Cambridge plans to launch a yearlong study of its transit gaps in August, looking for ways to increase use of private shuttles available to the public and improve those offerings, including by adding shuttle routes where they lack.
As a city staffer talked at a committee meeting in June about freeing up funding “to go to our consultants to do that work,” city councillors pushed to take advantage of local expertise.
“If [consultants] are not embedded in the City of Cambridge and have the ties to members of our community, I don’t see it as being as robust as if we were to put dollars in the pockets of our neighbors to engage in this work,” said councillor Ayesha M. Wilson, while councillor Patty Nolan urged transportation staff to look toward MIT and Harvard grad students for study leads, or to the experts at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe Center in Kendall Square.
Councillors got agreement during public comment that it was essential to know the terrain intimately and to listen to the people who will use the system – though with a rebuke for the council itself.
https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/25992425-250707-transit-from-june-18/?embed=1
“When the MBTA rolled out its initial bus network reconception, there were tears from the City Council and absolutely no understanding of the fact that the MBTA was proposing to take away three-quarters of the buses that serve my neighborhood,” East Cambridge’s Heather Hoffman said during a public comment period, referring to Bus Network Redesign planning that got underway in 2022.
Andrew Reker, assistant transportation planner for Cambridge, said that since the hearing staff has been considering councillor feedback and “alternatives for outreach and engagement before finalizing procurement documents.”
“After completing internal review, which we expect soon, we will seek outside assistance through municipal procurement processes,” Reker said.
Part of the presentation were existing or soon-to-be available citywide transportation services, starting with the EZRide shuttle bus service that began running seven days this spring in Eastern parts of the city: from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. A formal start to seven-day service, with officials present for a ribbon-cutting, was June 3 at the CambridgeSide mall.
The presentation by Reker said there would be improvements from the regional Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, though the agency has not committed to a start date.
In the next year or so, more buses would come to Massachusetts Avenue, “so that during rush hours in particular, a bus [would] come every seven minutes,” Reker said.
A new MBTA bus route may be set up to connect Inman Square, Central Square and Cambridgeport with regional connections to Boston’s Fenway and Longwood Medical Area as well as Union Square in Somerville, Reker said, but the timeframe on this is also unclear, and further out – the route is expected to become operational only in a few years.
It’s part of the MBTA’s broader Bus Network Redesign, Reker said. In December, the MBTA cut a part of its 86 route and replaced it with the 109 while increasing frequency so buses come every 15 minutes. Further changes are expected by 2029.
The EZRide shuttles are a complement to the standard buses that more people need to learn about, officials said. There are also still improvements to be made, they heard.
“I use the EZRide when it makes sense and it works pretty darn well. Those buses are nice. The drivers could not be nicer,” Hoffman said. “But you need to go a long way to make it so that people can really use the [system] as a good alternative for getting around.”
Transportation commissioner Brooke McKenna also cleared up confusion surrounding Harvard and MIT shuttles: “The Harvard shuttles are open-door to anyone who wants to use them, but we do know that the MIT shuttles are not.” A spokesperson for the school, Kimberly Allen said in June that opening the shuttles to anyone raised “safety concerns related to students traveling home late at night.”
Tufts University shuttles in Somerville and Medford remain open to resident use, as Harvard shuttles do in Cambridge.
This post was updated July 8, 2025, with an update from Andrew Reker, assistant transportation planner for Cambridge.
A stronger
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This seems completely backward. Where will these shuttles pick people up now that we’ve replaced parking with empty unused bike lanes? How will having these shuttles make anything other than more traffic and more pollution like UberEats cars and Amazon delivery trucks?
More buses, please. I’d use them more often, but many only come every 40 minutes. Running buses every 10 minutes would mean fewer cars, less traffic, and a better city.
@cantabridgian02138 I’m not sure what you mean by “unused bike lanes.” I often walk Hampshire St and Mass Ave and regularly see 12–20 cyclists at an intersection—often more bikes than cars. According to the city, on major corridors like Hampshire and Garden Streets, cyclists outnumber drivers during peak hours. Would you prefer all those cyclists be in cars?
The majority of Cambridge residents walk or use public transit. We need a stronger transportation system. Buses are a high-impact, cost-effective solution. More buses and dedicated bus lanes, please.
Bravo, local and flexible public transportation network of busses is exactly what we need in Cambridge. Together with safe bike lanes (that are well used, no matter what @cantabridgian02138 writes) they make getting around our city fast and easy.
Jeez, in my experience the bike lanes are often in use, and during rush hour times morning and afternoon they’re slammed.