Nahant selectmen to fight MBTA bus service elimination

NAHANT – Selectmen said they will attend a public hearing next week in Lynn to urge the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority [MBTA] to reduce and modify rather than eliminate bus service to town.”I think probably asking for no change in service will fall on deaf ears at this point,” acknowledged Selectman Chairperson Lainey Titus at the board’s Thursday evening meeting. “But I think they could provide a reduction rather than an elimination in services.”MBTA Bus 439 makes nine round trips each weekday between Nahant and Central Square in Lynn from roughly 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Bill Crawford, the town’s designee to the MBTA Advisory Board, told Selectmen. But the MBTA has proposed two plans to reduce the service’s roughly $161 million budget deficit for next year and large debt, and both plans eliminate bus service to Nahant, Crawford said. Selectman Michael Manning said the transit authority calculates that bus 439 is losing them $240,000 per year.Town officials admitted the bus has low ridership. But officials noted Nahant is also one of the founding “member communities” of the MBTA. As a member community, the state reduces the town’s state aid by roughly $75,000 to $80,000 in an assessment to the transit authority, town officials said.”On an annual basis, we pay an assessment roughly equal to a third of the ?subsidy’ they say they spend [on the route],” Selectman Michael Manning said. “We’ve been a member community as long as the MBTA has been around and want to continue our access to public transportation.”Selectman Richard Lombard suggested that town officials advocate the transit authority run fewer trips and use smaller buses to service Nahant. He advocated a 14-passenger bus similar to the bus used by the Senior Center rather than the current MBTA bus that he predicted could hold 45 people.Titus said that several residents and employees of businesses in Nahant depend on the bus to get to and from work.She urged bus riders to submit testimony or attend the public hearing scheduled for Feb. 7 in Lynn City Hall at 6 p.m. Meanwhile, she said she would prepare testimony to deliver on behalf of the board.”If people have stories, I think it’s important to share,” she said.Cyrus Moulton can be reached at [email protected].