Belmont Bus Routes to Shift in Spring 2023

By Meg Muckenhoupt

Belmont’s mass transit users may have very different travel options under the MBTA’s proposed Bus Network Redesign. The MBTA is proposing changes including eliminating the the #74 bus route to Harvard Square and adding a new #54 bus route from Arlington Center to Riverside, Newton. You can view the complete proposal presented at Belmont’s July 28 Traffic Advisory Committee meeting at bit.ly/BFC-New-Bus. The new routes will be rolled out in 2023.

Belmont residents have repeatedly expressed concerns about the new #54 route which runs from Belmont Center through the tunnel under the commuter rail tracks and down Waverley Street to Waverley Square. Constituents commenting on State Senator Will Brownsberger’s blog wondered if the MBTA’s buses are too tall for the tunnel, and stated that Waverley Street is narrow and sometimes impassable. Attendees at a July 8 public meeting about Belmont’s new bus routes mentioned Waverley Street problems including weekend parking at Town Field, traffic bottlenecks, and blind driveways, according to an article in the Belmontian. 

The MBTA began the Bus Network Redesign project in 2018 in an effort to modernize the bus network, which “hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years,” as Caroline Vanasse, MBTA project manager for the Bus Network Redesign, commented in an MBTA video. Meanwhile, the Boston region’s needs have shifted. People are commuting to new work areas, the Boston area’s demographics have shifted, traffic has increased, and travel patterns have changed.

Part of the problem is that the MBTA’s subway, rail, and bus routes were largely designed to carry suburbanites to and from an urban core for work, as detailed in the Urban Land Institute’s 2012 report Hub and Spoke: Core Transit Congestion and the Future of Transit and Development in Greater Boston. Today, more Boston-area residents commute between suburbs and need to travel outside of rush-hour congestion.

Belmont’s current bus routes provide service every 15 minutes or less midday and weekdays between Waverley Square and Harvard Square on the #73 route, and every 30 minutes less on the #74 and #75 routes from Belmont Center to Harvard Square. The new plan includes:

• Service every 15 minutes or better from 5 AM to 1 AM every day between Waverley Square and Harvard Square on the new T73 bus.
• Service every 30 minutes or less from 6 AM to 10 PM on the #75 bus from Belmont Center to Harvard Square.
• Service every 30 minutes or less rom 6 AM to 10 PM on the new #54 bus, which runs from Arlington Center down Pleasant Street to Belmont Center and Waverley Square before continuing to Beaver Street, Waltham, and on to the Riverside MBTA station in Newton. 
• Less frequent buses on the #78 route on Blanchard Road, with buses running every 60 minutes or less seven days a week.
• The MBTA states that this new schedule provides more Sunday service on the #75 route, better access to Belmont, Waltham, and Arlington via the #54 route, and more consistent seven-day-a-week service on four Belmont routes. 

The MBTA closed its public comment period on July 31, 2022. A final map of the new bus system is scheduled to be published this fall. For more information, see www.mbta.com/projects/bus-network-redesign.

Meg Muckenhoupt is editor of the Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter.