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In 2025, the South Coast entered a transportation renaissance.
A century ago, electric streetcars shuttled people around New Bedford and daily trains connected the region with Boston. Then came the Dark Ages. The streetcars were replaced with anemic bus service. The Old Colony Railroad cut off regional trains in 1958.
2025 IN REVIEW
The completion of South Coast Rail in March restored passenger rail service to the region. And local SRTA buses are providing a more robust service, at no charge, for a record-breaking number of riders. Meanwhile, a major highway project is underway to improve conditions for drivers.
Here are the biggest transportation stories of the year.
South Coast Rail opened with a bang
After decades of delays that extended well into 2024, the MBTA launched the Fall River/New Bedford line on March 24, 2025.
Dozens of excited passengers boarded the first trains on the new extension. Current and former officials from around the state held jubilant kickoff events in at least three locations.
In one train car, before 8 a.m., grown adults, some of them presumably strangers to each other, all traveling within Massachusetts, broke into a celebratory song written for the occasion that lasted more than a full minute. That is how excited people were to finally see this project become real.
The MBTA released an ambitious train schedule with 32 daily weekday trips between Boston and the South Coast.
Despite many years of delays, the project technically opened two months early, ahead of the May 2025 target that the MBTA had been sharing for months. The March 2025 opening date was announced less than seven weeks in advance. Local agencies including SRTA and the New Bedford Port Authority raced to get local “microtransit” van service and a new parking lot payment system running on the accelerated timeline.
In April, a shortage of railroad staff caused widespread delays and cancellations that left some riders stranded for hours. Keolis, the private company that operates commuter rail through a contract with the MBTA, hadn’t hired and trained enough staff to cover for employees who called out or went on vacation. Service mostly recovered as Keolis staffed up in May.
By June, when the MBTA held a town hall to address local concerns, another issue had taken the foreground: noise.
Angry residents, mainly from Fall River neighborhoods near train facilities, vented their frustrations at MBTA General Manager Phil Eng. They said the sound of idling trains and federally mandated horn blasts were keeping them on edge at almost all hours of the day. Eng and other officials promised to work on strategies to mitigate the sounds.
When the Middleborough/Lakeville Line became the Fall River/New Bedford Line, the number of daily trips jumped by about 2,000, according to MBTA ridership data — more than pre-pandemic estimates predicted. Weekday commuters appear to be driving the surge.
But if you’re not on the train, you’re not experiencing the gains. Data is limited, but there’s no sign that traffic on Route 24 and Route 140 has shown any meaningful improvement.
Free buses continued with soaring ridership
State lawmakers voted to extend fare-free service on local buses into a second full year this summer, using revenue from the so-called millionaires tax.
Ridership on SRTA buses rose 56% when fares were eliminated. Expanded service, including Sunday buses and a popular express service to Fall River, helped drive ridership to record-breaking levels, said SRTA Administrator and CEO Erik Rousseau.
Residents organized for a safer Route 6 — and changes are happening
After a cluster of deadly car accidents on and near the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge, residents formed a Route 6 Working Group to devise ways to make this corridor safer.
At their August kickoff meeting, group members said features of this high-speed road make crashes more likely. They pointed out confusing signage, dark streetlights, and poor sidewalks and crosswalks around the bridge during a walking tour this fall. Their speedometer logged drivers going at least 10 miles over the speed limit.
Organizers have met with regional and state transportation officials to explore changes, and some are now underway.
Solid white lines have replaced dotted ones on the bridge to discourage lane changes. “Stay in your Lane” and “Slippery When Wet” signs are scheduled to be installed, according to a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
Will Gardner, one of the group’s organizers, said he was glad to see these small changes.
“I will prefer visible, small, tangible action now and immediately over promises of some long-term expensive project that may not happen in an ever-receding future,” he said this month.
The state transportation spokesperson Marshall Hook described the paint and signage as short-term measures to address safety after recent crashes were caused by changing lanes on the slippery metal grates.
“This is not just a result of local advocacy, but also MassDOT’s commitment to evaluating and making safety improvements to its entire highway system based on recent trends,” Hook wrote in an email to The Light.
Freeway ramps closed for replacements
Work to replace the aging I-195/Route 18 interchange went into full swing this fall. The two westbound ramps are now closed through October 2027.
Transportation officials say the work was necessary because parts of the 60-year-old interchange are in poor condition. Work is expected to finish by spring 2030.
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
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