MASCO M2 Cambridge Shuttle

Free bus service (for Harvard employees/​students/​etc) from Harvard Square, through Kenmore, then on to Longwood. If you don’t like this, then you are a crazy person.
The bus is clean and timely, and you can even track it online so you know exactly when you have to run out your front door. The drivers are also really nice.
Also, we’re talking about a bus full of Harvard people or hospital employees… now I’m not saying I’d ever use a bus as a place to meet women, but you do have 25 or so minutes to go from Harvard to Longwood, governments have fallen in less time. Also, someone once fainted on the bus – you have no idea how quickly they were taken care of, everyone on the bus is probably qualified to save your life.

Super convenient way to get from Harvard Square to places including:
— Kenmore Square
— Fenway/​Landmark Center
— Longwood Medical Area/​HMS/​HSPH
Hop on at Lamont Gate (on Quincy Street just outside Harvard Yard).
See Miriam L’s review for a breakdown of who does and does not get on for free. But know that at least ²⁄₃ of the time that I have taken it recently, the ID scanners on the buses have been broken. Which means that the driver either just looks at people’s Harvard IDs as they are getting on, or lets them get on without any sort of ID at all. So, you could take your chances, and even play dumb and say your ID won’t scan because of some sort of glitch (I have used this strategy, but honestly: mine was actually not enabled for free shuttling for the first month I was employed at Harvard). Of course you can’t do this week after week, but it will work in a pinch. And from what I read, you can also pay cash on board. It’s about the same price as the T (Miriam’s quite useful review says $ 2.30, unless the price has changed), and it’s WAY faster most of the time. (Exception: evening rush hour, when it could easily take you 90 minutes to 2 hours to drive the four miles from Longwood to Harvard.)
In my experience, the shuttles do run on time, but the infrequency (2x per hour) during daytime hours is annoying.

It is not runs according to schedule.. The buses are as full as possible more then the limit. Need a big improvement!

Pros:
–Yes, it’s free for many Harvard affiliates
–At non-​peak hours, it’s mostly on time (comes every half hour)
–Drivers are nice and know how to get there as fast as possible while still waiting for people to cross at marked crosswalks
Cons:
— At peak hours, it NEVER runs according to schedule. Sure, it’s there about every 10 – 15 minutes, but never when it says it will. Why is this important? Because a bus that is supposed to leave at 9:30 will instead leave at 9:45, then the 9:50 bus gets canceled or has to wait until 10:15. Understandable if this is due to traffic, but it’s not. They just want to make sure all of their buses are as full as possible, screwing over those who want a consistent, on-​time method of getting from Harvard-​Longwood and back.
— Customer service is terrible, if you call the main number they just redirect you to a recording of the schedule, which is not helpful when you are trying to figure out if a bus is going to complete the route or be redirected back to the depot. The number of buses I’ve seen that show up at Harvard Square or Vanderbilt hall and turn around without picking up passengers is incredible. Especially at peak hours.
— Saturday service, which they say they have on the website, is not consistently available and seems to sometimes follow the Harvard academic schedule and other times not (doesn’t run at all in the Summer, but that’s understandable). No warning about this, either.

I’d like to point out that this shuttle is NOT free for all Harvard students. M2 is free for:
–Medical School students
–School of Public Health students
–Dental School students
–Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Students
–Business School Students
–Undergrads
–University officers
–University staff.
The shuttle is NOT free to:
–Divinity School students
–Graduate School of Design students
–School of Education students
–Kennedy School students
–Law School students
(forgive me if I’ve missed anyone)
Frankly, I think this is ridiculous. Why exactly do I have to pay $ 2.30/ride to get anywhere between the Yard and the Longwood campus? It makes me feel a little like a second class citizen. I asked about this policy and was told (by an undergrad, who admitted that she didn’t really know) that it was only free to people who were likely to use it often. I doubt that’s really it.
Honestly? It’s cheaper for me to take the T if I need to get to Longwood from campus, but this is faster, so I’ll do it if I can be reimbursed.
Also, it drove me a little nuts that they don’t announce stops, which makes the service difficult for people who haven’t used it before.

Great for getting from the Main Campus in Cambridge to the Longwood Medical Area satellites of Harvard Med, Harvard Dental, and Harvard Public Health.
FREE if you have a Harvard ID, but you can buy passes for rides as well (I believe it is 10 ride tickets).
In the peak times for AM and PM the buses are every 5 – 8 minutes apart and are almost ALWAYS on time — what a nice change! It is much faster than taking the Orange line to Ruggles or the Green line to Longwood (D line) or MFA (E line).
Sometimes the drivers are a little crazy — but that keeps life exciting, right! :)

FREE Shuttle. FREE with Harvard ID. I love it! You let me visit my Papa who has been in and out of the hospital for 11 days. It is very conveinent for those who need to schlepp from Harvard to Longwood and vice versa. It runs all the time. I love being able to take something that is clean, free, reliable, all the while thumbing my nose at the MBTA!

I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining about a free bus service… But I am.
M2, you do your job transporting me from where I live to where I work on the other side of the river, but do you have act as if you begrudge every moment? It’s not my fault — if I had an option, I would work in Cambridge and be done with you forever. And don’t even bring up moving closer to Longwood — what a terrible idea. As it is, your schedule is inconvenient, stops too early and for goodnessake you don’t even bother having a Saturday schedule in the summer! Bah, I say. I’ve finally bought a bike and we will be seeing a lot less of each other.