RIPTA: 282 (Pascoag/Slatersville Flex)

Jun 12, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 0 Comments

This is the complete and utter wrong type of route to run as a flex. “Where you going?” the driver asked when Sam and I got on the 282 at its Walmart timepoint. “Sayles Ave,” I responded. “Where the 9x stops.” “I don’t know where that is,” the driver responded. “Just hit the button when you want to get off. It’s just like a big bus.” Okay…but then why is it a flex?

It actually pulls into Walmart, unlike the 54, which stops on the road next to it.

We headed out from Walmart onto Route 146A, which merged into Route 146. We did a u-turn to get onto 146 North, and from here, we had an express section (believe it or not), running through the woods on this highway. We eventually took an exit, making a left onto School Street after the ramp.

A view from the highway.

Considering what we had been going through on the highway, this area we were passing through now could be classified as “dense.” I mean, the houses were kinda close together, and there were actually a few businesses here and there. We even passed a few big apartment complexes, so that’s pretty significant. One of them was in an old factory, and this was one of the attractions of “North Smithfield Center,” the others being a town green, a church, a post office, and even a few businesses.

The church in North Smithfield.

Continuing onto Main Street, the dense houses near the center started to thin out, but we did also go by another apartment complex before coming up to some suburban businesses at the intersection with Victory Highway. We turned onto this, speeding past some homes and then a bunch of woods, entering the geographically huge town of Burrillville in the process. We soon turned onto Old Nasonville Road, which passed through a small residential neighborhood, and then it was a left back onto Victory Highway, but it was less of a “highway” at this point and more just a regular road.

Darn this rain, making these pictures awful!

Victory Highway was fairly industrial at this point, although there was some retail here and there, too. We maneuvered on Douglas Turnpike for a bit, only to continue down Victory Highway, which was forest before we spilled out into Nasonville, a small neighborhood with some reasonably dense houses and a post office. After going over the Branch River, the road went back to woods.

I think this is the Branch River? Truth be told, I’ve kinda lost track among these blurry pictures.

Our next point of interest was the Burrillville Police Department, and there were some legitimately dense houses after that. We went over the Clear River, then we turned onto Central Street just north of a post office and a “Country Store.” The houses got sparser along here, but it didn’t feel like the middle of nowhere – they weren’t far enough for that.

Some houses that are pretty close together.

We came into a place called Harrisville, and this was our biggest downtown yet, with a ton of houses, some big apartment buildings, some businesses. and even a theater. We actually deviated to the town’s library, because…we were picking someone up! Of course, he would’ve had to call in at least the day before to schedule this trip, which is not at all optimal, but yes, we were getting a passenger.

Outside of the library.

We came out of the library and turned onto Chapel Street, which left Harrisville and changed to far-apart houses again. Going through a cemetery, we came out next to an apartment building, then there were some dense businesses as we came down what was now called Pascoag Main Street. We turned onto Bridge Street, which did in fact go onto a bridge over a river, then we turned onto Sayles Ave…in the opposite direction of the 9x stop! Uh-oh…

HEY!

The driver turned around. “You gotta get off,” she said. “I’m going to the hospital to take a break, and I can’t bring you with me.” “But we wanted to go the other way down Sayles Ave,” I said. “Well, you shoulda hit the button,” the driver responded, and with that, we were out in the insane downpour. Time for a miserable walk back to town…

SCREW YOU!!!

RIPTA Route: 282 (Pascoag/Slatersville Flex)

Ridership: Just the one guy. And honestly, I can’t see many people using some of the scheduled stops on this thing (we’ll get to that), so the only use for the 282 is if you call in a day in advance. Because everyone wants to do that.

Pros: I’m gonna go on a limb and say that Burrillville is the most densely-populated part of Rhode Island that doesn’t have any all-day transit service. Yes, there is the 9x, which has one semi-midday trip, but for all intents and purposes, this area has nothing. So, in that sense, this route plays a big role in providing baseline transit service to Burrillville, but…

Cons: This is just bad. Obviously, most people are going to be calling 24 hours in advance to ride this, but let’s just see why the three scheduled timepoints don’t work either. The one at Sayles Ave (the real Sayles Ave, where the 9x stops) is the least egregious, since it does at least time with the 9x, but it’s completely useless for commuting, since it times only with the latest morning rush trip and the earliest evening rush trip. I guess most of the zone duplicates the 9x, though, so it doesn’t matter anyway.

The next timepoint is the hospital that the driver was talking about. It’s this small medical center in the middle of the woods way outside the Flex Zone, but that’s a useless timepoint, too! The first time the bus stops there is 8:45, but you can’t actually get up there with that, because the route itself starts at 8:45. That means you have to wait for the 2:40 timepoint, and then you’re stuck up there until 5:10.

Finally, there’s the Walmart timepoint. Based on the map, Walmart isn’t in the Flex Zone either, so you can only get to it during its scheduled times, of which there are two: 11:00 and 1:40. So…two hours and forty minutes at Walmart. I feel like even the most rabid shopaholic couldn’t spend that much time at a Walmart. So anyway, yeah…you basically have to call in 24 hours in advance to use this route for anything. It doesn’t help that this long, skinny Flex Zone probably doesn’t translate well to zippy service when you want it:

Nearby and Noteworthy: As an outsider, I kinda just wanted to leave these depressing-looking micro-towns. Sorry!

Final Verdict: 2/10
Okay, it’s time for that classic game of “Turn the Flex Route into a Fixed Route”!

I basically tried to create a route that serves as much as possible without having to snake or deviate too much. I omitted the hospital because it’s really far, and the people who are going there could likely use paratransit anyway. So, with that in mind, we end up with a route that operates every 90 minutes. It’s not optimal, but a fixed route running that often is still so much better than a Flex route where you have to call in a day in advance…at least in my opinion. Also, 90 minutes is an actually reasonable amount of time to spend at Walmart!

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

RIPTA: 281 (Woonsocket Flex)

Jun 11, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 1 Comment

“Didn’t you used to live in Kingston?” the woman on the Flex line asked. “Uhhhh…yeah,” I responded. Why does it have to be so hard to call for a Flex ride? “I want to go from Price Rite to the North Smithfield Stop & Shop,” I said. “I’m sorry, I need exact addresses,” the woman responded. Oh, but I was prepared this time! I had written the addresses on a notecard before making the call! HA! Let’s ride the 281.

The minibus entering the Price Rite parking lot.

We got on the bus at Price Rite and headed out onto Diamond Hill Road. It was suburban businesses and shopping plazas for a little while, but after the intersection with Mendon Road, it got more residential. We went over the Peters River, turned onto Wood Ave, and went over the river again. This street was lined with dense houses and apartments.

Houses.

Wood Street ended at Cass Street, which we used for a block to get onto Cumberland Street. We were also on this for a block, before turning onto Cumberland Street, which went over the Blackstone River and past the Woonsocket Middle School. We crossed a railroad track, and it was residential once again.

The bleak ol’ river…

We turned onto the tiny one-way Greene Street, which ultimately merged its way into Park Ave. This was a long stretch of just dense houses and apartments, with a few businesses dotted in here and there. They became much more plentiful (as did their parking lots) when we came up to Smithfield Road, and this was where we entered the Stop & Shop. From here, the bus left to go lay over at a McDonald’s parking lot. Typical Flex.

Bye!

RIPTA Route: 281 (Woonsocket Flex)

Ridership: Well…no one on our trip. Maybe it’s better at other times?

Pros: Woonsocket is a dense, important city that’s fairly inadequately covered by fixed route transportation. The Flex allows for the whole town to be covered by at least something that’s open to everybody. It runs from 6 AM to 6:30 PM on weekdays only, which is the minimal coverage necessary, I suppose.

Cons: We’re still doing the “call at least 24 hours in advance” thing, huh? We can’t just have it be an on-demand service? After all, it only takes about 15 minutes to drive from one end of Woonsocket to the other. It seems like it wouldn’t be too difficult to just make the service on demand. Hmm…

Nearby and Noteworthy: It’s Woonsocket. There isn’t much to see.

Final Verdict: 4/10

It’s a Flex route with a 24 hours in advance call system, so there’s no way I’m gonna give this thing higher than a 4. Yes, it’s decent for what it does, but even when it’s doing what it does, it has problems. For example, why is the Flex Zone confined to Woonsocket and Woonsocket only? I’ll bet a lot of people would use it if the zone was extended to include the Walmart in North Smithfield. Plus, that would allow for a “transfer” to the 282, another Flex. Speaking of which…we’re riding that one next time!

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

RIPTA: 87 (Fairmount/Walnut Hill)

Jun 11, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 3 Comments

“Fairmount/Walnut Hill”? What the heck is that supposed to mean? No, we need to refer to the 87 like it really is: “Loopy Woonsocket Circulator.”

The other bus on the 87 was using a trolley. We just got the boring ol’ regular bus.

The 87 essentially runs in a loop on its western end, and luckily, the terminus of the 54 is right at the start of that loop. Sam and I got on the bus on Social Street, passing lots of suburban businesses with huge parking lots before merging into Main Street and entering downtown Woonsocket. Like I’ve said before, it…wasn’t much.

Pretty deserted.

We were about to go over the Blackstone River like the 54, but just before, we turned onto River Street, which ran alongside the river instead. Other than that, there were mostly dense houses along here, at least until an industrial area where we turned onto Fairmount Street. It was here that we crossed over the Blackstone River, entering another dense residential area.

Is this gloomy because of the weather or the scenery itself? Or both? Probably both.

We turned onto 9th Street, which took us to an apartment development. This was the route’s “last stop,” with the bus making its way onto Memorial Drive and looping around. Luckily, since it runs in a loop in this part of town, we only had to lay over for two minutes before heading back out. We retraced our steps as far back as the Blackstone River crossing, but before making it over, we turned onto 2nd Street.

Inside the apartment development.

