Six bus routes see changes starting April 5, according to the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, including some of special interest to riders in Cambridge and Somerville.
Routes CT2 and 85 are being combined into a new Route 85 with service between Assembly Square in Somerville and the Ruggles station in Roxbury, and the CT2 route name will be eliminated. The combined 85 adds service to 20 stops not served by the CT2, said officials at the transit agency.
In addition, all trips on Route 87, which originates or ends in Cambridge’s Lechmere and East Cambridge area, will extend to Arlington Center, and Route 350 trips will take riders from the Alewife red line T to the Burlington Mall and back, as well as to the city’s Lahey Hospital, Wegmans and other retail and medical destinations.
The new Route 85 is weekdays only, between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m., but T officials said buses will arrive more frequently – every 15 to 25 minutes at peak times (from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6:30 p.m.) and every half-hour to 45 minutes at off-peak times.
Route 87 will no longer include a path ending at Clarendon Hill in Somerville, but provides more service in Arlington on weekday evenings, Saturday evenings and Sundays, T officials said.
Other route changes are coming simultaneously to the 40 and 50.
Along with the route changes, transit officials announced progress on the state goal approved in 2022 to run a fully electric bus fleet by 2040, with 32 more battery electric buses brought into service this spring and summer. The buses can be identified by a lightning bolt design formed by the yellow stripe on the side.
“In addition to having no tailpipe emissions, new BEBs meet or exceed accommodation requirements. New BEBs have a flip-up seating configuration, as seen across the existing fleet, to allow space for riders with wheeled mobility devices,” officials said in a Friday email. The buses also have an updated passenger information system: “New screens have immediately made automated stop announcements more accessible and, in the future, the MBTA plans to use them to notify riders of disruptions such as detours and stop closures.”
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