[CT_Native]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Urban blight? The buses go downtown and stop at Sigourney Street (Aetna), Park Street (Parkville), New Park Avenue (Kane Street), Flatbush Avenue and Elmwood (New Britain Avenue). I would not call any of these areas blighted. Jay

Yes, Parkville was a place I was talking about. All those dilapidated structures behind the bus station are going to become primed for redevelopment. Bartholomew Avenue is a great example actually:

Spoiler

[JayCT]

Those old industrial buildings are showrooms for various home related businesses (Lyman kitchens is one of them). I would not call them dilapidated. They are industrial so they don't look as pretty. Some are very nice inside and some are already loft rental properties. Jay

[just_because]

Originally Posted by Mr_250

Did anyone actually take the busway this weekend? I did. From New Britain to Hartford, round trip, took about and hour and 15 minutes. On a Saturday morning from New Britain to Hartford should take 15 minutes. The courant did a real world scenario today and the busway actually took longer, by 17 minutes, to get into Hartford.

While there will be hiccups as it is new and totally understandable, the general population doesn't seem excited for it. The lack of people this morning is hopefully not a sign of whats to come. The kicker is it is free so I would expect people trying it out.

I would have tried it out if I were in the state. It's a shame if people aren't even curious to see it. But I'd still be hopeful that word of mouth gets people on it. Hopefully it's being marketed properly too. Sometimes that's needed to change people's attitudes and behaviors. Many people haven't ridden a bus or taken any other form of public transportation since they were in school so I suppose you can't expect it to be embraced by the masses straight off.

[UconnHusky1]

Video clips from the news this morning appear to be very promising....a few senior citizens, a couple of junkies, and a bunch Latina moms with 3-4 kids on average.

I'm not sure how this busway will reduce congestion on I-84, but pretty sure it will increase obesity in New Britain.

[just_because]

Originally Posted by just_because

I would have tried it out if I were in the state. It's a shame if people aren't even curious to see it. But I'd still be hopeful that word of mouth gets people on it. Hopefully it's being marketed properly too. Sometimes that's needed to change people's attitudes and behaviors. Many people haven't ridden a bus or taken any other form of public transportation since they were in school so I suppose you can't expect it to be embraced by the masses straight off.

Early indications are that the marketing/communications of it need to be greatly improved and I think they are missing a trick by either ignoring this or saving it for later. The buzz is happening now and now is the time to get the message out and create positive perceptions, curiosity, etc. Also, you will very quickly turn off customers to the service if they can't easily get the information required or are confused.

The official website is very uninspiring. This is a $500m project so you'd think they would create a compelling digital presence with clear information.

What's needed:

-Create materials that tell the story from the CUSTOMER'S perspective, not from the perspective of 'the system' or the transit authority. The guided tour and other materials all feel like they are created for conferences to explain the system to other people involved in transportation or city planning. That's not the way to get normal people engaged, particularly those who may naturally be skeptical. I suspect these are old materials to explain/sell the system to stakeholders during the long process of getting support for it and getting it built. This approach is wrong for engaging customers now that the system is live. Some city planning enthusiasts may be interested that the system meets all requirements for a BRT system while other city systems don't but the normal rider just wants clear information presented in a way that they will be shown how easy and convenient it is for them. Separate out all of the information noise that is for 'the industry' or city planning enthusiasts.

-I see that data is provided to third party apps so that real time bus tracking etc can be provided by these apps. Good idea to do it this way rather than having to invest in building one specifically for this project. BUT, engagement with riders on their smartphones is a vital part of the service and bizarrely there seems to be NO mention of the app on the CTfastrak website (or else it's extremely well hidden). Weird since real time tracking is a key feature of this service (and all similar services). Particularly younger riders expect this as a core part of the service (they use it in Uber, use GPS to track everything, etc), not some nice to have add-on that you need to hunt around for. Linked to the point aboive, this aspect of the service should be strongly incorporated into the story as told from the customer's perspective.

-The schedule is one of the most basic and vital points of information for a potential customer. Yet as of this morning when you click to access the schedule you see:

CTfastrak service starts Saturday, March 28, 2015. Please click here to review the proposed bus schedules.

Hmmm....it's now March 31st so the service should be up and running. That message about it starting 28th seems stale and makes people think they might be looking at old info. And much worse, the schedule is called a 'proposed bus schedule'!!! What does that mean? Is it the schedule or not? If I'm doing to plan my day around using the bus for a trip to Hartford, etc then I want to know that the schedule is the schedule, not wonder if this is a proposed schedule that since changed! Frankly that's shocking, just plain lazy and a major let down for a $500m project. One of the key objections to public transportation is a perception that you are not in control and you can feel stranded. Schedule certainty is a vital thing to get right (enforced by real time data to smartphones and real time info at stations) so nonsense like 'proposed schedule' when the service is supposed to be running is not a small detail from a customer's perspective.

-Lastly, some choices on the CTFastrak site take you out to the CTtransit site. I'm sure there are good reasons for this but it is very confusing and it's not clear what info pertains to CTfastrak and what is for other services within CTTransit. These sites need reorganization so that it's clear for the customer. For example, the fare information mentioned in CTTransit (linked from fasttrak) can easily be mistaken for CTfastrak but I think it's for other bus routes. The CTTransit site is already a mess but when you are taken there from links in the CTfastrak site, the customer doesn't have a chance to figure out what's going on. Most people won't even notice that they have been taken to the site for the wider transport network and will assume that the info is relevant for fastrak.

In summary, it's shocking that it appears nobody bothered to review the website from a customer's perspective to see the things mentioned above. It's really just common sense and I hope that this is not indicative of the system being out of touch with the population/customer they are trying to serve. Some might say that it's 'just a website' or 'just an app' but I would argue that for most people, this is the 'front door' to the service through which most customers will enter. I expect much more from a $500m project.

[WouldLoveTo]

To your point, there is not one state website that I've dealt with that doesn't need HUGE improvement. It's inexcusable in this day and age

[CT_Native]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Those old industrial buildings are showrooms for various home related businesses (Lyman kitchens is one of them). I would not call them dilapidated. They are industrial so they don't look as pretty. Some are very nice inside and some are already loft rental properties. Jay

After the vacant lots, those old and neglected industrial buildings will be the first to go. That's all I'm trying to say.

[KEVIN_224]

My perspective from the New Britain end to start things off:

[KEVIN_224]

Here are some shots from the stations. I noticed that the Flatbush Station in West Hartford, close to the Hartford city line, has the station building entirely on the west side of the roadway, instead of flanking it like the rest. What's on the east side of the busway/Amtrak right-of-way which made this necessary?













I thought the New Britain station was well signed. I was fine with the busway itself. My problem was the Hartford end. It's very poorly signed. Despite people saying this project being done, I say not quite. There's still quite a bit of construction going on by Bushnell Park and Asylum Street. Also, I'm not sure if it's because of CT Fastrak, but the one-way flow on High Street and Union Place switched. They now run, north and south, respectively.

[western mass and love it]

Nice pics!!! But where are the people?