LAWRENCE — At 3 p.m. Thursday, a convoy of MeVa transit’s tropical-colored buses streamed from the McGovern Transportation Center.
Just outside the five-story parking garage, commuter train bells rang at the MBTA stop.
Inside the Merrimack Street station, bus riders gathered at platforms under new digital signs flashing the minutes until the next buses were due to arrive.
A smell of new paint circulated.
Along the back wall, separating the station from the railway stop, artists leaned closely, brushes in hand and applying details to a colorful cast of characters toting balls, running or just soaking in the moment.
MeVa transit’s switch from the downtown hub at the Buckley center last September to its new hub at the McGovern Transportation Center, on Merrimack Street, enters its 10th month and first summer.
Overall, riders are happy with the change, and company officials say the transition, while a work in progress, will better serve the city.
Starting July 6, the larger, brighter station will introduce more frequent trips on its busiest routes — increasing from 30 minutes to every 20 minutes on Bus 24 from Lawrence to Lowell; and Bus 1 from Lawrence to Haverhill.
“We know those two routes are very highly utilized,” said MeVa’s administrator, Noah Berger.
The Bus 24 stops at Lenzi’s in Dracut and has five stops in Lowell, serving riders who include students traveling to UMass Lowell and Middlesex Community College.
About 3 million riders board MeVa’s 24 routes each year.
Lawrence accounts for 51.5% of all MeVa boardings, according to MeVa records.
The changes to Bus 1 and Bus 24 will link Lawrence, Lowell, Methuen and Haverhill, and connect the gateway cities with commuter rail lines opening up travel possibilities for workers, students and people seeking healthcare.
On Thursday at McGovern, rising Lawrence High School junior Isabella Gomez, who has an interest in studying economics in college, said she previously caught buses at Buckley but prefers McGovern.
It’s cleaner, brighter and more open and she rides the bus daily.
“There is more space for the buses,” she said. “Before they were very packed together.”
She’s one many LHS students who ride MeVa buses because, some students say, the buses get them where they want to go faster than the school bus.
Also, here was Alessa Rodriguez, an LHS rising senior.
She rides the MeVa bus to visit friends or go shopping, hopping on the bus once a week.
She prefers the atmosphere at McGovern.
According to MeVa, 38% of its riders travel for shopping and leisure; 32% for work or school; 13% to access health care; and 13% for errands.
MeVa, which has an annual budget of $32 million funded by federal, state and local sources, has seen a surge in riders and drivers.
State funding provides a majority of the funding, with free fares sustained, at least in part, by fair share (so-called millionaire tax) dollars.
About 30%, or $9.4 million, of MeVa’s operating budget comes from federal grants.
MeVa’s fare-free regional buses, which serve 16 cities and towns in the Merrimack Valley, from Lowell to Salisbury, is on track to carry a record 3 million passengers in Fiscal ’25, ending June 30. Passengers are counted by an automated electronic beam.
MeVa now has 104 drivers on its routes, up from a low of 64 drivers in 2022.
The vast majority of MeVa’s 187 employees live in its service area — 151 of them — and 56 employees live in Lawrence.
The passenger total exceeds pre-pandemic numbers by more than 50%, boosted, in part, by MeVa’s fare-free policy adopted as a two-year pilot program in March 2022 and made permanent by the MeVa Advisory Board this past February.
Also at a McGovern platform on Thursday was a man from Florida, about to ride MeVa for the first time.
He was astonished to learn that the buses were fare free. Several people at platform confirmed for him that indeed the MeVa buses are free.
Not everyone at the stop endorsed the change from Buckley to McGovern.
Diana Rivas takes the Bus 24 bus daily to Lowell. She preferred Buckley because now she has to take a bus to get to McGovern and then get on the bus to Lowell, whereas before she got on a bus at Buckley and went directly to her destination.
Another concern about the new hub is its lack of public restrooms.
Among those who have said the station needs a restroom is Myra Ortiz, Lawrence’s representative on the MeVa Advisory Board.
Ridership from January to May of this year is down from the previous year, perhaps attributable to the colder winter in ’25, but for the year ridership is up.
In September, MeVa will introduce changes to its Bus 12 and 6 routes. The changes will provide improved and more direct service for residents including those in Lawrence senior housing to Essex Plaza (Market Basket), downtown Lawrence and McGovern, as well as for the Arlington neighborhood adjacent to Methuen.
One of the biggest advantages will be the elimination of Bus 12’s one-way loop by creating a Bus 0 route and have direct service to stops.
Meanwhile, the switch from the Buckley Transportation Center to McGovern brought some growing pains and worries among drivers about traffic and crossing the river over three Lawrence bridges.
“Change is always hard,” Berger said, adding that morale is high.
He said the transit authority has listened to its riders and drivers to address concerns.
On June 9, MeVa gave state elected officials a tour of the McGovern and a bus ride, the guests including the House Chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation, state Rep. James Arciero, D-Westford, state Sen. Pavel Payano, D-Lawrence, state House Leader Frank Moran, D-Lawrence, state Rep. Francisco Paulino, D-Methuen, and Rep. Estela Reyes, D-Lawrence.
Arciero said he and others have a close eye on any cuts to federal aid to the state.
Transportation is critical to life in Massachusetts.
“These improvements aren’t just about buses—they’re about people,” Arciero said, in a released statement. “We’re making it easier for students to get to class, workers to get to jobs, and families to stay connected—without needing a car.”
Chair Arciero’s district includes parts of the Lowell Regional Transit Authority (LRTA) service area.
At the bus station Thursday afternoon were three women from AECOM, an infrastructure consulting firm based in Dallas, Texas, and contracted by the state to create a comprehensive regional transit plan.
Every five years the state requires all its 15 regional transit authorities to work with the state contractor on the plan, a roadmap to the future.
The artists at work included Alex Brien, art director at Elevated Thought, a Lawrence art and social justice nonprofit.
Brien and Elevated Thought created the mural at Buckley 10 years ago and more recently the mural at the Lawrence Public Library.
Their McGovern theme, on walls on the first and second floors, is based on the access that buses provide people — to athletics, to joy, grocery stores, school, work.
“There’s a family playing,” he said, pointing to a painting. “So the characters are meant to represent the access and the opportunity that the free buses can provide users around the city.”