WESTFIELD—The city’s soon-to-be unveiled transit pavilion officially has a name and a ribbon-cutting date.
The new John Olver Transit Pavilion for the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) on Arnold Street will be opening its doors for the public on April 28. This date will include a ribbon-cutting that will include several noted local and state-level politicians, according to Westfield city advancement officer Joe Mitchell.
According to Mary MacInnes, administrator for the PVTA, the final cost of the project totaled $3.65 million. The pavilion is expected to service around 650 riders a day during the academic year and about 245 during the non-academic portion of the year.
The pavilion’s namesake is former Massachusetts US Rep. John Olver, who Mitchell credited with helping to create the pavilion through funding acquisition. He also said that Olver’s actions got a bulk of the funding for the project.
“He was very much into this subject matter and he had a lot to do with the funding of the transit pavilion,” MacInnes said of Olver. “He did a lot of other things for PVTA as well, so I thought it was important to acknowledge him.”
Olver served as representative of the first congressional district in Massachusetts from 1991 to 2013. Olver did not seek reelection for the position since the first congressional district was lost following the 2010 US Census. Previous to his service as a US representative, Olver served in the Massachusetts senate and house, and was also previously a professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts.
According to MacInnes, this will be the first designation of any building in honor of Olver in the PVTA. There is another transit facility in nearby Greenfield which was also named in honor of Olver, but that belongs to the Franklin Regional Transit Authority.
