South Attleboro (MBTA station)

SOUTH ATTLEBORO

An inbound train leaves South Attleboro
Location 1315 Newport Avenue
Attleboro, MA 02703-8040
Coordinates 41°53′51″N 71°21′21″W / 41.8976°N 71.3558°W / 41.8976; -71.3558Coordinates: 41°53′51″N 71°21′21″W / 41.8976°N 71.3558°W / 41.8976; -71.3558
Owned by MBTA
Line(s)
  Providence/Stoughton Line
Platforms 2 side platforms
Tracks 2
Connections RIPTA: 1, 35
Construction
Parking 568 spaces ($2.00 fee)
14 accessible spaces
Bicycle facilities 2 spaces
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Fare zone 7
History
Opened 20 June 1990
Electrified 11 December 2000
Traffic
Passengers (2013) 1,462 (weekday inbound average)[1]
Services
Preceding station   MBTA   Following station
Providence/Stoughton Line

South Attleboro is an MBTA Commuter Rail commuter rail station on the MBTA's Providence/Stoughton Line located in the South Attleboro section of Attleboro, Massachusetts. The station, situated underneath Newport Avenue, is the MBTA's southernmost station on the line in Massachusetts, located almost exactly on the border with Rhode Island. It includes a large park-and-ride lot to serve commuters from the nearby cites of Pawtucket and Central Falls.

South Attleboro averaged 1,462 inbound passengers per weekday in 2013, making it the ninth busiest station in the commuter rail system. Passenger counts have high year-to-year variation; in previous years it had been as high as third with over 2,000 riders counted.[1]

History

Stairs connecting the parking lot to the station platforms

Historically, there was no station on the site where the modern station now exists. (This is unusual; most stations opened under the MBTA have been located on the sites of former stations). The nearest stations were Hebronville, 2 miles to the east, and Pawtucket/Central Falls an equal distance to the west.[2] Hebronville closed long before the MBTA era, while Pawtucket/Central Falls closed on February 20, 1981 when Rhode Island stopped funding commuter rail service to Providence.[3] Commuter service returned to Providence on February 1, 1988, but the Pawtucket/Central Falls station remained closed.[3]

The MBTA built a new station at South Attleboro to reach the Pawtucket/Central Falls market without adding a second stop in Rhode Island, which Rhode Island did not wish to pay for. The station site at Route 1A is located less than a mile east of the point where the line enters Rhode Island, and offered room for a parking lot whereas the downtown Pawtucket location did not. South Attleboro station opened on June 20, 1990, before which the southernmost station in Massachusetts was Attleboro.[3] The area where the station is located in was once part of a Holiday Inn that was shut down to make way for the station. The former hotel is now a warehouse.

South Attleboro was the weekend terminus of the line until June 29, 2006, when Rhode Island began funding weekend service to Providence.[3] As a high-ridership station, South Attleboro is served by all commuter trains that run between Providence and Boston.

In the 2010 Northeast Corridor Master Plan, Amtrak indicated long-term plans to add two outer station sidings and high-level platforms to South Attleboro, allowing Amtrak trains to pass stopped MBTA trains.[4] However, the project is not considered a high priority and is not in current planning. More immediately, portions of the station are in poor condition, with two sets of stairs closed due to rust damage. Although the station has mini-high platforms for level boarding, certain ADA-required elements such as tactile platform edges are missing.[5]

Bus connections

Until recently, South Attleboro had no bus connections. By federal law, bus systems like RIPTA that receive federal funds usually cannot cross state lines; thus, despite demand RIPTA could not run directly to the station. In 2009, the agency considered building a $300,000 bus turnaround for the 77 (now 1) route just over the Rhode Island border.[6] In 2013, RIPTA began a two-year-long systemwide reorganization that includes combining, rerouting, and simplifying numerous bus routes; one specific objective of the project was to secure federal permission to run directly to South Attleboro.[7] As part of this, two routes now terminate directly at the station:

Although South Attleboro is within the GATRA service area, it has no close connections with GATRA routes. Two GATRA local bus routes run to downtown Pawtucket on Washington Street (US-1), a mile to the west:[8]

One additional GATRA route, the 16 Seekonk/Attleboro, terminates at Central Plaza in Seekonk just over the Massachusetts border about 1.5 miles from the station.

References

  1. 1 2 "Ridership and Service Statistics" (PDF) (14 ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2014. Retrieved 4 July 2014.
  2. ↑ United States Geological Survey (1890). "Attleboro & North Attleborough & Pawtucket & Providence 1890 Page 28". Atlas of Massachusetts (Prelim. Ed. 1884-1888), 1890. WardMaps LLC. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Belcher, Jonathan (31 December 2011). "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). NETransit. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  4. ↑ The NEC Master Plan Working Group (May 2010). "The Northeast Corridor Infrastructure Master Plan" (PDF). Part II: page 7. Amtrak.
  5. ↑ Southeastern Massachusetts Metropolitan Planning Organization and Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District (2012). "Commuter Rail" (PDF). 2012 Regional Transportation Plan. Retrieved 6 October 2013.
  6. ↑ Barrett, Chris (24 December 2009). "RIPTA buses may stop near Mass. trains". Providence Business Journal. Archived from the original on 3 July 2014. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  7. ↑ Landis, Bruce (21 May 2013). "RIPTA prepares to reorganize routes to improve service". Providence Journal. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
  8. ↑ "Attleboro". Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
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