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Fresh seafood, charming cobblestone streets, and rich whaling history await visitors to New Bedford’s downtown. But the route to those attractions is not necessarily a scenic one.
Tourists arriving at New Bedford’s MBTA station are greeted by an enormous parking lot, against the backdrop of a highway. They could be forgiven for not knowing how to get downtown. The most direct path to the historic district is a half-mile walk up Acushnet Avenue on a narrow sidewalk, through a canyon of waterfront warehouse buildings. Tourists experience the smell of local seafood long before they get their first taste.
Most of the time, there’s no public transportation to take visitors directly from the station platform to downtown. And there probably won’t be in the near future.
That’s because SRTA, the region’s local bus service, was not provided state grant funding to expand its “last-mile” transit options this year. The transit authority currently has no bus route that serves the station directly. There are a few other transit options at or near the station, but they aren’t geared toward tourists.
City leaders are disappointed by the state’s funding decision. When the South Coast Rail project restored passenger train service to New Bedford last spring, it was celebrated as a future driver of economic development. Some signs pointed to a budding surge in tourism as part of that picture.
“New Bedford needs and deserves a cost-effective, sustainable ‘last-mile’ transportation option that allows us to showcase all that our downtown has to offer,” said Amy Desrosiers, the city’s tourism marketing manager, in a written statement to The Light.
The city’s tourism department and the New Bedford Whaling Museum have doubled down on attracting Bostonian visitors since the extension opened. Those visitors could boost the local economy if they spend money in New Bedford, though some downtown business owners told The Light in March that they aren’t feeling the benefits.
“Last mile” service limited by funding availability
Right now, SRTA’s on-demand “microtransit” van service is the only public transportation option that stops right in front of New Bedford’s two new MBTA platforms, but it’s not convenient for a typical tourist.
The service hours are geared toward commuters — vans operate only on weekdays from 4 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Riders can summon them using an app from anywhere within a certain zone around the station, somewhat like an Uber. Rides cost $1. (The rest of the city bus fleet is fare-free.)
SRTA launched microtransit last year to fill a gap that its existing bus routes couldn’t fill. Two routes have stops on Purchase Street, a short walk from New Bedford Station via the new pedestrian bridge, but bus and train schedules didn’t line up.
“The challenge we were looking at was that the earliest train was before the bus system was operating, and the last trains were after,” said Shayne Trimbell, SRTA’s former planning director who helped get the microtransit service going. Trimbell left SRTA in April 2025.
Adding or expanding an entire bus route wasn’t logistically or financially feasible, but state grant funding helped SRTA hire a contractor to run the vans as a pilot.
Microtransit has been increasingly popular — SRTA riders took 533 trips in March, up from 381 trips in February and 309 trips in January, according to SRTA. That’s on par with original ridership projections, Trimbell said.
But the long-term future of the vans is uncertain.
SRTA requested another “last-mile” grant from MassDOT to keep the service going and expand it into the weekends, but the authority received only enough money to keep service going at its current level through the end of 2026. The state granted only $360,000 of the authority’s $1 million request.
SRTA will try to keep the vans going as long as possible while it looks for other funding sources, said Erik Rousseau, the authority’s administrator.
“You never know what will come around, but we’re always looking for the next opportunity,” he said.
The city is also on the lookout for transit funding, “as well as alternative approaches to creating convenient and affordable visitor access to downtown,” according to Desrosiers, the marketing manager. A better connection between the station and downtown would help local cultural attractions and businesses, she said.
Shuttles are a hard sell
MassDOT is funding new microtransit services from Salem to Great Barrington. Tourist shuttles, on the other hand, are rare in Massachusetts.
The town of Concord piloted a free “trolley” shuttle for the 2022 tourist season using state and federal grants.
“People loved it,” said Beth Williams, the town’s tourism manager. “They absolutely loved it. It was very charming.”
The trolley solved a transportation problem for commuter rail riders arriving without a car, she said. Concord has no local bus service and its attractions are spread out across three different parts of town that aren’t within walking distance of each other.
But the town couldn’t find enough funding to keep it going, so it had to discontinue the trolley after just one season, Williams said. Another obstacle for Concord was its lack of a dedicated town employee with expertise in public transit management.
Visitors still ask about the discontinued trolley all the time, Williams said. The town has been trying to reinstate the service ever since it ended, she said.
“It has the potential to really change the way tourists travel, as well as residents, but we just haven’t found a solution yet,” she said.
Concord tried to get a state microtransit grant during the last cycle but wasn’t successful, she said. The town is now thinking about partnering with surrounding towns to tap into existing transportation networks.
Unlike Concord, New Bedford already has a robust local bus service. Trimbell, the former SRTA planning director, said SRTA essentially already has an MBTA station shuttle.
If tourists cross the pedestrian bridge from New Bedford Station to Purchase Street, they’ll have access to two SRTA bus routes that stop every 20 minutes. Both offer a fast, fare-free ride straight to the downtown bus terminal.
“To create a shuttle would completely duplicate that service,” Trimbell said
The challenge is making tourists aware of that transit option. Signage would help, Trimbell said, though it’s within the MBTA’s purview to post local bus schedules at the station.
New Bedford city planners are working on some pedestrian-oriented signage near New Bedford Station, said Assistant Planning Director Anne Louro. The city hopes to put it up within the next few weeks. Planners have been coordinating with the tourism department on the designs, she said.
“Obviously, we want to do something nice that matches the New Bedford brand,” Louro said.
The exact timeline for installation depends on how long the signs will take to manufacture, but the city might consider temporary signage if the permanent signs take too long, she said.
Signage will include walking directions to downtown, including local cultural attractions, via Purchase Street or Macarthur Drive.
Why is the “downtown” station so far from the actual downtown?
New Bedford Station was built right next to the existing Whale’s Tooth parking lot, half a mile from the city’s main attractions. But the line’s terminus didn’t necessarily have to be so far away from downtown.
A 2008 list of potential station sites included a smaller station to the south of Whale’s Tooth, at the State Pier. This station would have been “geared toward serving downtown New Bedford’s residents and tourists,” as well as ferry passengers. But the State Pier station was nixed because it was too big for the area and was only 2,000 feet from the other proposed station, according to a 2011 Army Corps of Engineers report.
The New Bedford Standard-Times editorial board had supported the original State Pier station plan in 2008, warning that ending the line at Whale’s Tooth “would create a permanent disconnect between the train and downtown.”
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org.
Strangely the State planners do not learn from history. The present new station is almost in the same location as the previous one ……..Built in the 1860s……And ALSO no access to Downtown. The problem was fixed then by building a street car system that eventually became the SRTS.
This is another issue that burns my ass no end. The city has done nothing to take advantage of the train and especially the “Free” friday night. Put somebody down there who has a personality and can direct tourists to where they want to go ( NB should also build a Tourist “shop” for tourists to go to find out what’s happening and where to go and how to get there ( it’s not rocket science folks ) as for the “bus and train schedules NOT lining up”, Make them line up (once again, it’s nor rocket science ) use separate buses for Football games, Downtown, Buttonwood Park, Downtown, the “Z” ( they should be doing shows every Friday night to take advantage of the free friday fares with the “T”, the beaches in the summertime, the ferries to the islands, and promote the shit out of these things !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No one should be surprised. Hasn’t the state done enough to our city? This is more of the relationship between Mitchell and Healey where the state has come into our city and taken over buildings and parcels instituting state policies and not caring how they affect our city. It’s time for new leadership in our state and city.