By Danielle Ray
\nLandmark correspondent<\/p>\n
STERLING \u2014 A new transportation opportunity for town residents is right around the corner.<\/p>\n
MART Connects recently announced it will begin offering taxi and livery rides to get people anywhere they need to go, for any reason, beginning July 5. Rides are curb-to-curb up to 20 miles from the new pickup destinations in Sterling, Lancaster and Lunenburg, and must be booked at least one day in advance, by 2 p.m., by calling 1-800-922-5636, option 4.<\/p>\n
The purpose of the ride service, which is funded by MassDevelopment, is to assist individuals who need to be transported to and from the three towns. Anyone over 8 years old can book the service, which is offered from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. One-way prices are as follows: one to 10 miles, $3; 11 to 15 miles, $4; and 16 to 20 miles, $5.<\/p>\n
Longtime town resident Dick Maki, who plays an active role with Sterling Senior Center happenings, helped to facilitate the transportation service coming to town as a member of the MART advisory board.<\/p>\n
Maki said he started \u201cactively encouraging management to explore ways to improve rural transportation options\u201d about six years ago, when he was part of securing a second senior MART van for Sterling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat added service has thrived under the leadership of our Senior Center Director, Veronica Buckley,\u201d Maki said of the additional van. \u201cI was also engaged with the development of the Transportation Chapter of the Sterling Master Plan, wherein one important goal was to provide increased transportation options to our residents. Indirectly, that is what lead to asking MART management to investigate funding sources to support some form of door-to-door service in Sterling.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what it means to the towns to have the new transportation service coming, Makin expressed that he is \u201cvery excited that MART was able to roll out a new service for the benefit of Lunenburg, Lancaster, and Sterling residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProviding options for all ages and abilities over 16 hours daily, seven days a week will make an important difference to a wide range of our residents. And, it will also allow folks to connect with the rail service in Leominster as well as dozens of other transportation needs we all have.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information, visit sterling-ma.gov\/home\/files\/mart-connects and mrta.us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Danielle Ray Landmark correspondent STERLING \u2014 A new transportation opportunity for town residents is right around the corner. MART Connects recently announced it will begin offering taxi and livery rides to get people anywhere they need to go, for any reason, beginning July 5. Rides are curb-to-curb up to 20 miles from the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}