— Photo by Bobbie Toner

By Ewan Henrie

The Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Committee met on March 19 at 101 South Street to announce changes to transportation in Somerville. The main topic of discussion was the changes to the bus network of Somerville that will be enacted on April 5.

The first and most prominent change was the merging of Route CT2 and 85 into the new Route 85, with the CT2 name soon to be retired. The service will be between Ruggles Station and Assembly Station. Unlike the CT2, which had limited stop service, the new Route 85 will be an all-stop service. The Committee also announced that the time between buses arriving at stops will be cut to 15-25 minutes at peak times and 30-45 minutes at off-peak times.

Other changes to Somerville’s bus network were that Route 87 would extend to Arlington Center, Route 350 would extend to Burlington Mall Road, and that Route 40 and Route 50 would no longer be combined. The Route 350 extension will provide extra service to places such as the Burlington Mall, Wegmans, the Lahey Hospital, and other retail establishments in the area.

Afterwards, the mobility staff talked about the methods they used to develop signs for the reconstruction of streets and fast-building projects. They also shared the importance of pleasing the different stakeholders involved in the process of developing the signs. There was a discussion of the decisions based on community engagement and those based on standards. Route 40 and Route 50 will still run on weekends despite no longer being combined.

There was a Q&A portion of the meeting, in which one of the questions was whether Route 85 would still only run on weekdays. The committee confirmed that it would remain a weekday-only service.