![wrta bus 15 wrta bus 15](https://businessjournaldaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wrta-holiday-bus-925.jpg)
Now the mall is just that more desolate since they closed the Best Buy a little back. The food court has a total of two eating establishments where Nathan and I got some excessively cheap Chinese food that didn’t make us sick. A few shops remain, including a rinky-dink arcade that appeared to be unstaffed and a “Lensecrafters”, because apparently the people who made the mall’s online store directory really really really don’t care. And because of that…I think it’s noteworthy! Dead malls are fascinating, and this one was almost completely devoid of people. Nearby and Noteworthy: Let’s talk about the Greendale Mall: this thing is on its last legs.
#WRTA BUS 15 DRIVERS#
While the scheduled running time of half an hour might hold some weight on midday trips, it certainly shouldn’t be scheduled to take that long for morning and night trips! Our run took just 13 minutes, which is why we ended up making up 17 minutes of lateness! Rather than forcing drivers to run insanely behind schedule, inconveniencing the few passengers this thing gets, would it not be better to just make the schedule realistic? Our bus left 20 minutes late, which in itself is awful, but it might’ve just been a purposeful act on the driver’s part to make up for the excessively padded running times. And let’s also talk about the 8’s reliability as a route: it has none. Not only does that route go much further than the 8 does and can be used as a Park Ave crosstown for the 8’s northern half, but it also runs every 40 minutes and has Saturday service. The fact that half of the 8’s route is shared with the 31 is another pitfall.
![wrta bus 15 wrta bus 15](http://www.wrtaonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/33-Struthers-Buckeye_schedule-1024x844.png)
At least there are supermarkets and other attractions along here too. It doesn’t help that even though it is a clean circumferential corridor, the route’s northern anchor is hardly an anchor: as you’ll see in the “Nearby and Noteworthy” section, the Greendale Mall is noteworthy for all the wrong reasons. Plus, crosstown buses tend to work better if the system has good bones with its radial routes, and the WRTA really doesn’t have that, so the 8 is pretty much just a “if you gotta make your way up Park Ave, maybe use this” route rather than something you could transfer to from somewhere else. Firstly, this thing is hourly on weekdays only, so it can only be so useful. Pros: Huge props to the WRTA for creating a crosstown route! The second biggest city in New England deserves a real bus service, and routes that don’t all feed into downtown is a good signifier of that.Ĭons: Well, pretty much everything about the execution is awful. Okay, not the best, obviously, but it was an evening trip…maybe it’s busier during the day? Ridership: This route is too new to have any public ridership data from the WRTA, so we’ll have to use the “data” I collected on my one ride, the 7 PM journey from Webster Square to Greendale Mall. The sun sets over the Greendale Mall parking lot.