It started about five years ago, when Independence Association, Inc., the agency that assists “adults and children with disabilities in obtaining full and inclusive lives in their chosen community.” was awarded a grant to start working on a transportation system that would support its clients.  Many of Independence Association's clients don't live real close to where they work, shop or live the rest of their lives and there is no regularly scheduled transportation system to get them to where they need to be. 

The problem isn't unique to people with disabilities.  People who can't afford a car, or who are unable to drive or who have given up driving, or people who simply would rather not drive their own car have had no alternative other than the paratransit system (those vans that carry people to medical appointments and so forth).  Paratransit operates by demand-response, with the rider calling ahead to schedule a ride. The agency books the ride either on an agency vehicle or with a volunteer driver.

“Fixed-route,” by contrast, operates on a set route with designated origin and destination points on a regular schedule.  “Despite being the fourth most populated community in Maine,” according to Sara Trafton, Transportation Director at Coastal Transportation (Coastal Trans), the area's public transportation agency, it is the only one of the top four that doesn't have fixed-route service.” 

The grant to Independence Associates spawned the Midcoast Collaborative for Access to Transportation, a group with representatives from the usual suspects - social service agencies, transportation providers and employers of Independence Association's clients.  But it also includes other organizations whose clients, constituents and customers might access a fixed-route, such as Bowdoin College.

The Collaborative turned to Trafton and Coastal Trans and together they developed "Wheels," fixed-flex route system, “which is a bit of a hybrid,” according to Trafton.  Basically, it's “a fixed route that has allowance for deviations to pick up people that are close to the fixed stops, but that may not be able to make it to actual stop. The routes are designed flexibly enough to allow for these deviations and still maintain the route schedule.” 

But as Trafton says, “developing more sustainable approaches to getting people where they need to go has to be viewed as an infrastructure need, not just a social service.  Transportation comes up around all other tables, from economic and community development to the environment. It cross cuts and impacts every aspect of what we do.” 

"Wheels" will be the Brunswick-Topsham area's first foray into traditional mass transit; it is one strategy for reducing carbon emissions and the resulting global warming.  Trafton and others, aware of Brunswick's commitment to reducing the Town's carbon footprint (Brunswick adopted the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement last April), have also been looking into increasing Wheels’ impact in the carbon reduction arena by using hybrid vehicles to provide the new fixed-route service. 

"Wheels" is scheduled to start in the spring of 2009.  Meanwhile, the Collaborative is working on developing each of its three components: fixed-route buses, volunteer recruitment and training and overall coordination between providers.  “The volunteer component is the currently the focus of the Wheels project as we wait for the state and federal funds to be allocated for the hybrid buses,” according to Trafton.