To cut costs, Registry closing 11 branches
Website use urged to avoid long lines
Customers should expect longer wait times for driver’s licenses, license plates, and registrations as the state Registry of Motor Vehicles closes 11 branch offices to cope with a $13 million hit in this year’s state budget, Registry officials said yesterday.
Some of the largest communities in Massachusetts - including New Bedford, Framingham, and Lowell - will lose their sole branch as the closures are carried out, beginning this month.
“It’s a real mistake,’’ said New Bedford City Councilor David Alves, adding that the office, in the heart of downtown, helps generate business for local coffee shops and cafes. “The impact will be regional, not just municipal.’’
One of the branches slated for closure is the Registry’s busiest, in Boston’s Chinatown, which draws 289,000 customers a year. The office will close in December, but not before the agency opens another Boston location in a state-owned building still to be determined, officials said.
To soften the blow of the closures, Registry officials said they would encourage customers to use the agency’s website and open four new branches - three of them with limited services - on state-owned property, where they will not have to pay rent. Two such branches will open on the Massachusetts Turnpike, one with limited services at the Natick plaza and one full-service office at the Charlton plaza.
Registrar Rachel Kaprielian acknowledged that “things are going to get a little crunched,’’ but said customer service remains the agency’s “North Star.’’ She declined to speculate how much longer customers will have to wait, but said they should expect lines that are “reasonable, predictable, and not egregious.’’
Not surprisingly, customers yesterday were not happy at the prospect of longer wait times.
Allston resident Will Roberts, who was waiting in line at one of the branches slated to close, at the CambridgeSide Galleria, said: “It will obviously be a pain.’’
“It’s a bad thing,’’ added John Worthington, a Beacon Hill resident who was also at the branch, waiting to renew his license. “Now, I have to take off a day from work.’’
Customers now wait 22 minutes on average statewide, though wait times at busier branches regularly reach an hour or longer.
The registry currently has 34 branch offices; the 11 offices that are closing serve 1.2 million people, or 24 percent of the agency’s customers.
The Registry is promising to ramp up efforts to get people to use its website, massrmv.com, where customers can complete many common transactions such as license and registration renewals. The agency also plans to make some layoffs. But Registry officials said the realignment plan was designed to minimize staff reductions, because that would only increase wait times further.
Registry spokeswoman Ann Dufresne said longer wait times will be “the stick’’ that drives more people to the website. The website handled about 1.5 million of the registry’s 3.9 million transactions last year, a 23 percent increase from 2007.
Kaprielian said she was urging customers to “help themselves by not wasting time in a branch when you don’t need to be there.’’
She said she would be taking the message to the public through the media and by launching “RMV days’’ at local libraries, where agency officials will urge patrons to use the website.
“We do ask the patience of the public as we go through this transition and urge people not to go in line, but online,’’ Kaprielian said.
Registry officials warned in April that they would have to close 11 branches if state lawmakers made good on their plans to slash the agency’s budget by $13 million.
By opening the four new branches in state-owned property, the registry will save $1.7 million in rent, officials said. The last time the agency closed this many branches was in 1991, when budget cuts forced 21 offices to close.
In addition to urging customers to use the Web, Kaprielian said she would seek to limit wait times by installing self-service kiosks in three branches, where customers can drop off license plates without waiting in line. Workers in some busy branches will also get automated cash-counting machines, to save time.
The Registry has also been trying to alleviate the burden on customers by allowing drivers who are members of AAA to conduct some agency business at the club’s offices in West Newton and Worcester.
Kaprielian said the Registry will also begin offering customers the opportunity to go online and request that they be notified by e-mail or telephone before their licenses expire.
The Registry stopped mailing reminder notices to drivers last year. The move was designed to save the agency $800,000 annually. but also sparked some complaints from drivers frustrated by the lack of notification.
Globe correspondent Abbie Ruzicka contributed to this report. 