Somerville transit panel hears briefing on spring MBTA bus route overhaul

Finance Committee · Meeting of March 19, 2026

Somerville's Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Committee received a briefing on spring MBTA bus changes and a detailed overview of the city's street design process at its March 19 meeting. Effective April 5, the CT2 and Route 85 will merge into a new Route 85 running weekdays from Ruggles to Sullivan Square, with hours extended to 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and peak frequency of 15 to 25 minutes — but stops on Bow, Hawkins, and Warren streets near Spring Hill will be permanently cut. Route 87 will extend all trips to Arlington Center.

City Mobility Division staff Justin and Kate walked the committee through a three-tier community engagement framework used on street redesign projects, from light-touch "informed" campaigns for speed humps to full "collaborative" processes for reconstruction projects like Western Avenue, while acknowledging the city has yet to develop a standardized evaluation framework for completed projects. A guest from the Boston Center for Independent Living attended to learn about bus changes for a new municipal coordination working group, and interim Department of Public Works and Infrastructure Commissioner Eric Weisman's snow-clearing post-mortem from the previous night's City Council Sustainability and Infrastructure Committee was flagged as a key public resource.

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Source: the Finance Committee meeting of March 19, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.