Hey GATRA, I'm back! Time to see what to rant about today... uhh... how about the 14? The 14 is GATRA's route connecting Attleboro, North Attleboro, and Planville to the northwest of Attleboro.
Routing is fairly simple. I expected this to have a lot of deviations, but there's only two deviations (by my count, though). The route goes north out of Attleboro before turning west near the plaza with Shaw's. The bus not only runs along Toner Boulevard which the plaza is located on, but also has a short deviation to more directly serve the supermarket. The route goes west along Elm Street towards the center of North Attleboro, where there is a short deviation to the North Hub. I wouldn't call this much of a hub, though. Transfer is only available to the 10 (which I think is deserving of its own rant soon). The route travels along Washington Street to the center of Plainville, before travelling east along Bacon Street to the route's terminus at Man-Mar Drive. Man-Mar Drive is the location of a weird shopping complex. It's a bunch of smaller strip malls and some standalone places all near each other, but not connected. (I got that wrong in A Greater GATRA.)
Schedule wise... not terrible. The route runs every hour between 6 am and 6 pm on weekdays and between 9 am and 4 pm on Saturdays. The route does not run on Sundays. With the exception of the first two weekday trips in each direction (outbound: 5:40 am and 6:45 am, inbound: 6:15 am and 7:25 am), the trips also leave at a nice and even time, on the hour outbound and on the half hour inbound. The route takes 25 minutes from end to end.
Back when I did "A Greater GATRA" in March, I suggested that GATRA should extend the 14 to Plainridge Park Casino nearby. Well, GATRA chose to hide their proposed service changes (which have no effective date). These proposed changes include a couple of changes to the 14 that I have mixed opinions about. GATRA does recognize the existence of the casino nearby and plan to extend the 14 to serve it. Also, the 14 is planned to be truncated to the North Hub. That's fine, as both the 10 and 14 follow the same route between the North Hub and Attleboro Transit Center. Now to what I don't like - the 14 is planned to get additional deviations in North Attleboro. The 14 would deviate (would I even call this a deviation with the truncation?) to the Stop and Shop, which is already served by the 10. Also, Circle Court, located slightly west of the 14, is planned to switch from being served by the 10 to being served by the 14. This makes sense to be with the 14, as the 10 turns at the North Hub to go towards the Attleboro Transit Center and Shaw's. The worst of these changes is the reduction of service to the center of Plainville. Only select trips will deviate towards downtown, while the rest take the more striaght-forward routing along US 1, which is a stroad in this part of Plainville. With Park Street being a walkable not-stroad, I don't like this change.
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