Save Somerville's Route 80 Bus is an email campaign to protect one of our community's transit lifelines, the Route 80 bus, connecting Arlington, Medford, Somerville, and Cambridge. The MBTA is currently planning to remove the portion of the Route 80 bus that connects across Somerville, removing all service along the route from Powder house Square to Lechmere. This change was proposed before the opening of the Green Line Extension, anticipating the GLX as a replacement for the Route 80 bus. Since the opening of the GLX, however, the community has discovered that it does not replace the Route 80 in terms of accessibility and neighborhood destinations. 

This is felt most acutely in Gilman Square, where there the station was built half-way up a hill, with no ADA compliant path to the station, leaving the Route 80 bus as a critical connection. Also, in Gilman Square, the nearest schools, shops, and amenities, such as Neighborhood Produce, are further away, leaving the Route 80 as the best connection for residents within and between the local neighborhoods. The ridership data bears this out - since the opening of the GLX, the portion of the Route 80 from Ball Square through Lechmere has seen only a 25% reduction in rides taken, showing the Route 80 remains a critical connection, serving different needs from the GLX. 

Please join the Gilman Square Neighborhood Council in emailing the MBTA's Better Bus Project team at betterbusproject@mbta.com to ask them to save the Route 80's service across Somerville.