Community Corner

WRTA Exploring Limited Bus Service

The service would start in July.

The Worcester Regional Transit Authority is exploring options for beginning bus service in Westborough starting in July.

The main option is a shuttle starting at the Westborough MBTA commuter rail station and running to the town’s business parks along Route 9, Administrator Steve O’Neil told the Westborough Economic Development Committee this morning.

The service would run two peak morning trips, a midday trip and two peak evening trips, O’Neil told Westborough Patch.

Find out what's happening in Westboroughwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Nothing has been finalized. The WRTA needs to acquire assets, such as vans, necessary to implement such a service, O’Neil said.

“I don’t want to give the impression when you leave here today, the service is going to start tomorrow. That’s not the case,” O’Neil told the committee.

Find out what's happening in Westboroughwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Committee Chairman Lester Hensley said for about five years, the board has discussed having “as an added amenity” to the community “some sort of regional transit service that links our commuter rail station with our business parks.”

Hensley said there “should be no doubt that there’s a great deal of enthusiasm here in Westborough.”

O’Neil said the service “ought not to cost the town of Westborough anything.”

Westborough pays the MBTA an assessment that he estimated at more than $100,000. The WRTA would use these funds, O’Neil said.

Additional Westborough service is possible in the long run, based on the first offering’s success.

“If it’s working out well, we can build upon that,” O’Neil said.

The new Westborough service would be part of the WRTA’s work over the last five years to “refocus our efforts,” he said.

The agency is “now actually starting to look at building our system,” but“do it in a way that’s very slow, very ginger, and very smart,” he said.


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