point where I’m no longer comfortable justifying that the $1.75 that we’re collecting from people is being spent in a way that advances the public system.”
Lemar represents the 96th General Assembly District, which covers Downtown, Wooster Square, East Rock, and parts of Fair Haven and Quinnipiac Meadows.
Lemar, a Democrat who currently chairs the General Law Committee, is running for a ninth two-year term as state representative. He is currently the sole candidate who has filed to run for the seat with the State Elections Enforcement Commission.
Climate activist Adrian Huq with state rep. candidate Justin Farmer.
Lemar hosted a town hall on Thursday evening in a City Hall meeting room, drawing seven attendees. He said he’s been hosting similar events about once a month, both virtually and in person.
Again and again, the constituents raised one topic in particular: the state of the CTtransit public bus system.
Lemar, the former chair of the state legislature’s Transportation Committee, has previously come out against eliminating the $1.75 bus fare after the state temporarily made buses free during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. He has argued that the state should instead put funding toward improving the frequency, predictability, and quality of the bus system.
Lemar offered a different take on Thursday when climate activist Adrian Huq raised the question of free buses.
“We’re still really interested in free fares,” said Huq. “So I just wanted to put that on your radar and ask if that’s been on your mind.”
Lemar recapped what he had learned from a survey of bus riders. “Almost uniformly,” he recalled on Thursday, “people said, ‘The $1.75 isn’t the issue. … These buses are too crowded. They’re too old, they’re too dirty. They’re too hard to access. The bus shelters aren’t being shoveled out. They don’t go to places that I wanted to go, and I don’t feel safer. And we’re glad paying $1.75, if you can solve those other seven things.”
However, Lemar said, “in the three year since we did that survey, I haven’t seen a remarkable improvement in any of those seven things that the DOT told me they’re using bus fares for.”
Meanwhile, he’s also heard feedback that the mandatory fares slow down buses as individuals count change or run into hiccups with their cards.
Lemar turned to Huq. “I think you and a couple of other folks have convinced me… Let’s move towards free buses.”
Martha Smith, Anstress Farwell, and Caroline Tanbee Smith.
Several attendees concurred.
David Agosta said that the fare-collecting machines are so frequently broken that he’s been able to stretch three ten-ride passes to pay for 63 bus rides — and counting.
Local urban planning advocate Anstress Farwell noted that the Covid-era, fare-free policy allowed bus passengers to board via both the front and back doors, improving the bus system’s speed.
And Justin Farmer, a state representative candidate running in the 92nd district, argued that removing fares is a way of preventing distress and confrontations from riders who can’t afford the fare. It’s not infrequent that “buses are delayed 20, 30, 40 minutes because someone is having a crisis over a fare,” he said.
The question now, Lemar said, is how to make up for the millions of dollars in revenue that bus fare bring to the transit system. (As of 2023, it would have cost an estimated $45 million per year to make the bus system free, although that number has likely decreased in the intervening years due to fare exceptions for students and veterans.)
Miriam Grossman: A free bus policy should account for express buses to Hartford.
He said he anticipates substantial pushback to a free-bus proposal. He said that his past advocacy for investing more in the bus system garnered hostility: “I had a bunch of these guys following me around all the time,” even at “Little League games.” They held up signs “protesting me, calling me pretty awful things.”
The fact that the state’s bus systems overwhelmingly serve residents of cities poses a challenge to enlisting support for bus funding from rural and suburban legislators.
Huq suggested that the state could “raise the gas tax slightly,” to an extent that would be still “very small compared to other states.”
Farwell noted that while cities disproportionately benefit from the bus system, they also shoulder the negative consequences of the car-centric infrastructure that serves residents across the state. The highways that pass through New Haven, having displaced entire neighborhoods when they were first constructed, have caused “an awful lot of traffic and pollution and lower property value” affecting residents.
At the end of the day, the proposal for free buses, Lemar said, is “not really free. It’s gonna come at a cost of something,” and advocates need to “figure out how to pay for it.”
Disability Access Concerns Raised
Lemar with disability rights activist David Agosta.
In addition to bus fares, attendees of Thursday’s town hall raised other priorities for bus system improvements.
Farwell raised concerns about whether Church Street and Elm Street are broad enough, with enough sidewalk space, to accommodate plans to restructure the city’s bus transfer hub.
She also expressed support for Yale to merge its shuttle system with the public bus system.
Lemar said that Yale has previously declined to participate in the state’s U-Pass program, buying transit access for its students. “I think the challenge for Yale has always been, they want to buy it at a reduced price,” he said. “They only want access to Metro North. They feel like the price is too high, because none of their students will utilize CTtransit or Hartford Rail.”
Meanwhile, Agosta, a local disability rights activist, pointed to CTtransit’s decision to move its local bus ticket sales outlet from a kiosk on the New Haven Green to a storefront at 72 Church St. — a storefront that is not ADA compliant, and that cannot accommodate wheelchairs due to a front step.
CTtransit’s policy is that anyone unable to enter the building due to a disability can press a button that will summon an employee to meet them outside.
After that new system took effect in January, Farwell said that she has “switched to only using cash” on the bus, since she worries about having to hand off her card and communicate her PIN number to a CTtransit staff member.
She noted that there are other vacant storefronts that are wheelchair accessible nearby, though those spaces are substantially larger.
East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith floated the idea of combining the CTtransit fare hub with another public amenity, such as a “visitor welcome center” or a space for high schoolers to hang out for free.
Lemar said he’s been speaking with Agosta about the broader problem of inaccessible public infrastructure, such as cracked sidewalks.
“It’s like a blind spot, maybe, that I’ve had for a couple years,” he said. While he’s worked to create and improve bike paths and railroads across the city, “I haven’t focused as much on sort of the folks who don’t and will not ever access any of those modes that I’ve been thinking about or talking about.”
He said he hopes to “establish a fund that New Haven can access to try to pay for some of these improvements” needed to create ADA compliance in public infrastructure — improvements “which can be pretty pricey.”