Public Transportation

Question: We’re here talking about public transportation with Gardner Mayor Michael Nicholson. Mayor Nicholson, can you give us some detail on your involvement with public transportation in the city since 2020?

Answer: One of the things is I currently serve as the chair of the MART Advisory Board. That is a board made up of one representative from each of the 22 member communities in the MART Service District that serve as the governing body of the Regional Transportation Authority. So I’ve been the chair of that for the last three years and I’ve just been re-nominated to serve an additional term. The board will be voting at our next meeting to elect myself as chair and Mayor Sam Squalia as the vice chair of the Mart Advisory Board again. During that time we’ve overseen a search for a new director for the Transportation Authority as well as looked at the various different bus routes and ways that we can increase service in the city. Not just in the city but in the district as a whole. At the same time you know working with our partners in the private sector and at the state level to see how we can grow those transportation opportunities in any other form that we have to.

Question: So what specifically has happened to Mart in the city in the last five years?

Answer: So we’ve added the new bus route, Route 3. It’s been added as a central route around the city that seems to be very popular. Working with MART right now we also did update Routes 1 and 2. However those are still right now in their feedback phase so if anyone does have any feedback on how MART services are going here in Gardner we’re always open to those too. Scott Rich over at MART is overseeing how those new routes kind of play out in the future in Gardner. We’ve also worked to increase the number of bus shelters that we have in the city. The bus shelters right now are the structures at the bus stops that people can wait in so they’re not fully exposed to the elements there. We’ve got one that Councillor Dernalowicz was able to advocate for over at the former Prospect Street School building. And then we’re also working with MART now to see where else we can add those in the city. And sometimes even something as small as putting a sign where the bus stops are. When I first became the chair of the MART Advisory Board I asked them to take a look at where in Gardner a bus stop was without a sign and of the 23 stops that they have in the city only seven had a sign demarking it as a bus stop. So we’ve gone through and now everyone is marked. Everyone that has a shelter right now that we’ve been able to do so far has those shelters in. We’re looking for places that we could add future shelters at. We’ve added them also at the High Rise for the Gardner Housing Authority and over at the Hillside Gardens on Blanchard Street. There’s some other places that we’ve done some work there too so we’re still looking for feedback from people so we’re always happy to get that.

Question: People are complaining that riding Mart right now is extremely expensive. Can you tell us why?

Answer: So for the third year in a row Mart is able to offer free rides for people.

Question: What do you mean free?

Answer: Free. The Commonwealth is paying for the fare free so that MART is basically getting a grant from the state that’s covering all the costs so that people who are riding the buses in Gardner don’t have to pay a penny to take the bus around to get around the city. It’s all free.

Question: So I can get on the bus and I pay nothing?

Answer: Correct.

Question: Okay that sounds like a pretty good deal. Now people have talked about taxi services in Gardner. There used to be a taxi service so you entertained discussions with Woods Ambulance and what resulted from that?

Answer: So this was a funny story. I still remember my former executive aide Colin and I were meeting with Jennifer Wood of Woods Ambulance and talking about how we needed to increase access to transportation around the city and we came up with this idea of Woods using their passenger van for $10 a ride for however many you wanted to fill in that passenger van to get from one to another and basically creating a local ride share service. And while we were coming up with that idea on the radio in the background the song Getaway Car by Taylor Swift was playing so we decided you know Swift Ride it was and so Woods Plus has now launched Swift Ride. That has now grown. It’s got a partnership now with MART so that we can have public transportation in the city right now for longer hours. Prior to this partnership the buses in the city stopped running at 6 p.m. and then there was no public transportation services in Gardiner until 6 a.m. the next morning when the buses started up again so now we have coverage where the Swift Ride buses. Swift Ride vans will take over the MART route from 6 p.m. until midnight doubling the number of hours that we’re able to offer public transportation around the city. Woods Plus is also now through this Swift Ride services doing rides to the Wachusett train station for people who are looking to get on the train to get to North Station out in Boston or along the Northern Tier train line so there’s a lot of work that we’ve done to help bolster the ride-share services that we have in the city so that people can get around.

Question: Mayor Nicholson most mayors would be satisfied with those accomplishments but you’ve taken it a step further you actually serve on a statewide transportation task force what can you tell us about that?

Answer: Yes the governor appointed me to the transportation funding task force and what that was was a group of individuals from various different sectors. I was there representing municipalities across Massachusetts but there were people there from business sectors from the housing development sector from various other stakeholder groups that basically took a look at all state funding formulas for transportation related things everything from bridge repair to culvert replacement to paving in chapter 90 and everything in between. So we were able to take a look at that we did send some recommendations to the governor in the form of a report that was done in partnership with the Ernst and Young firm that was working with the task force that was there so when the task force completed its work last year we were able to get everything with you know just a full review of what had to be done and then next steps on what should be reviewed next.

Question: Anything else transportation related that comes to mind that you’d like to let people know about?

Answer: I mean one of the things that people often forget is transportation related too is we are working also on improving our bicycle infrastructure in the city and that’s not so much just the bike lanes that you see on the roads but the bike paths that we’ve had so then the connections that we’ve made from where the bike path ended at the skating rink then through the skating rink’s parking lot down Park Street around the Greenwood pool around Crystal Lake Cemetery and eventually we’re going to be going out to route 140 with the pedestrian bridge over route 140 that will connect Gardner and Winchendon and then you can get from Winchendon up to New Hampshire, so there’s a lot of different ways that we’re looking at transportation as a whole holistic view not just your normal pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

Question: And then of course there’s the expansion of the Gardner airport.

Answer: Yeah that’s true too we had our first full reconstruct of the Gardner airport since the 1980s with the runway and the taxiway being completely reconstructed and we’re actually seeing increased traffic there as a result right now in fact Life Flight’s there right now MIT does their their drone classes there in a new partnership that’s probably a year old at this point. There’s a lot that’s being done over at the Gardner airport too.

Question: Mayor Nicholson thanks for talking to us about transportation.