Hard to argue with Registrar of Motor Vehicles Rachel Kaprielian's description of the new Danvers branch office as a "win-win-win" situation.
The rent-free space within the Liberty Tree Mall being provided by Simon Properties allows her agency to save money. The mall and its merchants should benefit from the increased foot traffic the office will generate. And North Shore consumers benefit by having a place nearby where they can obtain new license plates and conduct other Registry business.
After the RMV gave up the lease on the building it had long occupied in downtown Beverly as a cost-saving move, it appeared the closest RMV office would be in Revere or Wilmington. (The agency is due to return to the city when the new Beverly Depot parking facility is completed in a few years.)
This latest collaboration represents just the kind of creative thinking taxpayers hoped would come from the consolidation of the state's various transportation agencies into a new Department of Transportation.
"In addition to opening these new branches (the Danvers branch of one of four new rent-free locations statewide)," Kaprielian commented, "the RMV has also added a new interactive licensing service and a dozen transactions to our Web site (www.mass.gov/rmv), which is also helping us deliver quality customer service quicker and more efficiently."
Once derided as the state's least customer-friendly bureaucracy, the RMV now appears to be leading the way in devising ways to cut costs without sacrificing convenience.
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