Back to School, Back to Bus Life: Student Stories

Students who regularly take the bus share that it has become like an extended free period. It can be a place to “get work done,” according to Athena Jiang ’30, “hang out with friends,” said Vivian Kelly ’29, or simply enjoy some “downtime,” said Sonya Mittal ’27.

Taking the bus gives students an opportunity to spend time with people they might not ordinarily interact with. Kaya Heeger ’29 said that a big benefit of taking the bus is that “you can have conversations with people you might not otherwise.”

Jemma Grauer ’28 said her conversations with people on the bus turned into “closer friendships” and “a lot of great memories on the bus.” Some friendships even continue beyond the bus ride. Ava Morello ’27 said that one of her “favorite memories” was when, during her freshman and sophomore years, “the group of kids who took the late bus” with her all planned to go “trick-or-treating in Westport by the beach” together.

Big yellow school buses on New Haven streets that are often narrow and congested present obvious logistical challenges. Carrie Lam ’27 said that her bus sometimes “doesn’t show up so they have to take an Uber.”

Although the New Haven bus is free, it has many stops and is “often late,” according to Heeger. Grauer estimated that from her house in New Haven, getting to school takes around 20 minutes, but when

she takes the bus, it averages around 30 minutes, sometimes 40. Grauer noted that in the fall of 2025, she would sometimes arrive at school “after advisory or assembly.”

Late bus arrivals turned into memories for Morello, who recalled having to “huddle like penguins” for an hour at the Fairfield bus stop on the “coldest winter day” while waiting for another bus to come pick them up. Morello said, “It ended up being a great bonding experience, and we got to miss a lot of A Block, but our hands were frozen for the rest of the day.”

Other inconveniences are structural. According to Grauer, unlike other buses for “other towns,” the New Haven bus “has no late bus.” Athena Jiang ’30 said there were times her bus became so crowded that “they would kick people onto another bus.” Tyler Boyd ’29 noted, “It’s also harder to bring sports equipment since there isn’t a trunk or anything.”

Despite the inconveniences the bus can cause, students’ stories

and memories can make the bus fun. For Grauer, her most memorable story goes all the way back to her first time ever taking the bus: “The second day of second grade, we had this really funny bus driver, and the bus driver was talking about the bus getting hit and then how it would be funny suing them and getting a lot of money.”

Chaima Arouna ’27 said that her most memorable bus story happened when her bus came late on a day when she was scheduled to speak at assembly. “There was a group of people blocking the road with a drum line or something like that. They were doing it in the middle of the street and it became a traffic jam,” said Arouna.

For Beatrix Vassilev ’27, her most memorable story involved another passenger. She recalled sitting next to a girl she didn’t know who fell asleep during the ride. Vassilev was “just on my phone, probably
watching Reels or something like that” when the girl began leaning toward her, falling against her and then waking herself up. “It
must’ve actually happened at least three or four times as we were driving,” Vassilev said. After the girl got off the bus, Vassilev finally had some room to herself: “I had the bus to myself and I just lay down on my seat.”