The roughly 10-mile rapid bus route will use an abandoned freight rail corridor on its southern portion.North of Newington Junction, it will share the right-of-way used by Amtrak on its New Haven-Springfield run.The buses will serve platforms at Hartford’s Union Station, and will also circulate from the station area to other downtown destinations.Hartford officials are working with bus planners to develop bus priority traffic signals and other prioritization measures on those circulation routes.The service plan for the route will also consider shuttle services to the New Britain terminus of the rapid right-of-way, collector services that will serve suburban areas along the route and use the right-of-way starting at intermediate entry points and express services that originate south and west of New Britain.

ConnDOT expects the project to boost daily peak period transit ridership in the corridor nearly 60% over its projected “2020 base case” estimate, from 7,300 to over 11,600.This is a stronger ridership performance than other options studied.The system will increase the corridor’s express bus fleet by about 30 buses.Additionally, the Department’s analysis found that developing the busway — at about an $230 million capital cost — will be far less expensive than adding lanes to I-84 and also less than several light rail proposals.Overall, the project’s bang-for-buck potential looks impressive. 

ConnDOT is beginning to considerthree other bus rapid transit corridors in the Hartford region.

New Transit Lines? Rapid Bus a Contender (Dec. 3, 2001)

Buzz grows for bus rapid transit 
(Nov. 12, 2001) 

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