We passed a few apartment buildings, but once 2nd Ave crossed a railroad track, we were in an industrial area. We turned onto River Street, which went over the Blackstone River, then we headed down the narrow Verry Street, which only ran for a block before we merged onto Harris Ave. This became Railroad Street, and it led us back into downtown Woonsocket, where we turned onto Main Street in the same direction to serve the same stops that we had served on the way out. I’ll bet a lot of passengers get asked where they’re going on that section of the route.

Wow…that’s an industrial area all right.

We turned onto Bernon Street after downtown, and this took us over another Blackstone River crossing, after which we turned onto Front Street. We passed an apartment building and a few dense houses, then it was time to head down Court Street over the river again. From there, it was a right onto Clinton Street, which turned into suburban businesses with big parking lots pretty quickly. Soon after passing the terminus of the 54 (and our original starting point), we turned onto Cumberland Street.

Oh look, it’s the trolley! See, I wasn’t lying!

We went by some apartment developments, then we turned onto Cass Street, which went by the Landmark Medical Center. And then from there…well, the route gets a little crazy. Let’s just run through the tiny streets we travelled down for a few seconds at a time: Sweet Ave (dense houses), Elm Street (ditto), Florida Street (same), Robinson Street (entering an apartment development), Morin Heights Boulevard (another one), Linden Ave (back to dense houses). Okay, great.

Some of those dense houses.

We then turned onto Diamond Hill Road, which took us to Walnut Hill Plaza. This got a deviation, of course, and then we returned to the road for just a little bit longer before deviating into the next shopping plaza over, Diamond Hill Plaza. That was our final stop!

Man, that rain’s really coming down!

RIPTA Route: 87 (Fairmount/Walnut Hill)

Ridership: I guess for a circulator, ridership was okay: 10 people throughout the ride. I’d imagine that’s about normal for this one.

Pros: Woonsocket is definitely a sizeable enough city to deserve a fixed route, and this one does its job alright for being the only local bus within a town. Alright.

Cons: Boy, the routing gets pretty crazy at times, huh? Not as bad as other routes in other places, but it’s certainly noticeable. Also, the schedule is…weird. In the morning, it uses two buses, allowing for alternating headways of 28 and 32 minutes. That might just be one of the most annoying things I’ve ever seen in my life. But anyway, in the afternoon and evening, a third bus is added, and service becomes every 25 minutes. I’m not sure why that happens, but it happens. And then, on weekends…every 75 minutes. Yeah…that’s a big jump right there.

Nearby and Noteworthy: Some really boring shopping centers. Woohoo!

Final Verdict: 4/10
This reminds me of the MART Gardner Shuttle. Depressing, hilly, industrial city? Check. Weird, loopy circulator route that somehow still gets a decent amount of people? Check. Strange schedule that doesn’t entirely make sense? Check. So yeah…a 4 seems fitting for this one.

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

RIPTA: 54 (Lincoln/Woonsocket)

Jun 9, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 2 Comments

This is a big one! We’re going from Providence to Woonsocket using the only public transit connection between those two cities. The 54 also runs mostly express, which is interesting, but I sure ain’t complaining!

Woahhhhh, up close and personal…

The route wastes no time. It tells you right off the bat, “I am an express route.” It goes straight onto Memorial Boulevard and onto I-95 right from Kennedy Plaza. It was pretty weird being on a RIPTA route travelling on I-95 north, but we soon took an exit onto Route 146, entering unfamiliar territory for me. This highway ran close to dense residential neighborhoods, but all we could see was trees for the most part.

The rain allowed for some high-quality pictures, huh?

We made our way into Lincoln at some point, and soon we took an exit to do our first deviation. Yeah, it’s not a true express, unfortunately – it has to do some off-highway deviations on the way to Woonsocket. This first one was to serve the Twin River Casino, and after passing some nice, rural-looking houses, we pulled into the monstrous parking lot for the gambling house. Yay.

The casino.

We made our way onto Old Louisquisset Pike, continuing north past some leafy houses. We then made a deviation to serve CCRI, but after that, we only had to turn onto Jenckes Hill Road before getting onto an on-ramp again. More expressing through the woods!

Another bus boarding at CCRI.

Our next deviation took us onto George Washington Highway, and we ended up at the Lincoln Mall. This is actually the only all-day bus route that runs directly from Providence to the mall, so this was an important deviation. It was also a mercifully short diversion, and we were soon back on Route 146, going through interchanges with I-295 and with a spur highway.

In the Lincoln Mall.

It was after that spur that we entered North Smithfield and Route 146 ceased to be a highway. Now it was your typical suburban road that was impossibly wide and lined with businesses with big parking lots and the occasional unfortunate house. There was a drive-in, though! This was also a short local section, because Route 146 soon became a highway again…but we didn’t stay with it, taking the first exit onto Route 146A.

A characteristic intersection.

We turned onto Dowling Village Boulevard to do our next and final deviation, this time to Walmart. Dowling Village Boulevard also served other huge stores, too, so it was a real win-win! We returned to Route 146A (Smithfield Road), passing some more suburban businesses, including a Stop & Shop. Next, we entered Woonsocket and turned onto Providence Street, which was lined with dense, urban houses – a big change from before.

A side street.

We turned onto South Main Street, and this went over the Blackstone River. On the other side, South Main Street became just Main Street, and we entered…downtown Woonsocket? Unfortunately, it was just a bunch of drab, mostly vacant buildings. We had to merge onto the one-way Clinton Street, and that was more of the same. The older buildings gave way to newer ones with parking lots, and then we turned onto Cummings Way, reaching our last stop. The downpouring rain didn’t help the charm of the area.

The bus on its way back to Providence.

RIPTA Route: 54 (Lincoln/Woonsocket)

Ridership: My trip had 18 people, and interestingly, a bunch of those people actually got on during the local section. So it gets a good amount of riders from Providence, and a good amount on its Woonsocket section! Seems like good ridership to me!

Pros: For the one connection between Providence and Woonsocket, the 54 does its job well. I like how it’s mostly express, and the deviations all seem to get at least some people. The schedule is also great: every half hour on weekdays, every 45 minutes on Saturdays, and every hour nights and Sundays. Service runs late into the night, too, until midnight on weekdays and 11 PM on weekends.

Cons: Of course the route has RIPTA layover syndrome, amounting to 25-30 minutes on all days. This is especially funny on weekdays, when buses pull up to Cummings Way three minutes after the previous one to Providence has left! Also, the schedule has these trips that have always baffled me. For example, there are two 12:25 departures from Providence on weekdays, and both 1:13 and 1:17 trips from Woonsocket. Where are these buses coming from? As it turns out, these are pullouts and pullbacks of the 87 (Woonsocket’s local circulator) that are going to or from Providence. I guess that makes more sense…

Nearby and Noteworthy: I wasn’t impressed with Woonsocket’s drab downtown, although in its defense, this is a city that’s in pretty hard times right now. I guess there’s always Walmart…

Final Verdict: 8/10
The 54 is a fantastic connector to Woonsocket from Providence, as well as from Woonsocket to places like Walmart and the Twin City Casino. It’s pretty fast, it has a good schedule, and it serves some busy locations. Also, if you can get one of those weird 87 trips, I’ll bet you’ll have the bus to yourself!

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

RIPTA: 40 (Butler/Elmgrove)

Jun 6, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 1 Comment

From the MVRTA 40 to the RIPTA 40! These routes are very, very different. I mean, we’re going from inner-city Lawrence to the Providence East Side. You can’t get much more different than that.

The bus boarding at Kennedy Plaza.

We of course began at Kennedy Plaza, and like I mentioned before, this is an East Side route. You know what that means? We headed up Washington Street, crossed the Providence River, and entered the East Side Transit Tunnel! YES!!!

The first thing we saw upon leaving the tunnel. Hi, Starbucks!

We came out of the tunnel in the Thayer Street area, but we weren’t able to experience its businesses for too long, since we headed onto the mostly residential Waterman Street. However, we did get to experience the businesses of Wayland Square, directly running through the heart of it on Wayland Ave. This was another quick retail section, though, as we soon made our way onto Elmgrove Ave, going by dense but very nice-looking houses.

Some of those houses.

There was a small business block, then nothing new until the intersection with Sessions Street. That had Brown Stadium on one corner, a middle school on another, and a Jewish Community Center on a third. It was more houses from there and as we turned onto Rochambeau Ave, which had a really big mansion on it.

Widest median ever?

We turned briefly onto Blackstone Boulevard, which had a huge park median. then we headed down Butler Drive. This lovely, woodsy road took us to Butler Hospital, which was quite possibly the nicest-looking hospital I’ve ever seen. It was also our final stop, and I had 22 minutes of layover to kill.

Hanging out at the beautiful campus.

RIPTA Route: 40 (Butler/Elmgrove)

Ridership: I rode this route in the morning rush. On the plus side, it got similar amounts of people in both directions. On the minus side, that equated to four riders going out and five coming back in. Ehhh…not great.

Pros: As beautiful as its campus is, Butler Hospital is quite isolated from the outside world, so the 40 is really the only way of getting there without using a car. Of course, like I mentioned, the ridership isn’t great, but the schedule does at least match that: service is weekdays only, every hour. The schedule also touts the route’s interline with the 18, and though the 18’s neighborhoods couldn’t be more different than the 40’s, it’s nice that they make it clear you can stay on to go across town.

Cons: The limited schedule isn’t great, and this probably gets very few people middays. I’d imagine everyone who rides this route on the independent section is heading to Butler Hospital. I will say that this is far more useful than the 49, though, since it actually operates in areas that are far from other transit services.

Nearby and Noteworthy: Man, those 22 minutes were well-spent at the hospital. They have these walking trails that go around the whole campus, and although I wasn’t able to do the whole circuit (the trails aren’t signed too well…), I still hugely enjoyed the walk. I mean…

It’s like something out of a fairy tale!

Final Verdict: 6/10
This one is okay. It serves its purpose. If you wanna go to Butler Hospital, you can if it’s a weekday and you’re willing to wait an hour if you miss the bus. But then again…it’s not like it needs to run any more often than that.

