MBTA Bus Service Returns To Danvers For First Time In 6 Years

DANVERS, MA — MBTA bus services will return to the heart of Danvers for the first time in six years this fall with the restoration of the 465 route, canceled amid the COVID-19 health crisis.

Danvers Land Use & Community Services Director Aaron Henry told the Select Board on Tuesday that the MBTA was restoring the service from Danvers Square to Salem Depot as of Sept 6. The route will be on a one-year pilot program with plans already in place to make it permanent, according to Henry.

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"This is something we've been striving for," Henry said. "This was identified in the housing production plan. This was identified in Strategic Danvers. This is something that we've been working for behind the scenes for some time."

The route was scrapped amid COVID cutbacks and then failed to get the green light to return during the MBTA's "Better Bus Project" in 2022.

• Danvers Stop Left Out Of Loop In MBTA's Better Bus Project

State Rep. Sally Kerans, a staunch advocate for the bus line, argued at the time that Danvers was making strides toward more public transit-oriented development, including the Maple Square project, and that the MBTA was not rewarding those efforts with service that would make it easier for someone living downtown to be able to get to Salem and into Boston without needing a car.

Residents opposed to multi-family rezoning to be in compliance with the MBTA Community Act also argued that the town was being forced to zone for being an MBTA-served community without actually having concerted MBTA service.

"We want people out of cars onto trains and into rapid transit," Kerans told Patch in 2022. "We couldn't have gone out of our way (as a town) anymore to accommodate that. So why can you make this one change to help connect the downtown to the train? It doesn't make sense.

"It's not a big lift for them to add in a Danvers Square stop. It's literally an extra 1 1/2-mile route. What we're asking for is doable."

Four years later, that will happen with a route that will run every 65 minutes, including Sundays, with a slightly altered route from the former 465.

"One thing that's come up over the years through the Salem Skipper, which has sunset, was that there really has been a big growth in folks trying to get to the Market Basket and the MGH," Henry said. "So they kind of had to find a way to serve those two stops. By routing this through the mall and then out Endicott Street, it preserves that connection for the region.

"That's the only real twist to the loop that they're doing now."