HST Forgets MVRTA; IT Needs Increase

An agency of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, the Massachusetts Human Service Transportation Office website categorizes 351 communities into nine regions.

Note that Newburyport is considered part of the Cape Ann Transportation Authority, which only serves Gloucester, Essex, Ipswich, and Rockport.

The Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority is conspicuously absent from the HST provider listings. Then again, so is the MBTA.

When you consider Gov. Deval Patrick is asking for a 80 percent budget hike for his office staff, can't he include money to beef up the state IT infrastructure?

Don't get me started on the city's IT infrastructure.

Do you recycle your newspaper?

The MBTA, in partnership with The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, metro, The Phoenix, and Stuff@Night, recently launched a paper recycling campaign.

Located at every train and subway station in Boston and the immediate vicinity are trashcans that are specifically marked for disposal of newspapers, magazines, and other papers.

At Boston's North Station, for instance, the receptacles are on each commuter train platform and also downstairs in the subway terminal.

The participating newspapers and magazines are also printing full-color advertisements like the one here I photographed in the latest issue of Stuff@Night:


(You can click the photo to see it blown-up.)

Imagine if the Daily News, Newburyport Current, Port Planet, The Town Common, Merrimack Valley Magazine, and the like came together for a similar paper recycling campaign. Work it with the MBTA and the MVRTA, and the communities' recycling pickup routes, and we can easily mimic what's happening in big city Boston.

Build it and they will come

Searching online for references to the older train station, I found this August 1999 article printed in The New York Times.

Written 10 months after the MBTA station was built at its present location near the Newbury line, the reporter described how 475 net riders were added to those who previously boarded at Ipswich. Moreover, she wrote about a booming real estate market, including the construction of the 42-lot Port Village complex and a 71-unit complex off I-95; and the 1970s downtown renewal.

Several times a month, I drive to the T lot, park my car for $2, and ride the train for a scenic $7.75 one-way 60-minute trip into Boston. Thankfully, the Salem-Beverly bridge has always worked in my favor on those days.

I recently started a bulletin board thread with the subject of public transportation on Around the North Shore, an online forum. I've spoken to a variety of city officials and residents, and folks outside Newburyport, and there is a consensus to do something, though nobody can agree on what to decrease the distance from the train station to downtown. We shouldn't count on the regional bus network, which requires specific ridership figures to operate stops. I'd rather the city work out some arrangement with community organizations, or perhaps in sync with area communities who also use the Newburyport station. A common shuttle system, perhaps in parallel to the MVRTA? I don't know.

Going back to the 1999 NY Times article...

Economic growth in the region is the primary cause of the surge in new housing construction, but Newburyport itself has also benefited because it can offer both urban amenities and the charm of a small seaside community. Clustered around the waterfront are dozens of early 19th-century red Flemish brick buildings with shops downstairs and apartments up.

Since the late 1960's, an infusion of about $30 million from a small cities improvement program of the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has created a pedestrian mall encompassing several streets and led to the restoration of dozens of the historic brick buildings.

Now these three- and four-story flower-trimmed buildings are filled with shops, offices, apartments and a panoply of clubs, cafes and restaurants...

We've built everything. Now we need people. How can we identify viable and creative ways to boost our tourism figures, increase local spending, and lure ignorant people to our panoply? How can the train station figure into this matrix? And don't get me started on the C&J service, which is fodder for another entry.