Indeed. Decades in the making, Silver Line bus service will finally extend to this blue-collar city starting on Saturday with four new stations. Chelsea residents can now enjoy a one-seat ride through the Ted Williams Tunnel onto the existing Silver Line route in the Seaport District and on to South Station.

CHELSEA — On a recent test run of the Silver Line’s newest route, MBTA general manager Luis Ramirez looks out the window at a collection of modern buildings by the Box District station.

Like the Silver Line in the Seaport, the new route features a bus-only road on one stretch so the line can act more like an express service. The ride is expected to take about half an hour from Chelsea to South Station.


Transit options for getting from Chelsea to downtown Boston — about 3 miles away — had been abysmal. Residents primarily relied on the notoriously crowded and plodding Route 111 bus over the Tobin Bridge to Haymarket. It can take 45 minutes during rush hour. From there, getting to the Seaport, requiring transfers by subway and another bus, can feel like an exercise in futility.

“It’s a real quality-of-life issue,” says Jay Ash, who was the longtime city manager of Chelsea before becoming state economic secretary. “The Silver Line is going to open up infinite possibilities.”

As city manager, Ash and countless others fought the good fight over two decades and across multiple gubernatorial administrations to secure more than $80 million for the new extension.

This is just phase one. Phase two involves moving the Chelsea commuter rail station closer to the Mystic Mall. When it is done in two years, that Chelsea station will be the only place outside of Boston and Cambridge with direct connections to both North and South Stations.


Hector Cedre Jr. is thrilled. The 111 bus can be so unpredictable that the animal care technician asks his girlfriend to drop him off so he can make his 6 a.m. shift at Tufts University in Chinatown. He’s on his own coming home, taking the Orange Line to connect to the 111 bus at Haymarket.

With the Silver Line, Cedre expects his commute to be cut in half. He plans to catch the line via a short walk to South Station.

“I’m really excited,” says Cedre. “I wouldn’t be surprised when I start the Silver Line I will hug the first bus attendant just to say thank you.”

The Silver Line is expected to accelerate the transformation of Chelsea, a city that has gone from receivership to renaissance over the past three decades, giving rise to luxury rentals and even a new regional FBI headquarters.

It might not have seemed so a decade ago, but getting a direct connection to the Seaport is a stroke of luck for Chelsea. Sure, everyone figured that the South Boston Waterfront would eventually get developed, but no one could have predicted the explosive commercial and residential growth, where Bob Kraft owns a penthouse and General Electric Co. has its headquarters.

Ash reminds me the Silver Line extension not only benefits low-wage workers living in Chelsea in need of better transit, but also employees in the Seaport desperately seeking reasonably priced housing.

“It goes both ways,” says Ash.

The Silver Line extension also marks a revival of bus service for the Massachusetts Transportation Bay Authority. So much about fixing the T has focused on subways and commuter rail, but buses are the workhorses, providing about 400,000 rides a day.


Upgrading bus service is a lot cheaper than extending rail and would go a long way to improving transit in low-income and minority neighborhoods not near subways. The Silver Line extension is the first brand-new service the MBTA has introduced since opening the Greenbush commuter rail line in 2007.

The new route, designated SL3, joins SL1 and SL2 in the Seaport, which all together form a fleet of 21 buses. If you’re hoping the new route might relieve Silver Line crowding during peak times, that’s wishful thinking. I’m told it won’t.

I met up with Ramirez, the T general manager, at Airport Station, where SL3 will stop but won’t go on to every Logan Airport terminal like SL1. (That’s also where Silver Line riders can connect to the Blue Line.)

It was Ramirez’s inaugural ride on SL3 as the bus headed into Chelsea, making stops at the four new stations: Eastern Avenue, Box District, Bellingham Square, and Chelsea (where the ginormous Market Basket is.)

Ramirez, who took over the T last September, lives in downtown Boston but has not been a regular on the Silver Line. He takes primarily the Red and Green Lines. The one thing he does not do? “I don’t drive at all,” he says.

Still Ramirez understands the importance of the Silver Line, which also has another branch, the SL4 and SL5, that runs down Washington Street to Dudley Station.


“The Silver Line is in the heart of a lot of areas people go,” he said.

So where might the Silver Line go next? Well, if the route got extended past Mystic Mall, you would find yourself in Everett. The city has already been experimenting with bus-only lanes.

With a casino on its way, perhaps Everett could be the next one to hit the transit jackpot.

Shirley Leung is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @leung.