Owned by MBTA Connections RIPTA: 1, 35 Platforms in use 2 | Tracks 2 Phone +1 617-222-3200 Opened 20 June 1990 | |
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Location 1315 Newport Avenue
Attleboro, MA 02703-8040 Line(s) Providence/Stoughton Line Parking 568 spaces ($2.00 fee)
14 accessible spaces Address 1315 Newport Ave, Attleboro, MA 02703, USA Connection Rhode Island Public Transit Authority | ||
South Attleboro is an MBTA Commuter Rail commuter rail station on the MBTA's Providence/Stoughton Line located in the South Attleboro section of Attleboro, Massachusetts. The station, situated underneath Newport Avenue, is the MBTA's southernmost station on the line in Massachusetts, located almost exactly on the border with Rhode Island. It includes a large park-and-ride lot to serve commuters from the nearby cites of Pawtucket and Central Falls.
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South Attleboro averaged 1,462 inbound passengers per weekday in 2013, making it the ninth busiest station in the commuter rail system. Passenger counts have high year-to-year variation; in previous years it had been as high as third with over 2,000 riders counted.
History
Historically, there was no station on the site where the modern station now exists. (This is unusual; most stations opened under the MBTA have been located on the sites of former stations). The nearest stations were Hebronville, 2 miles to the east, and Pawtucket/Central Falls an equal distance to the west. Hebronville closed long before the MBTA era, while Pawtucket/Central Falls closed on February 20, 1981 when Rhode Island stopped funding commuter rail service to Providence. Commuter service returned to Providence on February 1, 1988, but the Pawtucket/Central Falls station remained closed.
The MBTA built a new station at South Attleboro to reach the Pawtucket/Central Falls market without adding a second stop in Rhode Island, which Rhode Island did not wish to pay for. The station site at Route 1A is located less than a mile east of the point where the line enters Rhode Island, and offered room for a parking lot whereas the downtown Pawtucket location did not. South Attleboro station opened on June 20, 1990, before which the southernmost station in Massachusetts was Attleboro. The area where the station is located in was once part of a Holiday Inn that was shut down to make way for the station. The former hotel is now a warehouse.
South Attleboro was the weekend terminus of the line until June 29, 2006, when Rhode Island began funding weekend service to Providence. As a high-ridership station, South Attleboro is served by all commuter trains that run between Providence and Boston.
In the 2010 Northeast Corridor Master Plan, Amtrak indicated long-term plans to add two outer station sidings and high-level platforms to South Attleboro, allowing Amtrak trains to pass stopped MBTA trains. However, the project is not considered a high priority and is not in current planning. More immediately, portions of the station are in poor condition, with two sets of stairs closed due to rust damage. Although the station has mini-high platforms for level boarding, certain ADA-required elements such as tactile platform edges are missing.
Bus connections
Until recently, South Attleboro had no bus connections. By federal law, bus systems like RIPTA that receive federal funds usually cannot cross state lines; thus, despite demand RIPTA could not run directly to the station. In 2009, the agency considered building a $300,000 bus turnaround for the 77 (now 1) route just over the Rhode Island border. In 2013, RIPTA began a two-year-long systemwide reorganization that includes combining, rerouting, and simplifying numerous bus routes; one specific objective of the project was to secure federal permission to run directly to South Attleboro. As part of this, two routes now terminate directly at the station:
Although South Attleboro is within the GATRA service area, it has no close connections with GATRA routes. The nearest GATRA service is local bus routes 11 and 24, which run to downtown Pawtucket on Washington Street (US-1), a mile to the west.