Route Focus: PVTA Route 45 - Belchertown Center/UMass

Route Focus: PVTA Route 45 - Belchertown Center/UMass

  April 30, 2020    Kareem W

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Trip: Belchertown Center via Gatehouse Road

Taken: February 2020

As you may already know, most of UMass Transit’s routes are aimed at serving the students of UMass and the rest of the Five Colleges, but there are two “outreach routes” that connect distant towns to the rest of the system. Route 45 to Belchertown is the first of them.

I took the 45 on a winter afternoon, right after UMass’ class time ended. Pulling up to the stop outside of the Physical Sciences Building, the vehicle operating the trip was PVTA bus #3204, a 2006 Gillig Low Floor 40’.

The ole Gillig pulling up to the PSB

First, we went through the UMass Campus on North Pleasant Street, serving two other stops outside the Integrative Learning Center and the Fine Arts Center. Even though the street was busy with students, only a couple of people boarded at these stops. This would be unusual for any other route at this time of day.

The Design Building and the Studio Arts Building on campus

After the Fine Arts Center stop, the bus turned at an intersection, and still on North Pleasant Street, we left the UMass campus and headed towards Amherst Center.

Around the roundabout and into downtown

After going around a roundabout and passing a park, we went through Amherst’s Downtown, stopping at Pray Street and Cowles Lane to pick up passengers. Most of the people on this trip got on in Downtown Amherst, rather than UMass.

Looking down Main Street, Amherst just before turning onto it

The bus turned onto Amherst’s Main Street, and the surroundings of Downtown Amherst were gradually replaced with residential, inns, and the occasional business. After the intersection with East Street, Main Street became Pelham Road, and scenery became even more rural, with more spread apart houses and more tree cover.

The entrance to a forested hiking spot off of Pelham Road

Soon, the bus turned onto Heatherstone Road, which is a much narrower residential street. Complete with cul-de-sac side streets, you might not expect a fixed bus route to run through this area.

“Out in the sticks”

Soon, the bus turned onto Stony Hill Road, then Gatehouse Road, and the residential became apartment-like, belonging to the Echo Hill and Rolling Green apartment neighborhood.

Apartments off of Gatehouse Road

After the apartments, we exited onto the main road, Belchertown Road, and continued south. At this point, the scenery was completely rural with houses almost only on side streets.

Before long, we entered Belchertown proper, and the bus turned off of the main road to serve stops on the residential Old Amherst Road. Getting back onto the main road, it was now Federal Street.

Turning onto Old Amherst Road, the building shown is a large church

For the next couple miles, the bus got up to the speed limit of 45 mph, and there were limited stops on the winding and sparsely populated road. This changed after an intersection with Bay Road, and before long we reached the commercial part of Belchertown, which has restaurants, a small shopping plaza, and a whole Stop & Shop.

 This is the best picture I got of any of the businesses around here :(

At the intersection with all these shops, we turned onto Belchertown’s Main Street, making the last leg of the route into Belchertown Center. Eventually we turned off Main Street and onto Park Street, which parallels the town common. At the end of the short Park Street, the bus ended its trip had its layover outside some shops and a small parking lot.

Laying over at Belchertown Center (spot the error on the destination sign)

Overview

Route 45 makes 7 roundtrips a day, on weekdays only. The bus operates at less than hourly intervals (at best a 70-minute gap), and unfortunately there are some massive service gaps throughout the day. For example, there’s nearly a 5-hour gap in service in the morning. Ridership wise, the 45 performs well for less hourly route with up to 29 passengers per revenue hour during academic months. This number dips to around 12 during the summer but that’s still good for what it is. Route wise, the 45 offers more of a quieter ride and rural feel than most of the other route in UMass Transit’s collection.

Considering all this, the 45 is a pretty decent rural route serving the town Belchertown. The worst feature about the route is its service gaps, and I feel like this route could do better with a consistent schedule of 70- or 80-minute intervals throughout the day. But still, the ridership shows that there’s plenty of people who make do with the limited schedule.

Anyways, the 45 is at least a thousand times better than its alter ego, Route 46, but I’ll save that for another Route Focus.

On the return trip, the bus heads back to the GAR (garage) after serving UMass stops