The former 79 bus. / Photo via Wiki CommonsUPDATED, Oct. 12: MBTA and CEO General Manager Phillip Eng responded to the Town of Arlington over concerns related to public transportation, specifically bus service, in a three-page letter that was received by the town on Oct. 8.
Some highlights include a new bus line, Route 54, that would link Arlington to Belmont and Waltham, and the letter appears to signal that Route 79, a much-used line prior to Covid, will not return.
The letter was in response to Arlington Town Meeting’s Article 66 Resolution in 2024 that questioned “several different components of the authority’s presence in Arlington, and we appreciate these issues being brought to our attention,” Eng wrote.
Eng’s official response also comes after Arlington School Committee Chair Paul Schlichtman, a public transit activist, made comments on the current inadequate service during the T’s board of directors meeting on Sept. 26. Read his comments here >>
“We believe firmly in the positive impacts of frequent and reliable public transit.”
— Phillip Eng, general manager of the MBTA
In the letter, Eng writes that much of the problems with bus service in the town – and elsewhere in the MBTA system – is that the MBTA has had a shortage of bus drivers, noting that the “bus operator count has steadily grown from 1,385 to 1,571, which has allowed the MBTA to improve the systemwide bus service delivery rate from 95.1% in August 2023 to 98.5% in August 2024.”
Addressed to the Select Board Chair, the Town Clerk and the Town Moderator, the letter outlines a few plans for various bus route updates and changes, including the Route 67, which runs only on weekdays along Pleasant Street to Alewife Station. “Route 67 is not planned to continue in its current form,” Eng wrote. That line would be replaced by a new, seven-day line – Route 54 – will “provide cross-town connections between Waltham, Belmont and Arlington—locations that are geographically proximate, but not well connected by the current radial bus network that forces riders to travel into the core and then back out,” Eng wrote.
The former Route 79, which ran through Arlington, down Mass Avenue to the Alewife T station on weekdays, will not return to service, according to Eng’s letter, nor will the former Route 84 that served Arlmont Village.
Service from Arlington Center to West Medford is expected to be increased to every 20 minutes with improvements planned for route 95, which connects Arlington to Medford, the Orange Line and commuter rail lines. Eng wrote that bus service to the recently extended Green Line will be adjusted to eliminate duplication.
Appeal to the state, MBTA
While Eng’s response was thorough on bus service, it was short on funding questions and other issues raised by the town. It also does not answer much of what Schlichtman, the School Committee chair and a public transit activist, raised at the T board’s meeting last month.
Appearing before the T board on Sept. 26 during a public comment period, Schlichtman made his case for improved bus service and his ongoing pitch for the extension of the Red Line, a one-time prospect that the town rejected more than 40 years ago. “It’s a different town,” Schlichtman said, according to Boston.com “We’re very much aware of that. We’re a very different town.”
Arlington’s assessment for its MBTA service is $3.4 million annually, which Schlichtman pointed out to the T board that only nine other municipalities of the 176 cities and towns serviced by the transit authority pay more, Boston.com reported.
Schlichtman said that the Route 77 was particularly an issue as it has carried students in Arlington for years. (In fact, Arlington students have been using MBTA bus service in the mid-1950s.) The 77 has not been as reliable for students and the general public of late, requiring the town to provide bus service for students this school year.
That deteriorating service and the lack of response to the town’s warrant article outreach in the spring, brought Schlichtman to the board meeting in Boston. Eng’s letter arrived in town about a dozen days later.
Changes planned at Alewife
Eng’s response to the town also comes after the began community outreach over the condition of the Alewife Station, the terminus of the Red Line. In August, the MBTA met with the public over the aging Alewife Station garage, which has already seen structural renovations, and may need to come down. A story by YourArlington partner Cambridge Day, outlined a plan that without money in its budget to build a replacement garage, the MBTA is looking to partner with a private development firm to demolish the structure and build back while also developing the surrounding land that the transportation agency owns – more than 30 acres.
The T kicked off the process on Thursday, Aug. 8, at a forum that introduced developers to the project and outlined a rough timeline for the redevelopment process.
“We would like to select a development partner by the end of this year,” said Scott Bosworth, director of transit-oriented development for the MBTA, at the forum. Bosworth said that very little of the project is set in stone — and that the community outreach, planning and design processes will be collaborative. The redevelopment of Alewife stations comes amid a flurry of changes in the neighborhood, including the rapid purchase and development of land by developers seeking to build laboratory and office space in the region.
This story by YourArlington staff was first published on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024 and updated on Saturday, Oct. 12.
