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Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, or MBTA, bus service will expand in Lexington beginning Aug. 24, with shorter wait times during the week and streamlined weekend bus service.
Lexington is served by the route 62 and 76 buses. The 62 bus starts at the Bedford Veterans Affairs Hospital and the 76 at the MIT Lincoln Labs. Both make stops in Lexington Center and points along the way before ending at Alewife Station, where passengers can transfer to the T.
Routes 62 and 76 will offer more frequent service during peak commuting hours. They will arrive every 30 minutes from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. during weekdays. That’s a 50 percent improvement from the current 45-minute wait times.
The route 76 bus will operate less frequently between peak commuting hours, however. It will stop every 90 minutes.
Route 62 will run on Saturdays and Sundays, with stops every 50 minutes. The last time the route 62 bus ran regularly on the weekends was in 1998.
The new weekend service will replace the 62/76 variant — a route on which the MBTA buses stop at some route 62 stops and some route 76 stops.
“The variant route was fairly circuitous and hard to understand,” Justin Antos, senior director of bus transformation at the MBTA, told the Observer. “We’re fixing that service gap and confusion point for riders.” Expanding route 62 bus service on the weekend also means it will stop at the Bedford Veterans Affairs Hospital on Sundays, Antos noted, which it didn’t before.
The 62/76 variant will also no longer run during off-peak hours on weekdays.
Those improvements are part of the MBTA’s “Better Bus Project,” which involves updating bus routes, enhancing bus stops, installing bus lanes and transit priority measures, electrifying approximately 1,000 buses, and modernizing maintenance facilities.
Asked how the MBTA can finance expansions given the financial challenges its advisory board spoke about at a transit forum in the fall, Antos said “bus operations headcount, at least budgeted positions, has been on the rise.”
“Our challenge has been how to get more operators hired and trained,” he said. “We are budgeted for a growth in bus operators which allows us to expand bus service.”
Finalized updated bus schedules for routes 62 and 76 will roll out in July.
Thank you for publishing the letter from Linda and Keith Patch.
A number of Lexington residents showed up at the Select Board
meeting on Monday night (June 9) to speak against the Police
Department’s recommendation to discontinue the right to spontaneous
demonstrations in front of the Minute Man Statue. Fortunately, four of
the select board members present chose not to support the recommendation,
and a group of two board members and members of the community was
designated to study ways to make concerns for safety compatible with protecting the community’s right to spontaneous demonstration.
It’s been a long time since I last rode the bus. Certainly, a more frequent and clear schedule will make it a more viable option for the irregular user. Is there a full schedule published somewhere? Is there an official app? What methods of payment are accepted? If I need a Charlie Card, or to put money on one, do I have to go to Alewife?