In today's edition of "what the fuck WRTA", I look at yet another route that goes to the next town over and serves a shopping plaza and has a near miss with other useful things. And today's route is the 30.
The 30, like all but 3 WRTA routes, starts at Union Station. It takes a straight shot north towards West Boylston on the aptly named West Boylston St. I like this routing actually. It serves Quinsigamond Community College as well as the Walmart in West Boylston. The WRTA really likes Walmarts, huh. But this wouldn't be a WRTA route without some problem. The route has some Saturday night trips that serve the Showcase Cinemas in the north of Worcester (appropriately known by locals as "Worcester North"). Oh, that sounds like a good thing, right? Wrong. The movie theater permanently closed in early June 2021 and is being demolished. And the WRTA updated their schedule on, uhh, August 28. Nearly three months after this place closed down for good, the WRTA is still apparently serving it on Saturday nights.
Just like the 15, this route runs really close to places that people would want to go to. That being the fucking downtown area of West Boylston. It can't be more than a few minutes from the Walmart. This part of town is really nice as well. But no, the WRTA wanted to end it at Walmart and serve some strip malls on a not-so-pedestrian-friendly road.
But the 30 has a really good schedule to make up for some of its downfalls. 45 minute headways all day on weekdays, from 5:30 am to 11 pm, even with 15 minute headways during peak hours (now that's something I haven't seen on the WRTA routes I've looked at on this blog). The route runs roughly every hour on Saturdays between 6 am and 6 pm (trips from the cinema continue hourly until 9:20 pm), and between 11 am and 6 pm on Sundays.
Also, bonus points to the WRTA for interlining inbound trips on Saturdays with the 19. Only on Saturdays though. This allows for passengers on the 30 to continue their travel southwest-ward through Worcester (and vice versa).
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