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

MVRTA: 40 (Methuen Square)

Jun 5, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 0 Comments

The 40 runs in a straight line up Broadway to Methuen Square and beyond. Sounds awesome. Oh wait, no one told me about the deviations…

The 40 gets to board in the sunlight!

We went west down Essex Street, going by lots of retail, which continued as we turned onto Broadway. However, it started to get a little more mixed, with houses coming in between the businesses. For a bit, one whole side of the street was occupied by huge old factories, and then a new shopping plaza appeared as we entered Methuen.

Just a side street.

We went over the Spicket River twice, passing more houses and businesses, then we entered Methuen Square, which was…a lot less exciting than I thought it would be. We turned onto Hampshire Street, beginning the route’s long-winded outbound-only deviation – this was the square’s main drag, I guess, but the retail ended quickly. Turning onto Lowell Street, we crossed the Spicket River again.

Methuen Square.

There were a few more businesses as we turned onto Pelham Street, but it very quickly turned to houses. We emerged in a strange area with an apartment development, a baseball field, pylons, an MVRTA commuter park-and-ride for its Boston express service, and some suburban businesses. We turned onto Mystic Street from here, and after going under the pylons again, it normalized back to houses.

Question: why are people parked in the commuter park-and-ride on a Sunday?

We came back to Pelham Street, ready to finish the deviation, but…oh, there’s a deviation-within-a-deviation onto Barker Street. This was just a little jog to serve some more houses and the Methuen Senior Activity Center. We turned onto Lowell Street, then it was a left onto Hampshire Street, and this finally took us back onto Broadway. We were only on it for enough time to go over Route 213, and then we pulled into Village Plaza, a thoroughly boring shopping center.

This is kind of a cool view, seen from the deviation.

So was that it? No, because the route has an inbound-only deviation too! It occurs a little south of Methuen Square, and the route is: right on Oakland, right on Union, left on Railroad, left on Oakland, back onto Broadway. What does it serve? I guess some houses? A few businesses? It’s all within a less than five minute walk from Broadway, so it feels, uh, pretty darn useless.

Oooh, an old railroad station!

MVRTA Route: 40 (Methuen Square)

Ridership: The 40 gets good ridership, with 403 passengers per weekday and 224 per Saturday.

Pros: This is the only route to serve Methuen’s main drag and central square, and it’s mostly direct. Also, it has the MVRTA pulse schedule of hourly service seven days a week with half hourly service at rush hour, so that’s good.

Cons: Those darn deviations! The outbound-only one is fairly tolerable, since it does serve a lot and it’s close to the end of the route, but even then, the jog in the middle of it is annoying. The inbound-only one just feels useless, and seems like it could be easily eliminated. Also, good luck trying to get to Methuen Square on time, because at almost every time of day, that trip is gonna take a heck of a lot longer than the scheduled ten minutes.

Nearby and Noteworthy: I’m sorry, but I really didn’t see all that much along here! Maybe Methuen Square has some hidden gems, but it doesn’t seem like a place where you could spend hours walking around in.

Final Verdict: 6/10
The route is…okay. Yeah, the deviations are annoying and the timing is off, but the bus does serve a lot and it seems to get a good amount of people. I can’t hate it too much.

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

MVRTA: 39B (North Andover Mall/Phillips Street)

Jun 4, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 3 Comments

How does the 39B differ from the 39A? In a lot of ways, actually! Like, to the point where I’m wondering how you can even justify naming them like that…

Buses everywhere!

From Buckley, we made our way onto Common Street, which ran alongside Campagnone Common before hitting up some retail sections. We reached a big factory at Union Street, and as we turned onto that, it generally got more industrial. Crossing a canal and the Merrimack River, we came next to the Lawrence Commuter Rail station, but unlike the 33, we didn’t deviate to serve it. For some reason.

The canal, because I always seem to use the Merrimack River picture instead.

We went over the Commuter Rail tracks and turned onto Market Street, going along a park. Next, we turned onto Loring Street, a residential road, and the houses continued as we merged around onto Salem Street, coming up…alongside…the park again. Pretty sure we could’ve taken a more direct route there, but okay…

Maybe the park is so nice that the MVRTA decided it had to be served twice!

We turned onto Phillips Street, which was allllllllllll houses until the intersection with Laurel Street, which had an apartment development next to it. And…oh no…we’re not moving…are we…great, we’re four minutes early. LALALALALALA WAITIN’ AT THE STOP!

The beautiful view for four minutes.

We went by Plaza 114, but we didn’t serve it, since it wasn’t the 10:00 or 11:00 outbound trip. You know, those trips go into the plaza, but nothing else does. No, instead we just turned onto Winthrop Ave, running past suburban businesses galore and under I-495. We barely entered North Andover with just enough time to pull into the North Andover Mall…one minute early.

A MVRTA bus outside of Buckley! Wow!

MVRTA Route: 39B (North Andover Mall/Phillips Street)

Ridership: The 39B gets pretty good ridership for MVRTA standards, although it’s not nearly as high as the 39A: we’ve got 381 passengers per weekday and 212 per Saturday, exactly the average ridership for that second figure.

Pros: The Phillips Street corridor is pretty dense, so it needs a bus service. Also, of course, we’ve got that MVRTA pulse schedule, so service is every hour seven days a week, plus every half hour during the weekday peak periods.

Cons: This route is way too short. It’s scheduled to take 20 minutes to get to the North Andover Mall, and that’s with a lot of padding. Heck, the buses on this route spend 22 minutes just sitting in Buckley! Over a third of the route length is just doing nothing, and that doesn’t include the times when it’s early and it gets to sit for a while anyway!

Nearby and Noteworthy: Most of the route’s independent section is residential, so the biggest attraction is probably the North Andover Mall. And I hate that mall.

Final Verdict: 5/10
Alright, so we’ve got a case where the 39A serves way too many things and the 39B serves way too few. You know what that means? Have the 39B serve some of the 39A stuff! For example, the 39B could absolutely run beyond the North Andover Mall to serve one of the deviations that the 39A has past there. The Plaza 114 deviation is a little tougher to deal with – if the 39A serves it in the same way it currently does, then it makes more sense for the 39B to go in instead, but if the A adopts my suggestion from that post, then that’s more efficient.

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

MVRTA: 39A (Colonial Heights/North Andover Mall)

Jun 1, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 0 Comments

Okay, time for a nice direct route to the North Andover Mall! Oh wait, I forgot the MVRTA is incapable of running direct routes. Okay, well, the 39A is still their straightest line to the mall…

Boarding at Buckley.

We went straight down Amesbury Street from the Buckley Transportation Center, and it very quickly took us out of downtown Lawrence. We entered an industrial area as we crossed a canal, then we went over the Merrimack River and the road became Parker Street, then we crossed one more canal and went under the Commuter Rail tracks! Finally, past all those crossings, Parker Street now consisted of dense buildings – some houses, some businesses.

Talk about depressing…

Parker Street curved slightly southeast and became Winthrop Ave, and it was now mostly houses. We turned onto South Union Street next, then we deviated to serve Plaza 114. This was a clever deviation, though – since the plaza parking lot also goes back to Winthrop Ave, it would allow us to continue the way we were going…oh wait, no, we’re looping around to serve the other side of the plaza. And now we’re coming back onto South Union Street. Okay…

A foggy dead-end street.

We turned onto Marlboro Street, a tiny, sidewalkless road with suburban houses. Ditto as we turned onto Durso Ave. And where did that take us? Winthrop Ave, right next to the Plaza 114 entrance. GOOD! So we continued the way we were going, passing some businesses, Lawrence High School, the diminutive Stadium Plaza, and an abandoned Showcase Cinemas.

On the suburban houses jog.

We went under I-495 and entered North Andover on the other side, and voila, here was the mall! It took forever to do a deviation into it, and the route was not over yet. No, we still had to perform two extra deviations beyond the mall! We returned to Winthrop Ave and continued our way further into Andover.

Inside the mall.

We turned onto Waverly Road, a street that entered Andover proper and became High Street. Soon after that transition, we deviated into Doctor’s Park, a health complex, then it was back into North Andover on Waverly Road. We crossed Winthrop Ave, for our second deviation was on the other side: Woodridge Housing, an apartment development that the bus barely goes into. From there, it was back to Lawrence!

This is better signage than the entire rest of the MVRTA…

MVRTA Route: 39A (Colonial Heights/North Andover Mall)

Ridership: This is one of the system’s higher-ridership routes, getting 478 people per weekday and 271 per Saturday. Why does it get so many people? Maybe because it does follow a somewhat direct route and runs the same way inbound and outbound!!!!!!!!!

Pros: Okay, well, that last sentence in the “Ridership” section has two of them. Of course, the 39A also has the MVRTA pulse schedule, meaning there’s a bus every hour seven days a week, and added half-hourly service during peak times.

Cons: For one thing, that Plaza 114 deviation is executed horribly. I really doubt any of those suburban houses on that extra jog generate much ridership, so it would make so much more sense just to have buses travel through the plaza back to Winthrop Ave. Also, what’s the deal with this 39A/39B business? The two routes really aren’t all that similar! On that note, the 39A has a lot more on its plate than the 39B does – I think it would make sense for, say, the 39A to only serve Doctors Park and the 39B to serve Woodridge Housing. Currently, the 39B just ends at North Andover Mall, and it gets back to Buckley with plenty of time to spare as a result.

Nearby and Noteworthy: Two shopping plazas! Wow!

Final Verdict: 6/10
I…guess…it’s…okay…? Hey, for MVRTA standards, running the same way inbound and outbound is certainly an achievement. However, they still don’t know how to run a direct route. Ideally, the 39A would use Plaza 114 to get back out to Winthrop Ave, and that would be a really well-executed deviation! Instead, we have to do the weird jog on random side streets. Plus, the workload of the deviations after the North Andover Mall should really be split between the 39A and 39B – the 39B does nothing while the 39A does everything!

