Route Focus: PVTA R42 - Northampton/Williamsburg

Route Focus: PVTA R42 - Northampton/Williamsburg

  May 04, 2020    Kareem W

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Trip: Williamsburg via Northampton

Taken: March 2020

Williamsburg is one of those small Western Mass towns that even people from other places in Western Mass have never even heard of it. Yet it has a whole bus route running to it, so it must be somewhat important. Let’s check it out.

Our humble mid-sized bus for the trip

Beginning at the Academy of Music in Northampton, the vehicle used for the trip was PVTA bus #7550, a 2008 Gillig Low Floor 35’. Much of the people on this route got on here, as expected.

The R42 starts off with a pretty annoying deviation since it has to serve an apartment building south of downtown called the “Salvo House”, even though the R42’s destinations are northwest of downtown. The bus used Crafts Avenue, Old South Street, and Conz Street to get to the stop at Salvo House (nobody got on here), then we looped back around and used Conz Street and Old South Street to get back to Main Street.

Oh, Salvo House, why must every route serve you?

We went through a little bit of Northampton’s Downtown, serving the Academy of Music again from across the street, then we proceeded up Elm Street, passing some of the historical and modern buildings of Smith College.

The impressive front of Smith College

After Smith College, there’s purely residential of varying densities, and also a park and a high school.

Northampton High School

At the intersection of Prospect Street, the road becomes Locust Street, and in this area there’s the Cooley Dickinson Hospital along with a couple shops.

Cooley Dickinson Hospital

After a brief stretch of not much, the route meets up with the R44, and we headed into Florence Center on Florence’s Main Street. Going through the little downtown, there’s a variety of neat shops and restaurants. Seems to me like Florence Center is underrated compared to Downtown Northampton.

Looking down a row of shops in Florence Center

After Florence Center, houses lined the street again up until we reached a roundabout, which has the entrance to Look Memorial Park, a locally well-known park with all sorts of activities.

The entrance to Look Park

Shortly after passing Look Park, the bus turned off onto Front Hill Road, a winding road ascending through the Northampton VA Medical Center’s campus. It took us a couple minutes to reach the stop outside the main building at the top of the hill, making this a lengthy deviation, but it’s also a worthy one; most of the people on the bus got off here.

Pulling up to main building for the VA Medical Center

Descending the hill and back on Main Street, we continued north, initially passing some shops, but then not much again.

But there is this nostalgic diner and golf range

The surroundings were sparse up until we entered Williamsburg proper and went through the village of Haydenville, which has the Williamsburg Town Hall, some town services, and a golden Dunkin’ Donuts.

Yeah, I wasn’t kidding

After the little build-up of Haydenville, we endured another sparse stretch of Main Street paralleling the Mill River.

This is probably the best stretch of scenery on this route

Closer to Williamsburg Center, the bus suddenly came to a stop outside of a gas station. “Give me a minute to use the bathroom,” the bus driver said as he left the bus. We were running early and there was only one other person on the bus so a mid-route break like this is acceptable in my book. With a slice of pizza in hand, the bus driver shortly came back and continued driving the last leg of the trip.

Arriving at Williamsburg Center, the bus used North St., N. Main St., and Buttonshop Road to loop back around to Williams Street and the town center, since the bus stop is only on the inbound side of the street. I got off here and the bus continued back to Northampton, leaving me with an hour in a town with nothing to do. I spent it at the same gas station that the driver visited.

See ya’ in an hour, R42

Overview

The R42 has hourly trips on weekdays and Saturdays. There are 3 trips a day where you can request the bus to serve Nash Hill Apartments in Williamsburg, and you can also request any outbound trip to serve Leeds Center (all inbound trips serve it though). For ridership, the R42 gets around 15 passengers per revenue hour, which is above standard for a route with hourly service. My trip was lighter, with only 10 passengers.

It appears that the VA Medical Center is a bigger destination for the R42 than anything else, which I wasn’t expecting. Even though there isn’t much in Williamsburg, I do consider the town worth serving with a fixed bus route. Fortunately, the R42 is a mostly simple route serving the simple town. The R42 is also a good service for those who need to get to the VA Medical Center and it’s a better route than the R44 if you just want to get to Florence Center.

The next bus arriving to take me back to Northampton. Note that the R42 becomes the R41 to Holyoke once it reaches Northampton, hence the “To Holyoke Mall” auxiliary sign.