Wareham is considered by some to be part of the Cape. I personally would disagree – to me, you’re only on the Cape if you go over the canal. Well…today we’re actually visiting the Cape, because the 2 heads into Bourne, canal and all!
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| I didn’t have time to get an exterior shot of the bus, so here’s a water park! |
We went onto Cranberry Highway from Cranberry Plaza, going by a mess of random places, including the water park seen above. Once we turned onto Main Ave, though, it became entirely residential, and they were dense houses at that. They continued even after we went over Broad Cove and merged onto Union Ave.
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| This review totally isn’t three months late…just ignore the people enjoying the summer beach. |
We reached the lovely Onset Village, but instead of going further into it like the 1, we went the other way, turning eastward onto Onset Ave. This took us right alongside Onset Beach, and the view was really nice. We went over the East River, and there was one last stretch of dense houses on the other side.
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| Why not, here’s another amazing view! |
The houses got further apart soon, though. We went by a golf course, and later on, we came very close to yet another body of water, Butler Cove. Next, Onset Ave went over some train tracks, the scenery got industrial, and we turned onto Cranberry Highway again. That became Main Street once we went over the Cohasset Narrows and entered Bourne.
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| This route is so scenic! |
We went around a rotary, merged onto Main Street, and entered…”Downtown Buzzards Bay,” I guess? It was pretty interesting – although there were definitely places that looked somewhat noteworthy, a good amount of the center was either suburbanized or vacant. We also passed the “Commuter Rail” CapeFlyer station at Buzzards Bay!
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| That glorious railroad bridge really contrasts with the crap in the foreground… |
There were more random suburban businesses as we continued down Main Street, plus a nice little pond at one point. Eventually we arrived at another rotary and took it around onto a highway ramp. What highway, you ask? Oh, just THE FREAKIN’ BOURNE BRIDGE!!!
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| WE ARE LITERALLY GOING OVER THE BOURNE BRIDGE IN A MINIBUS!!!!!! |
Thus, we went over the Cape Cod Canal with one of the most incredible views any Massachusetts bus route can offer. On the other side of the bridge, we went around yet another rotary and merged onto Trowbridge Road, where the route was supposed to end at the Bourne Park and Ride. However, this is when things got…weird.
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| This isn’t the Park and Ride! |
We went by houses, a few schools, and a baseball field, then we turned onto Waterhouse Road outside of a few businesses. This was woods for a little bit, then residences started to come up, then office buildings, mostly health-related. We pulled into a seemingly random one, Paesano Place, looped around, and just went back up Waterhouse Road.
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| Well, there’s parking, but we’re still not in the right place… |
Coming back to the beginning of the street, we now made our way onto Sandwich Road. It took us past a library, a church, and some more houses. After that, we turned onto Veterans Way, looped back around onto an unnamed road, deviated to serve a Quality Inn, and finally made our way into the Bourne Park and Ride. Uhhhh…what?
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| Finally! |
Now, it’s worth noting that on the way back, the 2 takes a slightly different route when it reenters Wareham. Rather than going via Onset Village like the outbound routing, inbound trips just stay on Cranberry Highway, a mess of random suburban businesses with parking lots. It’s essentially just that until it makes it back to Cranberry Plaza.
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| Another view from the other side of the Bourne Bridge! |
GATRA Route: Link 2 (Cranberry Plaza to Buzzards Bay)
Ridership: The route gets an average of 76 riders per weekday and 29 riders per Saturday, averaging out to about 6-8 people per round trip. Huh…well, that’s not too great, is it? My ride actually had no riders in either direction, but the driver said that was an anomaly.
Pros: The more I think about this route, the more I realize there isn’t all that much that’s good about it. Well, it goes over the Bourne Bridge, and that’s absolutely amazing. Also, some of the trips time with Peter Pan buses in Bourne, which is nice. The route runs every hour on weekdays and every two hours on Saturdays, which matches the ridership all right. But…that’s really about it.
Cons: There are a multitude of problems I could talk about, such as the strange one-way routing to Onset Village, the inevitable traffic problems when crossing the Bourne Bridge, the weird padding (we left Buzzards Bay 6 minutes early going outbound), the confusing call-in flex service the route has in Bourne, or the fact that that whole loop we did before the park-and-ride was completely absent from the schedule. I think the biggest drawback for this route, though, is that it doesn’t need to run – it’s completely paralleled by the CCRTA Bourne Run route. Sure, that only runs every 90 minutes on weekdays only, but it travels much further (down to Mashpee) and it’s more direct to Bourne.
Nearby and Noteworthy: The Bourne Bridge! That view is so incredible!
Final Verdict: 3/10
This route is used by at least a few people, but I don’t know if it’s enough to justify keeping the service around, especially since the whole thing runs with the CCRTA. The CCRTA admittedly doesn’t run Saturday service on its Bourne route, but I still think the GATRA and the CCRTA should come up with some sort of agreement regarding this corridor – it seems to me that it would be much more efficient to just run the CCRTA along here.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
You should ride this route again and review buzzards bay station
Miles, I’ve noticed something weird with this route, and I think you might be able to answer the question
GATRA’s website still shows that the OWL Link 2 still goes over the Bourne Bridge to the Bourne Park & Ride Lot, but Google Maps shows it’s been rerouted to the Sagamore Park & Ride, connecting with the CCRTA Sandwich Line as well as Peter Pan and P&B buses (https://goo.gl/maps/2JfTUUDsd5Z5fRTa7). Is Google Maps wrong or is GATRA just insanely slow to update their website?
I’m thinking Google Maps might be wrong, although that is WEIRD…but I feel like GATRA would publish *some* sort of service alert about a route change that major!
Wouldn’t be the first time Google Maps is wrong, I guess.
Come to think of it, that routing to Sagamore is actually better than the routing to Bourne, since it solves the paralleling problem with the Bourne Run, and provides better connections to other services