If you use Lower Broadway or Alford Street for anything other than admiring traffic, the MBTA has a meeting for you on Thursday, March 19.
City Hall put out the notice this week for a virtual public meeting on the Lower Broadway–Alford Street Transit Priority Corridor, a 1.2-mile project running from Sweetser Circle to Sullivan Square. The pitch is straightforward enough: move buses faster, make walking less of a contact sport, and add separated bike lanes on one of Everett’s busiest roads.
More than 8,000 riders use the 105 and 109 buses on that corridor every day, according to the city’s notice. That matters because this is not one of those planning exercises built around a hypothetical future user who may appear someday if the vibes are right. People already depend on this route to get to work, get home, and get around.
The project, backed by more than $22 million in federal grant funding through the MBTA’s Better Bus Project, would add a dedicated busway, upgraded bus stops, real-time arrival information, accessibility improvements, pedestrian safety changes, and separated bike lanes. The city also says the corridor is tied to future Silver Line 3 service between Chelsea and Sullivan Square.
That all sounds good on paper. The real question is what the design actually does to the street people use now. How much space gets shifted? Where do turns change? What happens to loading, curb access, and traffic backups near the usual choke points? “Transit priority” can mean a real improvement, or it can mean a glossy presentation followed by a lot of local aggravation if the details are sloppy.
To the city’s credit, this is at least a meeting before the ribbon-cutting speech. The MBTA and the cities of Everett and Boston say they’ll present project goals, early design concepts, and next steps, with time for questions.
Everett residents should show up and ask the plain questions. If buses are getting their own lane, how much time will that actually save on the 105 and 109? If bike lanes are separated, separated by what exactly? If pedestrian safety is improving, where are the crossing changes? And if the road is supposed to serve a growing Everett, including new housing and the proposed soccer stadium, how does the corridor function on game days or other peak traffic periods?
That is the part these announcements usually glide past. “Big improvements are coming” is easy to write. The harder part is whether the agencies can explain the tradeoffs in plain English and defend them.
The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 19, 2026, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. on Zoom. Registration is required. The city says interpretation will be available in Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole, with other language assistance and accommodations available by request.
If Lower Broadway is part of your daily routine, this is one of those meetings worth attending before the final design gets locked in and everyone is told it is too late to ask basic questions.