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

MVRTA: 37 (Beacon Street)

May 31, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 1 Comment

Ah, it’s the Pac-Man route! Seriously. Look at it.

So yes, this is the 37, a wild snaking mess running aimlessly through southern Lawrence and Andover. It serves two Marriotts. Two!

At least some light is shining in here.

We went down Essex Street from Buckley, passing brick buildings housing businesses. There were also some apartments where we turned onto Broadway, but this street became industrial quickly. We crossed over an abandoned railroad track after going over a canal, then we crossed the beautiful Merrimack River and its waterfall.

Awesome!

There were some businesses on the other side, but we made an instant right onto the residential Shattuck Street. That curved around to become Newton Street, and the scenery was all dense houses, aside from a school in the middle of it all. It was at the intersection with Andover Street where the inbound and outbound routings split up, and we would be apart for a very long time…

Some of the various houses.

We approached some suburban businesses at the intersection with Beacon Street, onto which we turned. This was technically joining the inbound route, but the 37 acts like a figure-8, so this was the “combined” middle portion of that loop. Beacon Street had housing developments on both sides, and a shelter outside of a white building attracted a few riders onto the bus.

The white building. Google Maps won’t tell me what it is.

Beacon Street’s housing became more suburban after that, and it continued when we turned onto Mount Vernon Street, leaving the inbound route again. As we turned onto North Street and entered Andover, the houses got even bigger and further apart, save for a development at one point. We turned onto River Road at the Lawrence Technical School, rejoining the inbound route.

Not even sidewalks? Aw…

We went down River Road for a bit before turning onto Campanelli Drive. This took us through a marsh and up to the…uh…Courtyard Marriott. I see, so this was a deviation? Yup, okay, we’re heading back to River Road now. Fun.

In the process of doing the deviation.

River Road got a heck of a lot wider as we crossed I-93, and there were lots of suburban businesses and office parks on the other side. We turned onto Minuteman Road, a street with a huge median serving offices galore that took us to…another Marriott. Okay, then, glad we’ve finished the hotel shuttle portion of the route.

Yay, Marriott!

We were now heading back to Lawrence, but we stayed with the outbound route back to Lawrence Technical School (minus that first Marriott deviation). While the outbound route came up to the school on North Street, we stayed on River Road, which quickly got narrow and residential after the school. Once we came back into Lawrence, though, the road became Andover Street, and it was back to office parks.

There’s a particularly industrial-looking one.

The route used to do a jog via Glenn and Shepard Streets to serve some of the offices and warehouses, but the MVRTA got rid of it recently, even though it still appears on the map! So, we just stayed on Andover Street, and we soon reached the intersection with Beacon Street again. We turned onto it just like before, and once again, that white building generated a few more people (the ones who got on before had yet to get off).

Onto Beacon Street again.

Whereas the outbound route made a right onto Mount Vernon Street, we took a left, passing two water towers and a bunch of houses. Those continued as we turned onto Jefferson Street…and Bowdoin Street…and Davis Street…and Amherst Street…and here we are back on the main route at Andover Street! What a ride, what a ride, back to Lawrence we go!

The imposing water towers.

MVRTA Route: 37 (Beacon Street)

Ridership: The 37’s weekday ridership is well above the system average at 361 passengers, but it drops way down on Saturdays to 162 people…well below the system average. My Sunday trip got 6 total people, and they all came from that white building!

Pros: I’m sure the 37 gets lots of reverse commuters on weekdays to those office parks, and it seems to attract lots of residents from the Beacon Street apartments. Also, we’ve got the classic MVRTA schedule, with buses running every hour every day, plus half-hourly service at rush hour.

Cons: Other than the route being a loopy mess? I think the 37’s biggest problem is that it serves so little that actually needs to be served outside of the peak. I mean, I doubt those sidewalk-less suburban neighborhoods are very transit oriented, and of course no one’s going to office parks on a weekend, so Beacon Street is really it. If you’re staying at those Marriotts, you’ve got a shuttle to Lawrence, not that the hotels make any effort to tell you that, or that anyone staying there would be inclined to use a bus, or that anyone staying there would at all want to go to Lawrence. Also, this one is minor, but the 37’s snow route travels in the opposite direction of the regular route for some reason. Yeah, that’s gonna end well!

Nearby and Noteworthy: This post is turning into a Marriott ad. But yeah…this bus serves two of ’em.

Final Verdict: 4/10
There has to be a way this route can be modified outside of the peak to not have to run out to the Marriotts and the office parks every single trip. Do those places generate any ridership middays or weekends? I doubt it! They certainly didn’t on my ride! Of course, shortening the route would affect the pulse back at Buckley, so honestly, there might be nothing we can do. I guess buses will just keep running out to the Marriotts every hour, seven days a week. Gosh, they could at least tell their customers that the bus exists!

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

GATRA: 16 (Seekonk/Attleboro) – A.K.A. THE BUS FROM HELL

May 28, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 4 Comments

Usually I like to do my reviews in chronological order, but I feel compelled to write this one as soon as possible because this bus route is hell spawn and I’m worried it’ll do something awful to me if I don’t kill it ASAP. Ahem…the GATRA 16, everyone. Time for some context.

My first encounter with the 16.

ATTEMPT #1: So my first encounter with this route was over a year ago, when Nathan and I were just trying to take a humble GATRA ride from Attleboro. Our original plan was to do the 14, but that bus broke down, so we decided to do the 16 instead. That bus ended up being 25 minutes late, but at least it did come, and we were able to complete the route. However, just a few days after, GATRA announced that they were extending the route to the Market Basket next to South Attleboro Station (which I apparently gave a 5 – its score should not be that high), a significant enough extension that I decided the route needed to be ridden again. This can all be found in my 70 Minutes in Attleboro post, which concludes with this paragraph:

“NO! GATRA announced that they’re extending the route! I have to ride the stupid thing again! But at the very least, while the route was pretty bad when we rode it, this extension has made it reeeaaaalllyyyyy bad. I look forward to being able to slam it even harder than I would have! Until we meet again, 16…”

Well, it turned out that wouldn’t be for a while. I tried to incorporate it into so many itineraries, but the stupid schedule made it impossible to time with anything. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t about to wait for hours on end in South Attleboro just to ride a stupid GATRA route. Also, seriously, how the heck did that garbage station get a 5???

ATTEMPT #2: Okay, so finally, over a year later, I was able to incorporate the 16 into an itinerary. Sam and I were planning on doing a 16 to South Attleboro after our 14 ride. Great. But…it just wouldn’t come. We were waiting there and it just wouldn’t come. And as the time ticked by, we knew we would miss our train home if we missed it, and we knew that meant waiting for three hours in South Attleboro. It just couldn’t happen. It arrived almost 20 minutes late, but we had to ignore it and just hop on the train home.

ATTEMPT #3: It was clear by this point that the route had an on-time performance issue, so it needed to be handled with care. Nathan and I decided to take another stab at it as part of an after-school itinerary down on the Providence Line. We were going to get the 3:55 train from South Station, which we had plenty of time to get to from the end of school.

Oh wait…there was a mandatory rehearsal for marching band that day until 4.

“We’re definitely going to end early,” our band teacher assured us a few days before. Okay, that was promising. As long as the rehearsal ended around 3:50, we could still make the 4:30 train and get the 16 done. We could still do this.

But the rehearsal didn’t end early. It went right up until 4. But…Nathan and I were still optimistic. After all, we had made a 2:55 train to Worcester after leaving the school at 2:30, so tight Commuter Rail connections were possible. We rushed out of the gym and tried to open the door downstairs…but it was locked. “What the heck?” the percussion teacher exclaimed, fumbling through his enormous collection of keys while the bass drum players decided it was a great time to play as loudly and annoyingly as possible.

Finally, a custodian came and unlocked the door for us, and Nathan and I burst through the door ahead of everyone else. I had to crouch-run so my sousaphone wouldn’t hit the ceiling and explode, but we eventually made it downstairs to the band room door…which…was…locked. “Go through the chorus room!” Nathan said, remembering the secret hallway. We scurried through the maze of doors, popping out into the band room, and we scrambled to put our stuff away as quickly as possible.

By the time we were done, everyone else had made it in, and they were standing around near the exit. We pushed through them and sprinted down the hallway, coming out and heading towards Harvard. We had considered doing a 68 that would arrive a little before 4, but clearly that wasn’t happening, so Red Line it was.

We got down to the platform just as a train was closing its doors. Darn it! But the next one was in three minutes, which was a good distance – it was soon, but it was far enough behind the previous train that it wouldn’t be too slow. The train came, we got on, and we were off.

The Red Line likes to dwell. A lot. It was clear by the time we got to Kendall and we were just sitting there that we weren’t going to make the train from South Station. But maybe we could make it from Back Bay or Ruggles? “There’s an Orange Line train that times perfectly,” Nathan said, looking at the MBTA live map.

So, at Downtown Crossing, we pushed through the crowd, did the transfer of death, and…just barely missed the train. There was another one in three minutes, though! We hopped on, and it actually moved at a decent clip. Plus, the Providence train was running a minute late, which wasn’t much, but it was something.

We stayed on through Back Bay because the Commuter Rail and the Orange Line were scheduled to take the same amount of time to Ruggles, and we would be able to see the train in the Southwest Corridor en route. As our subway car arrived at Ruggles, we could just barely see the Commuter Rail train stopped there. We sprinted out, well-knowing we would miss it, and…yep, there it goes. Had any one of the things that went wrong not gone wrong, we would’ve been fine!!!!

But there was still a chance with the 4:53 train. It would arrive at South Attleboro at 5:57, while the bus leaves it at 5:59. It was a long shot, but the 16 is often late, so it seemed plausible that it would work. The train made it down to South Attleboro in good time, and we got out and started looking around.

OH MY GOD IT EXISTS!!!!!

