page_title: List of MBTA bus routes
section_title: 1–121
hierarchical_section_title: List of MBTA bus routes / 1–121
caption_attribution_description: English: MBTA bus on route 43 on Tremont Street traveling towards Ruggles Station
context_page_description: The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus division operates bus routes in the Boston, Massachusetts metropolitan area. All routes connect to MBTA subway, MBTA Commuter Rail, and/or other MBTA bus services. Many routes are descendants of the streetcar routes of the Boston Elevated Railway, or of suburban companies including the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway, Middlesex and Boston Street Railway, and Newton and Boston Street Railway.
context_section_description: These routes provide almost all local service in the core of the metropolitan area; most were originally Boston Elevated Railway streetcar routes.  They were originally numbered roughly clockwise from southeast to northeast, with 4 the furthest south in South Boston and 121 the furthest north (roughly) in East Boston.  The BERy folded into the Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1947, and the M.T.A. in turn was reorganized as the MBTA in 1964.  Despite some changes, including minor routes being merged into trunk routes, the core service network has remained roughly intact since the BERy eta.  Several new routes, including the 1, 5, and 47, have been added during the M.T.A. and MBTA eras.
  Seven routes – the 52, 59, 62, 67, 70, 70A, and 76 – serve more distant western suburbs, such as Belmont, Lexington, and Needham; most were acquired from the Middlesex and Boston Street Railway in 1972, and subsequently renumbered using previously discontinued designations.
  Fifteen of these routes (those with the highest ridership in the system) are designated as key bus routes; they supplement the subway system to provide frequent service to the densest areas of the city. Key bus routes typically operate at higher frequencies than their undesignated cousins, and in March 2014 their hours of service were extended until 2:30AM on Friday and Saturday nights along with the rapid transit system. In mid-2015, late-night service on some key bus routes was cut back, while other routes were dropped from late-night service.
  Key bus routes are designated on this list with an *.
caption: A bus on the #43 route, one of the last to be converted from streetcar to bus
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