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The MBTA’s bus lines may have hardly changed since the days of streetcars, but that’s not stopping the city of Newton from trying to expand mass transit access to one of its largest business districts.
Mayor Ruthanne Fuller announced the city had won $250,000 in MassDOT funding to establish shuttle bus lines between the area around the former Mt. Ida College campus – now part of UMass Amherst – and three MBTA stops: Newtonville, Needham Heights and Newton Highlands. The move would be paired with an expansion of the Bluebikes bike sharing network into the city, which had previously contracted with the dockless bikeshare company Lime. Lime announced recently it was backing out of the bike-sharing business in favor of shared electric scooters, which are not road-legal in Massachusetts.
“We will offer affordable, reliable, sustainable, convenient, shared first mile/last mile transportation,” Fuller wrote in an email to constituents. “Kudos to Director of Transportation Planning Nicole Freedman who thought through the shuttle and bike share strategy and helped Newton receive these grants.”
The Wells Avenue area, where Mt. Ida is located, is near the N-Squared district on the Newton-Needham border. The area will also be served by a shuttle bus system paid for by Mark Development, which is seeking to build an 800-unit mixed-use project on the site of the former Clark’s Shoes headquarters on Needham Street. Fuller said about 7,000 people live in proximity to the MBTA’s Green Line and Needham and Worester commuter rail lines and work or go to school in the Wells Avenue area.
The city’s next step is to select a contractor to operate the shuttles. The service could be rolling as early as the fall.