THERE IT WAS!!! It was coming down that access road that runs parallel to the Commuter Rail tracks right next to the station! Now, as anyone who has ever seen a GATRA bus knows, you can “Give us a wave!” at any point on any route to get the bus to stop. Given that this was a local road with slow-moving traffic and a sidewalk, it seemed perfectly reasonable to wave for the bus here. And so wave we did.

The driver had a look of fury in his eyes. As the bus slowly moved past us, he motioned a huge “NO” with his arms and jutted his thumb back towards the Market Basket. Wait…but…but…but nothing. The bus drove straight by. As far as I could tell, we were waiting in a perfectly safe spot that presented no reason that a “wave” couldn’t be given. I have no idea how I prevented myself from yelling at the driver from the sidewalk. Actually, I have no idea how I’m currently preventing myself from writing in all-caps right now, considering how angrily I’m pounding the keyboard remembering this scene.

ATTEMPT #4: We needed revenge on this bus. The next day was a late start at school, so Nathan and I devised a plan to get the 16 done in the morning. We got the 7:25 train from South Station, which would arrive at South Attleboro at 8:20. The bus leaves at 8:59. Plenty of time to figure out where it actually boards, so we wouldn’t have to deal with any of the waving ambiguity.

It’s at this point that I ought to show you the route map, so you can know that I’m not lying when I say it was slightly difficult to tell where the bus actually stops. Let’s just compare the route map to a real-life map:

Okay, you can see there’s a bit of…er…distortion with the GATRA map, which pretends to be geographically accurate but clearly isn’t. Still, the other two timepoints in the map section shown are pretty easy to find. Central Plaza is at the location of the plaza on Central Ave, while “Knight and South Main” is at the intersection with Knight Ave and South Main Street (although actually, Knight Ave intersects with South Main Street twice, and the route map shows the stop at one intersection while GATRA’s GTFS data on Google Maps put the stop at the other intersection, so who knows what the timepoint really is…I used the one on Google Maps).

But Market Basket? Who knows??? First of all, the GATRA map puts the Market Basket way further into Massachusetts than it actually is, not to mention it inserts some mysterious diagonal ghost road running south of it that doesn’t exist (if it’s supposed to be County Street, then it’s in the complete wrong location). And what the heck does it show the bus doing? Just kinda meandering up? The best thing I can get from that, and what we got at the time, is that it goes into the parking lot (by the way, those bus stops on Google Maps appear to the user as RIPTA stops, so ignore them).

Basically, what we extrapolated from this was: the map makes no sense, but it’s GATRA, so it’s most likely going to directly serve the Market Basket. And actually, we didn’t know this at the time, but if you zoom in close enough on the map, there is a GATRA stop shown right outside the Market Basket. So anyone would think it directly goes there. Thus, after buying a few snacks from inside, we perched ourselves outside the store and waited for that 8:59 bus. Finally, at around 9:10 (because of course it was late), we saw the bus come off of Newport Ave and take a right. Awesome.

But then…it took another right. It was looping around on the connector road! “No no no no no no no,” I said in disbelief as we started running up towards Newport Ave. “We can get it on the other side!” I said as we came up to the road. It was a six-lane highway. There was no way we were getting across that, but I kept looking for openings anyway.

There was the bus coming from the other side. I waved my arms off, thinking there was a possibility we could maybe make it across this highway without getting killed. The driver gave a “What am I supposed to do?” hand motion and drove off. I don’t think I’ve ever screamed so loudly in my life.

Okay, but granted, it wasn’t the driver’s fault this time. It’s just that, oh, I dunno, WHOEVER MADE THE 16’S ROUTE MAP HAS NO IDEA HOW GEOGRAPHY WORKS!!!!!! I’m fine with a diagram. I’m fine with a geographically-accurate map. But doing a mixture of BOTH is the stupidest thing! You can’t pretend it’s a geographic map when you’re heavily distorting reality! Also, PLEASE JUST USE ACTUAL ROADS! If it had just shown the bus looping around on the connector road, we would’ve known to get it from the RIPTA stop! But NO, we just get a random splotch of route and GATRA expects us to know what that means! AT LEAST PUT THE REAL STOP ON GOOGLE MAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ATTEMPT #5: Okay, this was it. We were going to get it this time. Kill this bus route from hell once and for all. The next day, we had another marching rehearsal after school. Luckily, the band had improved sufficiently enough that we could end early. Well, “early” meaning 3:53 or so. Also, there were no doors locked this time, so we could put our stuff away quickly and get out of the school.

We were shooting for the 4:30 train. We could get that 68 this time, except…except it wasn’t coming. Why was the tracker only at 5 minutes? Why was the bus just sitting at one spot without moving? We both realized it at the same time: Harvard graduation. Buses were on detour. That was out. Time to run to the Red Line again.

That was easier said than done, of course. There were so many slow people, and we were lucky if we could get a hundred feet of open space to actually run. We eventually made it down to the Harvard platform, and it was packed. When the train came in, everyone slowwwwwwwwwwwly moved in, and we were crush loaded by the time we could leave at 4:11.

The dwells were worse than usual. We departed Park Street at around 4:25 and started to get into position to leave. “You trying to get a train?” someone asked. “Yeah, the 4:30,” Nathan responded. “Yeah, you’re not gonna make that,” the person said, “I have a 4:40, so I’m good.” Okay, thanks for the encouragement, sir.

We came into South Station at 4:28 and some change, but the few people ahead of us were leaving the train so slowly. Finally, we were able to push past them, sprint up the stairs, and enter into the main station. I saw some runners for our train, which was a good sign. We came up close behind them, and just barely made it on board before it left at 4:30 and 30 seconds.

We had made it onto the train, but we couldn’t celebrate yet. The devil bus had yet to be conquered. We were getting it from Attleboro this time, arriving on the train slightly late at around 5:19. That was okay, though – the bus was a 5:26 departure. The real problem was that we didn’t have all that much screw-up time on the 16 – the bus was scheduled to arrive at South Attleboro at 5:53, and the train home was a 6:09. 16 minutes of screw-up time, or else it would be a 90-minute wait for the next train.

A neat discovery in Attleboro was that GATRA now has a real-time departure board there! It was the ugliest real-time departure board I’ve ever seen, and I wish I had gotten a picture of it now, but it was really nice to have, especially given the circumstances. The board said the bus would be four minutes late, which was okay.

But it kept getting later. And later. And later. Finally, at 5:34, the devil bus came into the busway. “I’ve gotta take a quick break,” the driver said to us. “It’ll only be a minute…or two.” Nathan and I looked at each other. We silently agreed that we were going to get on this thing and ride it in its entirety, regardless of how many punches it would try to throw. If we had to wait an hour and a half…so be it.

I hate you. I HATE you.

The driver came back, and we stepped into the gates of hell. It had tried to stop us so many times, but we were finally on board the 16. We were going to do this. We left the busway, came onto South Main Street, and…ran into a ton of traffic. But wait! The bus makes a right onto Mill Street! We left the jam, going under the Commuter Rail tracks, and then took a left onto Union Street.

Ha! Bye!!!

This was an industrial backlot kind of area, but it did have the fancy GATRA Union Street Shelter, where we dropped one of our passengers off. We turned onto Park Street from there, which took on a more residential bent, but the huge Sturdy Hospital appeared when we turned onto O’Neil Boulevard. We dropped another passenger off at the stop across the street from the hospital.

Some of the houses in the neighborhood.

O’Neil Boulevard soon turned industrial, though, and there were lots of warehouses and offices along there until we turned onto Maple Street. This dense residential road was supposed to be a straight shot to our next timepoint, Attleboro Crossing, but some construction forced us to detour onto Lafayette Street. Looks like we won’t make it from Union Street to Attleboro Crossing in the scheduled four minutes…not that that’s possible under normal circumstances, mind you.

Darn this detour!

We turned onto Mulberry Street, and we had to cut across South Main Street in order to actually get into Attleboro Crossing, a really boring shopping plaza. I will give this to GATRA: under normal circumstances, it’s actually a really good deviation, since the route jogs through it in both directions rather than properly deviates. There’s even a shelter on the outbound side, and it makes sense that it’s there, since we’ve basically looped back to the transit center at this point – it’s less than a fifteen minute walk away.

Not a great menu of stores.

Someone got on here, and of course they had to have a conversation with the driver before paying their fare. We were already late! Let’s go! Hurry up! We maneuvered around to leave the mall and turned onto South Main Street, whose houses quickly got less dense and more suburban. We were basically just cruising past leafy houses without stopping, with me checking how we were doing versus the schedule (we were late) and Nathan checking how the train was doing (it was on time).

A leafy side road.

We came into a place called Dodgeville, which had a gas station and a few dense apartments and housing developments, but no one got off here. Going by a big factory, there were a few more apartments before we went over the Northeast Corridor. We went by a field and a cemetery on the other side, but it was mostly just more suburban houses.

A little garden, I guess?

We suddenly turned onto the tiny Knight Ave, and assuming this was the “Knight and South Main” timepoint, we were now 16 minutes late, which was the exact amount of screw-up time that was allotted. If the other intersection between Knight and South Main was the timepoint, we were even later. We were almost certain we wouldn’t make the train at this point. It didn’t help that when dropping our remaining passengers off at an apartment building called Hebron Village, one of them just had to hold a conversation with the driver. PLEASE stop talking!!!!!!!!

Coming back onto South Main Street.

We used Webber Street to go back onto South Main Street, which crossed the Northeast Corridor again. There were some businesses as we entered Seekonk and the road became Central Ave, and actually, there were some little retail spots on occasion between the houses now. However, we hit another traffic jam near a large intersection with a ton of businesses around it, including a Stop & Shop.

A side street.

Central Ave curved westward at this intersection, and we went with it, going through a residential neighborhood. We had to deviate to serve Central Plaza, serving a shelter that was literally about 30 feet from the road. Also, Central Plaza has to have been one of the most ugly, boring, and nothing shopping centers I’ve ever seen, let alone deviated into.

