Time for a short route that’s not particularly noteworthy. Okay, it’s the FR 8!

I doubt many people will board here on a Saturday.

We left the parking lot of Bristol Community College and turned onto Elsbree Street, which soon passed Durfee High School. There were some suburban businesses as we turned onto President Ave, but it got residential when we swung around onto a roundabout to Eastern Ave, then turned onto New Boston Road. Apart from where we intersected the 4 at Robeson Street, it was mostly dense houses along here.

Yeah, like this!

We made our way around the giant Charlton Memorial Hospital via local roads before settling on Linden Street. This is the unfortunate part of the route where, due to one-ways and narrow roads, the inbound route is three blocks away from the outbound. Once Linden Street ended, we did some quick turns to get onto Bedford Street, and this led us into downtown Fall River. It was only a short time from there before we got to the terminal.

A pretty unremarkable side street.

SRTA Route: FR 8 (BCC/Durfee HS)

Ridership: The 8 tends to get higher ridership during school months and less ridership when school is off. For example, in April 2014, the route got about 420 passengers per day (probably more on weekdays and less on Saturdays), but in June of that year, it only got about 283 people per day.

Pros: The 8 serves two major schools, a huge hospital, and dense residential areas. It’s also pretty direct, and it runs frequently, with service every half hour on weekdays until around 9 PM. Saturday service is only every hour, but I think ridership is a lot lower on Saturdays anyway – my midday inbound trip got just one person.

Cons: Mostly just the inbound-outbound split in the middle of the route. I know there’s no way to fix that, but three blocks is not an insignificant distance. Also, there’s a slight typo on the schedule where a school trip serving Durfee High School shows up after a regular trip, even though the school one comes first. Not a huge deal, but a little annoying.

Nearby and Noteworthy: Nothing much, unless you believe in the importance of a good education. Two schools, people! Two!

Final Verdict: 7/10
Yup, this is just a standard, quick little route. I don’t have too much to say – I think the 8 does what it sets out to do pretty well. Even the lack of Sunday service isn’t as big of a deal for this one, since a lot of its destinations are weekday-oriented anyway.

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