Ring and Ride Now Free for West Newbury Residents and New Bus Route to Groveland

RING AND RIDE PROGRAM NOW FREE AND NEW GROVELAND BUS ROUTE

  
The Town and MVRTA held a ribbon cutting for the new service at noon on Tuesday, July 5th in front of Groveland Town Hall.

Ring & Ride is a curb-to-curb transportation service provided by the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority (MVRTA) for the communities of Amesbury, Andover, Boxford, Georgetown, Groveland, Haverhill, Lawrence, Methuen, Newbury, North Andover, Rowley, Salisbury, and West Newbury. Effective July 1, 2022 rides are free for the resident of West Newbury. This service allows residents to travel anywhere within the MVRTA service area. The service also allows you to connect to any of the MVRTA fixed route bus system. For reservations call 978-469-6878 press option 3 between 8 am and 4:30 pm Monday through Friday at least one day in advance.

While Groveland is one of the sixteen communities that make up the MVRTA, it had previously only been served by the Ring & Ride van service, which requires advance reservations. Groveland will now have service every hour from 6:00AM until 6:00PM Monday through Friday and 7:00AM until 6:00PM on Saturday. 

Looking at the Ring and Ride ridership numbers out of Groveland, which had the highest ridership of any town only receiving Ring & Ride service, and the existing routing, MVRTA determined that not only did it make logical transit sense to cross the bridge from Riverside into Groveland, they could do so within the existing schedule by making the #18 a more direct route. The #18 Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority (MVRTA) will now continue service from Rivers Edge Plaza in Haverhill, over the Groveland Bridge into Elm Square in Groveland, before heading left on Main Street/Route 113 until River Pines Drive, serving the town offices, Council on Aging and Library, before terminating at the Groveland Housing Authority. 

Check https://www.mvrta.com/ for details on all route changes.  

The MVRTA is now fare free, so a ride from West Newbury, Groveland, or anywhere else in the MVRTA service area, will not cost riders anything. Since municipalities served both by an RTA and the MBTA may deduct their RTA assessment from their MBTA assessment.

                            

                                                                           Map of the new service area for the #18 Bus serving Groveland.