That’s about it for Central Plaza.

We entered Pawtucket, Rhode Island immediately after Central Plaza. GATRA buses can’t stop while in Rhode Island, a no-stop zone that’s actually marked on the map (tell that to the driver from Attempt #3). It’s ironic, though, since this is probably the densest area in GATRA’s entire system. Aside from an elementary school, it was all dense houses every which way.

Oh, and a mattress shop, I guess.

Nathan checked the progress of the train again. “It’s running three minutes late!” he exclaimed. Oh my God, we actually had a chance. It was 6:05 when we turned onto Newport Ave, going by retail on both sides, but we were barely paying attention anymore. We had to be ready to get off this thing when we arrived. We crossed over the Northeast Corridor into Massachusetts and made the right onto the connector road.

So…close…!

We got off at the RIPTA stop and started running down the pedestrian-unfriendly roads. We had to stay on the northern side of the connector road in order to get to the staircase to the station footbridge, so we sprinted along the sidewalk-less connector road in its tunnel, then we bounded up the footbridge stairs two at a time. We crossed over and flew down the ramp to the platform, where there were people, and…here comes the train. The train is pulling up. We are stepping onto the train. We…we…we did it. WE. CONQUERED. THE. 16!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn’t have time to get a picture of the bus, so here’s us going onto the connector road.

GATRA Route: The Bus From Hell

Ridership: The 16, even in its non-Market Basket serving form, actually got decent ridership for GATRA standards. On weekdays, it had 133 average riders, while on Saturdays, it got about 60. That meant around 4-6 people per one-way trip, which is…I mean, it’s GATRA, so…

Pros: You know, I never thought that the underworld would benefit from a bus system, but it seems like the 16 actually gets some people. And after all, GATRA is a fitting agency to operate down there. Okay, okay, in all seriousness, the route does connect up some good locations, and on our trip, all of the deviations got people.

Cons: HMMMMMMMMMMMM…LET’S JUST RUN THROUGH ALL THE REASONS I COULDN’T RIDE IT!

ATTEMPTS #1 AND #2: THE BUS WAS REALLY LATE. YES, THE 16 HAS HORRIBLE ON-TIME PERFORMANCE, AND IT DOESN’T HELP THAT IT’S INTERLINED WITH THE 10, ANOTHER ROUTE WITH AWFUL ON-TIME PERFORMANCE. IT GETS NO TIME DURING THE INTERLINE, TOO, SO IT’S ALMOST GUARANTEED TO BE LATE! GATRA NEEDS TO CHANGE THE TIMING ON ALL OF ITS ATTLEBORO ROUTES, I SWEAR.
ATTEMPT #3: OKAY, THEY HAVE TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR ABOUT WHERE YOU CAN AND CANNOT FLAG DOWN THE BUS. MVRTA DOES THIS VERY WELL, SHOWING CLEARLY ON THE MAP WHERE THE BUS DOESN’T STOP. DOES GATRA DO THAT????? NOPE, WE LEARN THE HARD WAY: FROM A DRIVER ANGRILY SAYING “NO.”
ATTEMPT #4: THIS. ROUTE’S. MAP. IS. AWFUL. ROADS THAT DON’T EXIST, COMPLETELY DISTORTED GEOGRAPHY, A MADE-UP ROUTE…AND IT DOESN’T HELP THAT ON GOOGLE MAPS, THE STOP IS SHOWN AT MARKET BASKET. THIS IS SO BAFFLINGLY INCOMPETENT!
INTERIM ATTEMPTS BETWEEN #1 AND #2: YEAH, REMEMBER HOW I MENTIONED THIS ROUTE DOESN’T TIME WITH ANYTHING? I GUESS THAT’S NOT REALLY ITS FAULT, BUT THIS SCHEDULE MAKES NO SENSE. HERE ARE SOME OF THE WEEKDAY DEPARTURES FROM ATTLEBORO: 8:30, 9:35, 10:28, 11:33, 12:32…YUP, I’M GETTING MWRTA FLASHBACKS! IF THE TIMES ARE GOING TO BE SO FREAKING WEIRD, HOW ABOUT YOU AT LEAST USE REALISTIC RUNNING TIMES SO THE ROUTE ISN’T LATE ALL THE TIME?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Nearby and Noteworthy: THIS ROUTE WILL STEAL YOUR SOUL AND YOUR FIRST-BORN CHILD. DON’T USE IT FOR ANYTHING.

Final Verdict: 2/10

HA! I’VE DONE IT! I’VE RIDDEN YOU FROM END TO FREAKING END! THERE’S NOTHING ELSE YOU CAN DO, 16! I’VE GOT YOU CORNERED! I DON’T CARE THAT YOU ACTUALLY GET SOME PEOPLE SO I KINDA HAVE TO GIVE YOU A 2! IT’S TIME FOR YOU…TO DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM YOU STUPID HELLSPAWN GATRA BUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

MVRTA: 36 (Holy Family Hospital/Lawrence Street)

May 27, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 1 Comment

Time for some loopity-loop-loop-loops on the MVRTA 36! Yeah, this one is rather crazy…as are most bus routes in Lawrence, it would seem.

Oh, Buckley…good to be back.

We headed east from Buckley on Common Street, coming along next to Campagnone Common. We turned onto Jackson Street, then Haverhill Street, circling around the park. At the Lawrence Senior Center stop, we let someone off (a quick trip, but I suppose it’s the senior center), then we reached the end of the common and turned onto Lawrence Street.

This is…bleak.

We weren’t on this for very long, banging a left onto Maple Street, which had apartment developments on both sides. It curved around to become White Street, but then we turned onto Elm Street, going by more apartment developments. Next, we turned onto Hampshire Street, which went by the Central Catholic High School and one last apartment development.

Again…bleak.

We went over the Spicket River, and from there, Hampshire Street was lined with regular triple-decker apartments (none of that development stuff). I’m not sure why the route goes down Arlington Street just to turn onto Lawrence Street, which could be accomplished just by staying on Hampshire Street, but…yeah, so we did that. It’s an outbound-only jog, no less!

Apahtments.

We passed a park and entered Methuen, where though the apartments became houses, the actual spacing of the buildings was just as close. Next to a park, we turned onto East Street, which had some sort of…castle wall along it? It was really cool, and now we were suddenly in a really nice, leafy neighborhood!

Entering the castle.

Alright, here we are at the Holy Family Hospital, are we gonna go in…oh, no, we have to do another loop first. So we turned onto the residential Berkeley Street, going briefly back into Lawrence as we served the Berkeley Retirement Home. After that, we turned onto Swan Street, then Jackson Street, reentering Methuen. There were suburban businesses along Jackson, but it turned back to houses when we made a left onto East Street, then deviated up into the Holy Family Hospital.

These are some nice houses!

So is that it? No! Because the 36 has an inbound-only jog! For one thing, the inbound route just goes right from Lawrence Street to Hampshire Street, rather than having to do that weird jog that the outbound does. However, it makes up for it later on when it suddenly makes a left on Alder Street, a right on Lawrence Street, and a left on Myrtle Street to get back to Hampshire Street. Why?? Yes, it got a person, but it’s inbound-only, so it’s basically useless! Just use the 85!

A parking lot.

MVRTA Route: 36 (Holy Family Hospital/Lawrence Street)

Ridership: Weekday ridership on this route is excellent for MVRTA standards, with 422 riders per day. On Saturdays, it drops down to 207 people per day, which is below the average for the whole system. I took it on a Sunday morning, and it got a round-trip total of 9 people, which isn’t bad for a Sunday morning!

Pros: It serves quite a lot of Lawrence and, to a lesser extent, Methuen, and the 36 has big ridership anchors on both ends: Buckley, of course, and also the Holy Family Hospital. It runs with the MVRTA pulse schedule, meaning hourly service seven days a week, plus additional half-hourly service at rush hour.

Cons: Geez, can the route be any crazier? Actually, I shouldn’t ask that question because I know what insane routes MVRTA is capable of, but still! I get the loop at the end and some of the jogs to serve apartment developments, but I just cannot get behind the inbound- and outbound-only deviations.

Nearby and Noteworthy: There didn’t seem to be much on this route worth visiting. Maybe the castle??

Final Verdict: 6/10
I guess other than the weirdo route, this is a decent one. Still, like I said, this thing is crazy! At least it also serves a lot and gets good ridership – imagine if it didn’t do either of those either.

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

GATRA: 14 (Attleboro/North Attleboro/Plainville)

May 25, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 1 Comment

So…”Man-Mar Drive” in Plainville. Scenery: a bunch of sketchy-looking businesses inside dated shopping plaza buildings with big parking lots out front. Facilities: a faded old “GATRA Bus Stop” sign bolted to a telephone pole. Morale: low, because the 14 is late and I just want to get out of here!

Wow, talk about preemptive door opening!

Just as Sam and I were starting to worry about getting stuck here forever, the bus showed up 7 minutes late, which, granted, isn’t that bad. So we went onto East Bacon Street (awesome), which quickly became residential as we left the Man-Mar Drive area. That was in the form of both regular houses and apartment developments.

A wide ol’ road.

We went under some pylons and crossed the super-wide Route 1. There were more houses on the other side, lasting until some retail at the intersection with South Street. Here, most weekday trips deviate to serve the Plainville Council on Aging, but this was a Saturday, so we just turned directly onto South Street.

The businesses at South Street.

South Street became residential, then it turned into Park Street when we entered North Attleboro. We came up very close to Route 1, where the road changed again, this time to North Washington Street. We were getting closer to North Attleboro Center, and so the houses started to get denser and denser before BAM! Retail on both sides of the street!

A side street. No one said the retail was interesting…

We turned onto Elm Street, quickly leaving the density of North Attleboro Center. Once we crossed Route 1, it completely shifted over to typical suburban housing, with little spurts of density. The scenery got quite varied eventually, with some retail, offices, parks, schools, churches, houses, and apartment developments…oh my!

