Had enough? Snow totals for Central Massachusetts
While backbreaking, it wasn t record-setting.
According to the National Weather Service, the record snowfall for any Feb. 1 remains the 14 inches that hit the city in 1898. The 13.8 inches on Monday remains the second highest count, ahead of the 7.6 inches recorded in 2011.
(The total snowfall for the latest storm is 15.6 inches, covering Monday into Tuesday, according to the weather service. Snowfall counts are for until midnight Feb. 1.)
Other snowfall totals from the weather service: Bolton 19; Ashburnham and Westboro 18.4; Sterling 18.3; Lunenburg 18.2; Fitchburg 18.1; Shrewsbury 18; Leominster 17.9; Holden and Clinton 17.2; North Grafton 17; Hubbardston 16.5; Northboro 15.5; Auburn 15.2; Boylston 14.7; Winchendon 14; Milford 13.5; Northbridge 13; and Southbridge 11.2.
Support for zero-fare WRTA continues to grow as Mass. Audubon Society urges city to extend fare suspension
Updated Jan 26, 2021;
More support continues to roll in for an extension of the Worcester Regional Transit Authority’s suspension of fares.
The Mass. Audubon Society is the latest organization to vocalize its support for an extension of the WRTA’s fare free policy, which was enacted last March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week, the WRTA Advisory Board debated continuing the fare-free policy or reinstating fares. As it stands, fares will resume on March 1. The board will vote on the future of the fare-free service at its next meeting. In the meantime, WRTA’s finance subcommittee will meet to review a budget for CARES Act money that was awarded to the WRTA and determine if the funds are eligible for use for a permanent zero-fare service.
It was 1987, and Worcester was perhaps at its apex as a regional shopping destination.
The Greendale Mall was opening, joining the Galleria mall downtown and completing a long conversion of the city from a place once drawing shoppers to downtown storefronts – like Denholm’s and Woolworth – to one attracting people to indoor malls in a new era of retail.
Worcester may have improbably managed to keep shoppers coming into the city in the age of new highways and suburbanization, but it didn’t last. In the past decade or two, Worcester has seemed to lose its place as the shopping heart of Worcester County.
WRTA and other Central Mass. transit providers awarded vehicles, funding from state grant
Several Central Massachusetts communities and nonprofit agencies will benefit from some of the $8.6 million in grant awards from the state s the Community Transit Grant Program.
The Baker-Polito Administration announced the grants this week for the program which is administered by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT).
The annual competitive grant program awards money to be used for transit operating costs, mobility management or new capital investments.
The funding is for applications made to the program during 2020. Awards include funding to 30 organizations for 113 vans and minibuses, and money to 21 entities for 28 operating and mobility management projects.