Could our carbon footprint be reduced, too?

by Annee Tara
Coastal Journal contributor

BRUNSWICK - ‘Public transportation’ in the midcoast has been pretty much a matter of paratransit services provided by CoastalTrans.  Paratransit was developed to meet the needs of people who are unable - physically or financially - to drive their own vehicles to get where they need to go.  It's a social service, subsidized as part of an effort to meet the real barriers to mobility of people such as senior citizens, people with disabilities, children who need special services.  

Now with gas prices threatening to reach $4 a gallon and sprawling development leaving people huge distances from where they would work, shop or attend college, transportation has emerged as an economic development issue in the Midcoast.

The good news is that Knox, Lincoln and Sagadahoc Counties, along with Brunswick and Harpswell - the communities served by CoastalTrans - have been selected as one of just four sites in the country to participate in a ‘unique program to promote economic development through enhanced public transit services.’   The project, coordinated by CoastalTrans, is being conducted by the Community Transportation Association of America with the assistance of Urbitran, a national transportation consulting firm.  

The project will be informed by a Midcoast Transportation Advisory Committee, which met for the first last week.  About 15 people attended, frankly mostly the usual suspects: representatives of transportation providers and  social service agencies whose clients have long been identified as needing transportation to get to such essential things as doctors' appointments.  State and local officials were there as well.  And, indeed economic development organizations participated - Lincoln County Economic Development and Coastal Enterprises, Inc. 

The list of unmet needs wouldn't surprise anyone: CoastalTrans offers rides from 8 a.m. Until 3 p.m., Monday -Friday; no nights, no weekends.  The flexibility of their services means that people who are on a schedule - like folks who have to get to classes or work on time - can't use them.  Worse, since the mission of many social service agencies includes providing transportation to their clients,  there are a lot of vehicles on the road going to the same place at the same time - or nearly so - with empty seats.

The solutions put forth by the group: better communication, coordination and maybe even consolidation.  But that's a way down the road.  Urbitran will be conducting a transportation needs survey and will present its findings to the next meeting of the advisory group, sometime in May.  They will take the responses and return with a set of suggestions sometime this summer.

Now here's the thing: Global Warming.  Who wasn't at the meeting was anyone from the environmental or conservation community: not the Sierra Club, with their Cool Communities program; not any of the groups suggesting more public transit instead of widening the 295 north of Portland.  In the United States, nearly half the carbon footprint of an average family of four comes from the transportation they use.  In my family, it's closer to two-thirds.  But we are not the traditional public transit users.  Several months ago, we were told that there may be limited, but reliable fixed-route service available in Brunswick-Topsham within the next two years.  Imagine: getting on a small bus in downtown Brunswick, riding out to the Topsham Fair Mall and coming back, all without starting my engine! 

Now would be a great time for people interested in shrinking their own carbon footprint - or that of our community as a whole - to get involved.  To become part of the Advisory Committee, all you have to do is contact CoastalTrans at 207/443-6207 or 1-800-444-6207.