By Giovanna DaSilva, Sam Buckley, Julian Delmonico, and Veid Patel

Imagine you are an eighth-grade student. You and your friend are on the cross country team, and you need to take a bus to get to a meet. You get dismissed early and are ready to run. You head on over towards the bus stop. You grab a seat on the bench and wait for the bus. And wait. And wait. And wait some more. About 30 minutes have passed when the bus finally pulls up at the stop, and you’re too late for the meet.

Our group from the West Somerville Neighborhood School, in collaboration with Generation Citizen, is working on tackling this issue in order to benefit the community. Students in need of transportation are not the only ones that face this problem. Most bus routes in Somerville are also facing issues such as inconsistencies in timing, useless routes, or schedules that do not fit the needs of the public. The statistic shows that as of November 28, only 68% of people believe the bus services provided by the MBTA are reliable. This may not seem that bad until you see that the MBTA has an average of 355,000 riders every weekday. This means 113,600 people out of those 355,000 riders are unsatisfied by the reliability of the buses.

There are many complaints online about the MBTA, specifically on Yelp. Most complaints are focused on routes 87, 88, and 89. The 89 bus only runs about every hour to hour and a half depending on the day. This is a significant struggle for students living on the west side of the city. This is unusually harsh during the cold and nasty winters here in New England. The 87 and 88 run more frequently than the 89 but don’t run at the times when they are needed. The overall rating on Yelp is two stars, which is not good considering the sheer amount of people using this service.

Many people are not happy with bus routes and schedules. However, the MBTA could be dramatically improved as a whole with just a few steps. For one, the MBTA could put out surveys to optimize bus routes and schedules to see what the community needs. The MBTA is currently working on a new system that will allow people to pay on both ends of the bus, which should speed up buses by not having to wait for people to pay and reload their card. This would dramatically improve buses as well as improve overall public satisfaction with the MBTA.

West Somerville Neighborhood School students will lead a community meeting on issues dealing with MBTA bus timing and scheduling on Tuesday December 11, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. in the Central Library Auditorium.