A would-be leafy intersection.

The street name changed to Commonwealth Ave, then Robert F. Toner Boulevard – right around that second name change, we deviated into Triboro Plaza, which has to be GATRA’s best deviation: it has a specified stop with a shelter in it. 10/10! 10/10!

Beautiful!

We returned to Robert F. Toner Boulevard, which went over I-95. The road ended at a big intersection next to a park and a housing development, and here we turned right onto North Main Street. It was mostly houses along here, with a few churches as well. We passed another cemetery, then the scenery got denser as we got closer to downtown – there were now some apartments, offices, and businesses coming in. We came into Attleboro Center (lots of brick buildings with retail), and here, we turned onto South Main Street for our final stretch to the Transit Center.

The bus…from above.

GATRA Route: 14 (Attleboro/North Attleboro/Plainville)

Ridership: For GATRA standards, the 14 is a decent route. It gets 147 riders per weekday and 67 on Saturdays, which is about 6-7 riders per trip. Mine only had two other people, but…uh…maybe it was an off day.

Pros: Plainville has just one bus, and that’s the 14. It comes at a handy frequency of every hour, Mondays through Saturdays, and it also serves such attractions as Triboro Plaza and North Attleboro Center. Also, the 14 and the 10 combine to provide half-hourly service to both those places, which is a nice use of resources.

Cons: I’ve realized that this is kind of an Attleboro thing, but the 14 seems to get late far more often than any bus should be. I think this is because of the way they interline routes more than anything, but regardless, it’s annoying. Also, in typical GATRA Attleboro fashion, this route doesn’t get enough time. On Saturdays, for example, they give it 18 minutes from end to end, a trip that usually takes 24 minutes…by car. So yeah, it’s basically guaranteed to be late!

Finally, Man-Mar Drive? That’s where we end the route? Just about 7 minutes up Route 152, there’s a sizeable shopping plaza with a Target and a Stop & Shop, and more importantly, Plainridge Park Casino. I’m sure those would both be huge ridership draws! Sure, this route doesn’t get enough time anyway, but GATRA needs to extend the time of its Attleboro routes anyway. They could use interlining to make things every hour. But that’s a project for another day…

Nearby and Noteworthy: As far as the independent section goes, the 14 really doesn’t serve that much. All it has are some random shopping plazas around Man-Mar Drive.

Final Verdict: 4/10
I mean, if it’s guaranteed to be late, its score can’t be all that high, can it? Not only that, but the route in Plainville doesn’t really serve any high-ridership places. Extending it to the mall and the casino would likely attract a ton of new people to the route! GATRA’s Attleboro schedules would need to be shifted around if that change was made, but truth be told, this isn’t the only route that doesn’t get enough time.

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

GATRA: Franklin Area Bus

May 23, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 0 Comments

Ahhh, it’s good to be back on a system I know and love! Yeah, you know, I always miss GATRA whenever I’m away from it for a while. It’s so charming in its awfulness, and every GATRA route seems to be full of surprises. While the FAB wasn’t as crazy as the…you know…it was still really, REALLY bad. Time for a FABulous trip!

The Franklin Line was running shuttle buses the weekend Sam and I rode the FAB, and as anyone who has ever taken it knows, that schedule is P-A-D-D-E-D. We arrived at Franklin quite early, and with nothing much to do, we walked around for a bit before hanging out on a street corner downtown waiting for the bus. Except…the 9:50 departure came and went. We made sure to pick a strategic point where we could see the bus do its deviation into Franklin Station and know when it’s coming (because of course, the FAB is a “Give us a Wave!” route, so no stops), but nothing came by. All we saw was a lone dial-a-ride vehicle going the other way.

Well, we had been stuck in Franklin for well over an hour now – it was time to call GATRA and see what the heck was going on. As usual, the “fixed route” extension actually led to the “dial-a-ride” extension, so we had to be redirected. Then, the woman in the fixed route department said that they weren’t responsible for the FAB, and we would have to call Kiessling, who runs the route. “Do you have a pen?” she asked before giving me the Kiessling number. Okay, let’s call them.

ME: Hi, I have a question about the FAB.
MAN: Okay.
ME: I’ve been waiting in Franklin for over an hour now and the bus hasn’t shown up. Do you know what’s up with it?
MAN: Which trip were you waiting for?
ME: The 9:50.
MAN: Oh, it’s a 9:10! That’s the problem!
ME: No, it’s definitely a 9:50. I looked at the schedule.
MAN: No, but we’re running a Saturday service today!
ME: I know, it’s on the Saturday schedule.
MAN: Oh…yes, I see. Okay, let me call the driver.
[unlistenable hold music]
MAN: She said she came through on time.
ME: Oh, really?
MAN: Oh wait, the normal bus wasn’t available today! We had to use one of the dial-a-ride vehicles! Arghhhh, I knew this would be a problem…I’m very sorry. Can you wait for the next trip?
ME: I HATE YOU!

Well, I didn’t tell him I hated him, but I was really upset. It had to have been that dial-a-ride bus going the other way, but why was it going the other way? Sure, the FAB route map is a complete failure in cartography that gives absolutely no indication of a road network, but we were using the map on the Transit App! It very clearly showed the bus deviating into the MBTA station and coming to exactly where we were standing! Same with Google Maps! What was going on?

The FAB runs every 80 minutes on Saturdays, so we had lots more time to enjoy Franklin, which is just not a very interesting town, I’m sorry. For this next trip, we decided to wait at Dean College, since there was a crosswalk right there in case the bus was coming from the other direction. Still, the Transit app clearly showed the route serving the college in both directions, so it seemed like we were good.

WAIT, WHAT???

HANG ON, WHAT’S THAT DIAL-A-RIDE BUS THAT JUST PULLED OFF OF THAT SIDE STREET DOWN THE BLOCK? “WE’RE GONNA GET THAT,” I SAID TO SAM AS I STARTED TEARING DOWN MAIN STREET, TRYING TO CATCH THIS BUS THAT WAS NOT AT ALL FOLLOWING THE ROUTE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FOLLOWING. IT’S A GOOD THING EVERYONE DRIVES IN FRANKLIN (PROBABLY BECAUSE NO ONE KNOWS WHERE THE FREAKING FAB GOES), BECAUSE THE BUS WAS STUCK IN TRAFFIC AND WE WERE ABLE TO CATCH UP TO IT!!!!!!!!!!

We paid our fares and sat down in the vehicle, struggling for breath. “Seatbelts please!” the driver yelled from the front. Sigh…okay, sure, seatbelts are now on. Let’s finally review this stupid route. I don’t know who’s wrong about the routing, GATRA or the driver, but that was inexcusable.

WE’RE FINALLY ESCAPING!

We looped around onto Central Street, then we looped onto Emmons Street. We then took a left onto Main Street, running through the Dean College campus before going by the Franklin Public Library, which is apparently the first in America! Next, we reached the Franklin Town Common, making a left onto High Street, then a right onto Union Street.

Looking down Beaver Street.

The road became Daniel McCahill Street for a block before becoming Oak Street as we passed the Franklin Council on Aging, strangely without deviating – it only goes in there on weekdays. Maybe the COA is closed on Saturdays, in which case that was a very smart move to not make it deviate then! We then passed the huge Franklin Middle and High Schools before turning onto Panther Way, which…yup, Franklin High School’s sports teams are the Panthers.

Yay!

We turned onto Veterans Memorial Drive, which took us to our deviation target, Eaton Place, which is only served in one direction that changes based on the trip. From there, we were supposed to go back to Oak Street, but we abandoned the written route again by continuing down Panther Way. We reached West Central Street and turned onto that, going by a bunch of suburban businesses.

WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.

We deviated into Village Plaza, a big ol’ shopping plaza where weekday service terminates. However, there was a big reason I wanted to take this route on a Saturday: it has a huge extension to a few other shopping plazas all the way in Bellingham! So what did we do after the Village Plaza deviation? Oh, just hopped on I-495 for an express section!

Looking out over Village Plaza’s vast parking lot.

It only lasted for one exit and the scenery consisted entirely of forest, but it was a nice break from the slow-moving deviation-filled route from before. We got off at Exit 18 and headed down into a rather high-end shopping plaza (the timepoint was called “Whole Foods/Old Navy”). The craziest part? We picked someone up!

Get yer motor runnin’, head out on the highway…

“I’m going to Walmart,” the old lady who got on said. From that plaza (leaving three minutes early), we drove across the street to another plaza with Market Basket and…Walmart. “Thank you very much,” the lady said as she got up. “Should I pay?” “You don’t have to,” the driver responded, “Paying is just a donation.” UMMMMMMMMMM…okay, you know what, let’s just gloss over that and let this lady get on with her extensive transit-based shopping trip.

Coming into Walmaht.

It was here that we decided to wait the five minutes needed to get back on schedule, then we came back onto the highway to go back. A funny quirk was that on our way to the ramp, we came very close to the third shopping plaza in this cluster, which is served by a different GATRA route: the rush hour-only Bellingham North Shuttle. So if you wanted to take that out in the evening rush on a Friday and stay overnight, you could transfer to the FAB the next day!

Ah! Ignore the ad!

We came back to Village Plaza, which I just realized is only about a mile away from Forge Park Station. Anyway, it turns out that this is where they give the route its main layover time, so we had to sit here…for ten minutes. At least we got music variety – the driver was obsessively changing the radio station, singing along when it was a song she liked.

Back here again…

Okay, maybe now we would take the right route back. Let’s see…it’s supposed to go via Tri-County Drive, and- nope, okay, guess we’re taking Pond Street instead. Geez, Louise! This was mostly residential save for a few office buildings, and at least it wasn’t as big of a detour as before – the “real” route joined us only about 30 seconds later.

Again…WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!

