page_title: Trolleybuses in Greater Boston
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Trolleybuses in Greater Boston / History
caption_attribution_description: Trolleybuses in the MBTA's North Cambridge Carhouse yard in 1967
context_page_description: The Boston-area trolleybus system forms part of the public transportation network serving Greater Boston in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It opened on April 11, 1936, and since 1964 has been operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. It currently includes two physically isolated networks: one serving the towns of Cambridge, Belmont, and Watertown, the other – the Silver Line – located in the city of Boston proper. Prior to 1964, several additional trolleybus lines were in operation in Boston proper. Measured by fleet size, the system was the third-largest trolleybus system in the United States at its peak, with only the Chicago and Atlanta systems having more trolleybuses than Boston's 463.
  In the present system, four routes fan out from the Harvard bus tunnel at Harvard Square station, running through Cambridge, Belmont, and Watertown. Those lines are the remains of a once-extensive system of trackless trolleys in the area, which was largely formed from former streetcar lines. Additionally, the 2004-opened Silver Line is a bus rapid transit service using dual-mode buses which run as trolleybuses in the Waterfront tunnel.
context_section_description: The first trackless trolley line in the Boston transit system was opened by the Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) on April 11, 1936.  Replacing a streetcar line over the same route, it was an unnumbered crosstown line running from Harvard station east to Lechmere station. (Substitution of buses for streetcars on the route had been proposed as early as 1930.) Additional lines were opened in 1937, and by 1942, the system had 14 lines, of which 10 were former streetcar lines and four were former motor bus lines.  In 1947, the BERy was succeeded by the public Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) as the operator of Boston's urban transit system, and in 1964, the MTA was replaced by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which remains the system's operator today.
  The BERy was owned by private investors, but came under public control from 1918.  It served 13 municipalities of Greater Boston, including Boston proper.  The MTA's service area was limited to these municipalities (with the addition of Revere).  Following a change of management, the MTA began replacing trolleybuses with motorbuses, starting in 1958.  Only four trolleybus lines remained after 1963, all based in Cambridge.  Four decades later, the MTA's successor, the MBTA, built the Silver Line (Waterfront), and that line's opening in late 2004 reintroduced trolleybus service in Boston proper.
  At the trolleybus system's peak, the maximum number of trolleybus routes in operation was 37, with most route running in the near north suburbs of Boston.  In addition, there were the disconnected Dorchester and Arborway networks.
  Prior to the opening of the Silver Line, a total of 43 trolleybus lines had historically existed, but not all concurrently, making the all-time total 44 with route SL1, as of 2014.
caption: Pullman-Standard trolleybuses at North Cambridge Carhouse in 1967
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