MEVA Adds Bus Service to the Beach

REGIONAL — Thanks to increased funding from the state legislature, beach goers from Haverhill, Merrimac, Amesbury and Salisbury can take a Merrimack Valley Transit (MeVa) bus to the beach starting Jan. 7.
The Sunday service, particularly in the summer months, is expected to boost the ridership on route 17. For last November it had a ridership of 8989.
Merrimack Valley Transit has seen a 50 percent increase of riders over Covid-19 Pandemic ridership levels. MEVA transit administrator Noah Berger attributed the increase in ridership, which he said is better than other regional transit systems, to free ridership and the brightly colored buses.
The legislature added $56 million this year to the state budgets for the 15 regional transit systems in the state.
The Sunday ridership to the beach follows MeVa’s extending its hours, from 7 to 9 p.m., in September. None of that service was on MeVa’s routes east of Haverhill. Bus ridership in Newburyport has been historically low, he said.
“One of the areas we’ve heard about from our riders, and community groups in general, is that we stop running too early. We stop at 6 in Haverhill and 7 in Lawrence, and life just doesn’t stop at 6 or 7 o’clock at night,” Berger said. “We targeted routes that will get people back from the plazas, that’s where folks are working. The route in Haverhill that will run until 9 o’clock is the 1 that connects Haverhill and Lawrence as well as the Loop, but also the 13 that goes Main Street, North Ave. and then hits Stateline Plaza and then the Walmart in Plaistow,” he added.
For routes, schedules, and more information about MeVa Transit bus services visit www.mevatransit.com