It was all residential up Pond Street, and the houses continued when we turned onto Oak Street. We eventually passed the schools again and ended up back at Franklin Town Common. We made our way back onto Main Street via High Street, and again we went through Dean College’s campus. However, the bus doesn’t “serve” downtown going southbound, so we skipped it, turning right onto Emmons Street.

Go Bulldogs!

We went down Central Street for a block before turning onto Union Street at a cemetery. These houses were much denser than before, and there was some retail on the south side of the single Franklin Line track. We turned onto the residential Arlington Street, and then it was a flurry of twists and turns: Wachusett Street, North Park Street, West Park Street, Central Park Terrace, and King Street.

These turns were meant to serve some apartment developments like this one.

There were some suburban businesses as we crossed East Central Street, including Horace Mann Plaza, which is literally a shopping plaza built on the man’s birthplace! Come on, that’s awful! The bus only serves that in the other direction, though – we went down Chestnut Street, then we turned onto Glen Meadow Road to serve the speed bump-filled Glen Meadows Apartments.

One of many speed bumps.

Finally, we hooked a left onto East Central Street and pulled into…BIG Y!!!!! Oh boy, gettin’ some PVTA flashbacks!!! Also waiting here was…THE ACTUAL FAB BUS!!!!!! Yes, it had a FAB livery and everything! I mean, too bad its headsign wasn’t working, but points for trying!

See ya!

GATRA Route: Franklin Area Bus

Ridership: *breathe*…*sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*…33 people per day. 3.5 per hour. It costs GATRA $22.37 per passenger to run the route. My full round trip only got the one person doing her big shopping day. Yeah, so not a lot of people use this.

Pros: Franklin’s a big-ish town. I guess it’s nice that it has a bus route…

Cons: But Franklin’s also a car-oriented town, and it shows in the way this route has to go loopy-looping around to serve everything. Of course, who cares about the route, because I guess that doesn’t get followed! Regardless of whether the streets the driver took were more efficient or not (oftentimes they were), if the line is on the map, you follow that line. It doesn’t matter that the Oak Street/Pine Street jog was all houses that will likely never generate ridership – you still have to serve them just in case. And just look at Sam and I downtown! We had no idea that the bus would travel the way it did because that was not the route that GATRA told us it would take! And the phone people were super unhelpful too…

But okay, let’s also talk about the route itself and why it’s bad. Not only are there weird one-directional deviations (downtown in particular), but how about that frequency? The Saturday schedule is just flat-out infrequent at every 80 minutes, and though that makes sense because of the route extension (which at least seems to get people), the route might get more time than it needs. I imagine that could be easily cut down to every 75 minutes.

HOWEVER, the funniest and strangest thing about the FAB is its weekday headway. I will never ever understand this: every 61 minutes. Every. 61. Minutes. And keep in mind, this is with ten minutes of layover at Village Plaza! Can that not just be nine minutes of layover? Is it really so imperative that buses get that extra 60 seconds of break time? I mean, COME ON! EVERY 61 FREAKING MINUTES?!??!?!?!?!?!?

Nearby and Noteworthy: I linked it already, but the first public library in America is pretty darn cool. Who knew Franklin had that as a claim to fame?

Final Verdict: 1/10
This is just yet another GATRA route that makes absolutely no sense. The routing itself seems to be up to interpretation, barely anyone rides it, and…EVERY 61 MINUTES WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!? There just can’t be a valid reason for why the route has to run like that! That has to be one of the stupidest headways I’ve ever seen, and that alone makes this route awful. Couple on everything else and, yup, we’ve got a 1.

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

Join us on a Race to Chelsea!

May 21, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 5 Comments

Do you want to be in a Miles on the MBTA video? Do you want to see if the SL3 is actually the fastest way to Chelsea? Do you want to meet me and a bunch of other fans of the blog as we race there and back? We’re going to be staging a race using five different routes to get from Park Street to Bellingham Square and back on June 8th, meeting at 4:15 PM at Park Street. Other people there whom you may recognize from some of our videos will be Sam, Nathan, Josh, Jaret, and Jordan. For more information and to sign up, please fill out this form. Due to space constraints, we won’t be able to invite everyone who applies.

MART: Athol/Orange Link

May 18, 2018 | Miles on the MBTA | 6 Comments

Yes! We’re finally leaving Athol! We’re on our way home! Let’s just wait at the Athol ITC and get the lovely Athol/Orange Link, and…oh God, what is that…

TRUCK MINIBUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m just gonna come out and say it: this was the second-worst transit vehicle I’ve ever been on (here’s the first). It was noisy, the suspension was nonexistent, the roof was like tinfoil, water came streaming into the bus from all directions, the wheelchair was insanely jiggly, and the whole thing smelled like cigarettes. IT. WAS. UNBEARABLE. Nathan put it best: “Every bump is like losing a part of my sanity that I can’t get back.” Exactly.

EW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ll be clear that Nathan, Sam, and I didn’t get this route from the beginning. It actually starts at Hannaford on the border with Orange, then it makes its way from there to Athol via an Ocean State Job Lot deviation. We boarded at the Athol ITC for three reasons: 1) The Athol/Orange Shuttle (the loopy one – these names are confusing!) already more or less covers the route from Hannaford to Athol; 2) If we had actually started at Hannaford, it would’ve required waiting an hour and a half there; and 3) WE DIDN’T HAVE TO STAY ON THE TRUCK MINIBUS AS LONG IF WE GOT ON AT THE ITC.

A church.

We headed down School Street, a mostly residential road, then we turned onto Main Street. We passed Uptown Common, a small…common, with some retail clustered around it, then a few minutes later, we deviated into the Athol Hospital. Main Street became Templeton Road from there, and it was forest until we suddenly pulled into a modern shopping complex to serve a Market Basket.

In the shopping center.

Continuing east, we finally finally FINALLY left Athol, entering Phillipston. It was all woods as we curved our way under Route 2. There were a few random suburban businesses here and there, then some houses and a fire station later on. At an interchange with Route 2 (where we went under the highway again), there was a major route timepoint: the…uh…King Phillip Restaurant. Huh.

Trees, trees, trees.

We entered Templeton on the other side of Route 2, and it was…yeah, I mean, basically more woods. Turning onto Patriots Road, it was just houses on occasion and that’s it. We went under Route 2 again and it started to get a little “denser,” with some more houses and a cemetery. Soon, we arrived at Templeton Center, which consisted of a common, a church, a few businesses, a post office, and this actually cool-looking museum. Strangely, the bus did a jog onto South Road, about 50 feet from Patriots Road, to make its stop. You don’t really serve anything extra by pulling off for a 50-foot jog…

A gazebo in Templeton Center.

It felt at least a little like civilization beyond Templeton Center; there were at least some houses along Patriots Road. We crossed Route 2 for what would be the final time, going over it this time, and on the other side was East Templeton Center. Strangely, this center was somewhat dense and actually had a decent amount of businesses. Templeton Town Hall was even located here!

Now that is an awesome paint job.

We merged onto Gardner Road, which was still tons of forest, but there were a few industrial buildings here and there. The street became Parker Street when we entered…UGH…Gardner. After going over a railroad track, it suddenly got really dense, with houses and apartments lining the road.

Talk about a change in scenery!

We had to do a deviation to the Gardner Highrise apartment building via Waterford, Church, and Marquette Streets – that was annoying. Just before hitting downtown Gardner, we turned onto Nichols Street then made a right onto City Hall Ave, serving, yes, Gardner City Hall. And though it would’ve been fantastic if the horrible truck minibus ride was over, this route goes further to the Gardner MWCC Campus. More time on a truck minibus…yay…

A side street in downtown Gardner.

We could now enter downtown Gardner after serving City Hall, so we headed up Main Street and ran past all the, er, lovely retail of Gardner. It became Central Street and we soon left the center, running past houses, old industrial buildings, and churches. We used a rotary to get around onto Woodland Ave, which was lined with houses until the Heywood Hospital. Soon after that, we turned onto the MWCC driveway, and…oh my gosh, the ride was over. THE TRUCK MINIBUS RIDE WAS OVER! NOT ONLY THAT, BUT THIS IS THE LAST REVIEW I’LL EVER HAVE TO DO IN GARDNER!!!!!! LET’S CELEBRATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EW! EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW!!!!!!

MART Route: Athol/Orange Link

Ridership: Wow, this route’s ridership has gone down quite a lot over time. In 2014, the route got 25,522 people per year, or around 105 per day. That’s gone down to 13,883 people in 2017, equalling about 58 people per day. Ouch! Granted, in 2014, the route went all the way out to Orange, so maybe eliminating that section lost riders? I’m not sure if it’s enough to cut the people in half, though. Our trip, incidentally, got one other person.

Pros: This route is direct and highly necessary. It gets a lot of usage from students commuting to MWCC from Athol, but it’s also just a really important link – it’s Athol’s one connection towards Boston (eventually). Using one bus, the route runs every 90 minutes weekdays only, which makes sense – we’re not exactly in the city here.

Cons: OH, YOU MEAN OTHER THAN THE HORRIBLE EXCUSE OF A VEHICLE THAT THAT LEAKY, DISGUSTING, NOISY TRASHBUCKET TRUCK MINIBUS WAS??!?!?!?!??! Well, it just doesn’t get a lot of people, and I don’t quite know why that is. Perhaps ridership would increase if buses were extended to Orange Center, but they would have to run every two hours if that happened, which isn’t optimal.

Nearby and Noteworthy: Take your pick: a depressing big city (Gardner) or a depressing small town (Athol). I’ll take Athol, personally – at least it has trees and stuff.

Final Verdict: 5/10
It’s too bad this route gets so few people, because I think it’s a rather good one. Athol needs that connection to the outside world because it’s such an isolated place, and I wish more people would take advantage of this direct trip to Gardner. Maybe it’s because it’s only every hour and a half. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t go to Orange. Or MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE IT WAS USING THE WORST BUS EVER ARAHGEHAEIEOMKLMGMGAELMLKMG!!!!! Okay, I’ll stop…

Latest MBTA News: Service Updates

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