Pioneer Valley Transit Authority route improvements

FitchburgLine

FitchburgLine

Active Member
Joined
Nov 5, 2013
Messages
665
Reaction score
385
The PVTA has just published a series of recommendations for transit in the Pioneer Valley, coming off of an expected increase in subsidy of $4 million next year. I only have experience in a few Amherst routes, so I'll try to comment on those:

B43: The suggestion, while pretty vague ("Operate as BRT") is definitely a good investment for the PVTA. Route 9 is mildly congested during the midday, and jammed-up during rush hour, meaning the car and bus already roughly tie on time downtown to downtown. Even basic stuff like signal priority and dedicated lanes at intersections (both proposed) should help attract the first few choice riders for an agency that almost-universally relies on transit dependent passengers.
 
Most of those transit-dependent passengers are students (and maybe some faculty and staff) at the Five Colleges, no?
 
Ron Newman said:
Most of those transit-dependent passengers are students (and maybe some faculty and staff) at the Five Colleges, no?
Click to expand...

Yes, although Springfield area routes also server lower income residents outside of the five colleges area.
 
Ron Newman said:
Most of those transit-dependent passengers are students (and maybe some faculty and staff) at the Five Colleges, no?
Click to expand...

Former PVTA operator here. I drove the routes that operate out of the UMass garage for several years.

The northern tier is mostly students, but the general public does also rely on the transportation. There is still significant ridership during non-school times, especially for the routes that service route 9, the mall and grocery stores.
 
How about a light rail Springfield-Chic-Holyoke-NH-Amherst
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Why wouldn't you just do a DMU? It's an active freight and soon-to-be Amtrak corridor.
Click to expand...
Or a bus, let's do frequency and BRT before going all-in on capital costs. That being said, it would be extremely cheap (one Conn. River bridge span is all that is required) to do LRT from Northampton to Amherst, hitting multiple colleges along the way. Unfortunately, you'd need to destroy the bike trail, as there is no adjacent space, meaning this project is DOA.
 
Nice! I'd say run a connection through Northampton from the Conn River to the Mass Central to hit Umass near Amherst, assuming single track over Conn River is possible there's no new bridge work required.
*doh* I should read all of the post next time.
 
The Pioneer Valley will have a cow if anyone threatens that bike path in favor of rail. They love their bike path, and they use it.

But as an intellectual exercise, it's awesome!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top