CT: Greeneville neighborhood group seeks shelters and signs for bus riders

Last Thursday afternoon Jon Moniz, 45, waited in the city’s Greeneville section for a SEAT bus to deliver him to his job at Mohegan Sun. It was drizzling but Moniz’s black ball cap kept the rain out of his face.

“It’d be nice if there was a bench here, or a covering,” Moniz said, as he stood on the slushy sidewalk across from the Sam’s Food Stores convenience store on Central Avenue.

The bus was slated to arrive at 1:40 p.m., but Moniz had to wait another 18 minutes in the rain for it to show up.

Outside the Otis Library, Derrick Johnson, 44, was among about 15 people who were waiting for their bus.

“No doubt — there’s a lot of people out here,” Johnson said about the need for shelters as he leaned against the wall to get out of the drizzle. “Yeah, it would be nice, because there’s nowhere to sit.”

For years, riders and the Greeneville Neighborhood Revitalization Zone Committee have fought to add more bus shelters to keep riders like Moniz dry, decrease delays, mark stops with signs and reinstate Sunday service.

Help may finally be on the way.

The city and eight other municipalities in the region are served by the Southeast Area Transit district, which has 24 full-size public buses in its fleet. It’s General Manager, Michael Carroll, said plans calls for addressing the Greeneville committee’s concerns.

First, SEAT plans to add signs that will delineate the exact location of each bus stop.

He said the agency is working to transition from a system in which riders flag down a passing bus to one where they wait at a specific location designated by a bus stop sign. Many stops currently don’t have a sign, but can be seen on the SEAT app. Signs will be installed throughout the region where SEAT has electronically mapped 750 stops.

“I can’t say exactly how many (signs) would be in Norwich,” Carroll said. “But I’m guessing probably about 200.”

Carroll said some of the stops will receive shelters and benches, but that process will take several years.

He said SEAT is trying to obtain funding for the shelters from the state Department of Transportation and should receive about 15 shelters in 2025-26.

“And then there will be additional shelters after that,” he said. “It’s a multi-year project. (The DOT) got a big federal grant to enhance bus stops throughout the state of Connecticut.”

While DOT would purchase and install the shelters, he said there is an expectation that the municipality where they are located will be responsible for their maintenance.

Public Works Director Brian Long could not say Wednesday whether the city would agree to maintain the new shelters.

Carroll said the DOT standards determine where to place a shelter.

“One of the primary standards is average passenger boardings per day,” he said, adding that a stop must have 15-25 boardings per day to justify a shelter.

Carroll said SEAT has had conversations with the Greeneville committee about placing bus stops in the village.

“We’ll be looking at these locations and seeing if they justify putting a shelter there the first year,” he added.

Carroll said some existing shelters installed more than a decade ago could be removed, based on their boarding counts. Long said the city does not maintain those.

Carroll added other grants may be available for shelters in locations that do not meet the DOT boarding criteria.

“In the past, we have done some of that shelter purchase through our traditional grant program,” he said.

Asked about late buses, Carroll said SEAT buses have a 65% on-time arrival rate. Buses can be delayed due to having to return to the transportation center, traffic and road conditions, construction, mechanical failure or if something happens on the bus, like someone getting sick.

Carroll added a current phone app provides real time updates on the precise location of buses, so that people don’t have to wait as long in inclement weather.

Greeneville committee Chairman Peter Procko said a lot of Greeneville residents rely on public transportation.

Moniz, who lives a short walk from where he waited last week, said he takes the bus every day, no matter the conditions, except on Sundays, because the buses don’t run on Sundays.

Carroll explained Sunday service was eliminated during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We do have plans to bring back Sunday service and actually expand it, with more routes and running longer,” he said.

The delay in doing so is that SEAT needs more bus drivers and is accepting applications, Carroll said.

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