Connection to MBTA on the way

The MetroWest Regional Transit Authority is moving toward its goal of establishing key transportation services in area communities, tapping newly approved grant funds for a link to the MBTA's Green Line and continuing efforts toward the region's first public bus route between Weston and Marlborough.

The agency has received preliminary approval for two federal grants totaling $750,000 to create a bus line offering service between a Green Line station in Newton and employment centers in Framingham and Natick.

The bus line, which officials said could be up and running as soon as January, would be the first to provide a direct link with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's network, benefiting commuters traveling into or out of Boston to their jobs.

"The T focuses on everything within Route 128, but doesn't come out as far as Natick, Framingham and Marlborough, which are big job areas," said John Stasik, chairman of the MetroWest authority's advisory board and its Framingham representative. "Now the buses will connect Boston with employers on the west end of Route 9, including the Bose Corp., Genzyme Corp., and Staples, to the Green Line."

Meanwhile, the MWRTA's progress toward connecting suburban communities with mass transit services was bolstered July 1 when it took over bus services in Natick and Framingham, previously run by each town, and replaced them with a connected system.

"The two lines never touched." said Stasik. Now bus riders from Natick can travel to Framingham and pick up a shuttle bus that would get them all the way to Marlborough.

While the fee for adult riders increased from $1 to $1.50, the extended service will not require any additional local taxes. The new regional authority is able to use funds that member communities previously sent to the MBTA.

The regional authority, which began in 2006, also has launched a study to explore the rising need for bus transportation between its member towns.

"We are obviously very aware of high gas prices and the number of communities who want to make available some of the major retail centers, schools, and so forth," said Stasik.

The MWRTA's administrator, Ed Carr, said his operation is looking for ways to accommodate the area's changing commuting patterns. According to Carr, 57 percent of area residents commute to jobs within the Interstate 495 corridor. As a result, he said, local communities have a pressing need for more comprehensive transit services.

"MetroWest, in the last 10 years, has changed from a region of more or less bedroom communities to an area where six of the 10 largest companies in the state are located," said Carr. "There's been a lot of job creation."

He said that the average daily ridership on the regional system stood at 25,000 in May, up from 15,000 in December. The period included the addition of Southborough and Marlborough to the regional system, which also serves Ashland, Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Natick, Sherborn, Sudbury, Wayland, and Weston.

Stasik said the bus route to the Green Line would likely run from Newton's Woodland Station - the second to last stop on the D branch - to major businesses throughout Framingham or the Natick Mall, where private shuttles of interested companies could pick up their employees. He said the details have not been ironed out because the grant just recently received its initial approval.

"This is a tremendous ridership opportunity," said Stasik. "People who live in Boston had no way to get to the Framingham area. Now with the connection to Woodland, there will be access every half-hour."

A grant from the Metropolitan Regional Planning Organization, a group responsible for conducting the federally required transportation-planning process, will go toward the MWRTA's purchase of five new buses.

The second grant was from the US Department of Transportation's Job Access and Reverse Commute program, which aims to improve services for eligible low-income urban residents trying to take advantage of suburban employment opportunities. The funds will cover the MWRTA's operational costs for the buses for three years, at which point the authority would have to decide whether to take over funding.

The service's $750,000 cost is being split equally between the two grants, which were secured with the help of a local planning advocacy group, the MetroWest Growth Management Committee, Stasik said.

The MWRTA was formed under a 2006 law, sponsored by state Senator Karen Spilka, a Democrat from Ashland, that allows communities to join regional systems using money that would otherwise be given to the MBTA. The law has encouraged expanded public transportation efforts in several other areas, including Greater Attleboro and Taunton and on Cape Cod.

Instead of competing against the new regional authorities, administrators from the MBTA say, the agency is working together with them.

"The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority had subsidized some bus services in MetroWest, but it no longer does," said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the MBTA. "The MWRTA is our partner in promoting and encouraging the use of public transportation by making transit services available to a larger geographic region."

The MetroWest authority will begin its transit-needs study in the next few weeks. It will take four to six months to complete, and include input from planners, demographers, and local officials.

"They'll look to changes that could make each line more effective, and talk to each member community about where fixed routes need to be established," said Stasik.

Sherborn, a town that joined the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority late last summer and has no fixed bus routes, is an example of how local input is being generated to help shape the regional system. Selectmen have just started surveying residents through a mass mailing about whether they would be interested in having buses run between the center of town and a Natick commuter-rail station.

Selectman Chris Peck, Sherborn's representative to the MWRTA, said the feedback has so far been in favor of providing the bus service - especially since it wouldn't cost the town any more money. The regional authority now provides only a Council on Aging on-demand ride service within Sherborn.

"We want more public transportation, not only so our residents can have another means of getting to work, but also for them to save money on gas and reduce their carbon-monoxide footprint," said Peck. "We've been paying money into the MBTA for a long time and this way we could actually get some good use of it."