The MBTA plans to completely change the 96 bus route, which travels between Harvard Square in Cambridge and Medford Square.
There is no justification for the change, which creates a difficult and dangerous situation, inflicting unnecessary hardship on a diverse group of riders: college students without cars, people with shopping carts, parents with babies in strollers, people taking pets to the vet and others en route to urgent doctor appointments.
Some will have to walk much farther and wait much longer for transfers to one or more buses to reach their destinations. Walking long distances on winter ice is treacherous. Impassable piles of snow and ice cause pedestrians to walk in the streets, putting them as well as drivers at risk – an accident waiting to happen.
Requiring passengers to wait for connecting buses in the summer heat or pouring rain, ice and snow is unconscionable. And changing the route to eliminate Harvard Square makes no sense. It is a major hub with bus connections to essential hospital, cultural and shopping destinations. This is why a petition to save the route gathered so many signatures.
My husband and I (both in our 70s) bought our house to be close to a Harvard-Square bus. Does the MBTA want us to move?
Wendy Mifflin
Douglas Road, Medford
Feature image by bradlee9119 via Flickr.
