Linda Lou Smith is waiting for a bus. It’s a cold Tuesday morning and she’s bundled up in a puffy coat and a purple knit hat, clutching a purse, a plastic bag with a pillbox and other items, and a copy of the bus schedule. She’s on her way to Portsmouth. “I’ve got to do something for somebody,” she says. Later, she clarifies — she has to fill out some Section 8 housing paperwork for her boyfriend.
The bus Smith is waiting for is part of COAST’s Route 7, which passes through Newington, Portsmouth, Greenland, Newmarket, Stratham, and Exeter. She takes the Route 7 bus “all the time,” she says, mostly to Portsmouth, where she picks up her medication. The bus keeps her connected — without it, she would miss medical appointments. “No car, I don’t drive,” she said. “I have a disability.”
Smith is one of the 11,580 passengers who used Route 7 during COAST’s 2014 fiscal year, which ran from October 2013 to September 2014. It’s not COAST’s busiest route, but it’s one that connects residents who live outside the Seacoast’s urban centers with public transportation.
Route 7 may soon be going away, though. Funding for the route comes in part from the six communities it serves, and this year, Stratham and Greenland have decided to withhold their share of Route 7’s cost. Portsmouth has also cut off its contribution to the route, and now, COAST officials are considering eliminating it. [Update 3/5/14: COAST announced on March 5 a timeline for the elimination of Route 7. Public hearings will be scheduled for late March and April, and the board of directors could vote on April 22 to eliminate the route. According to a press release from COAST, Route 7 could cease operating by June 29.]
It’s something Smith doesn’t want to see happen. “Route 7 shouldn’t go away. We couldn’t ride the bus then,” she said. She plans to start volunteering at the New Hampshire SPCA in Stratham and she’d need Route 7 to get there. “I just don’t understand what the fight is about.”
Portrait of a route
The fight, like most municipal issues in New Hampshire, is about funding.
COAST (Cooperative Alliance for Seacoast Transportation) has been the region’s public transportation system since 1982. Last year, 489,408 riders used buses on COAST’s 12 routes. The fare for most routes is $1.50 each way. Fares accounted for about 15 percent of COAST’s revenue in 2014. Mainly, it relies on funds from the Federal Transit Administration and contributions from Seacoast communities to keep its buses going.
Route 7 exemplifies the challenges COAST faces, according to executive director Rad Nichols. One bus runs the route, covering 26 miles beginning at 6:40 a.m. and ending at 7:30 p.m. each weekday. The Route 7 bus doesn’t run on weekends.
Passengers board a COAST bus in Portsmouth.
The route started in 1995, and since then, its ridership has steadily grown. That first year, 2,282 passengers used the route. In 2014, 11,580 riders traveled along Route 7. Between October 2014 and January 2015, 4,133 riders used the bus.
It’s hard to say who, exactly, is riding the bus, but according to a small sample of responses obtained through a 2014 COAST survey, the route’s ridership is largely people like Smith. The survey found Route 7 riders use the bus to get to work (48 percent), go shopping (56 percent), and get to medical appointments (40 percent). (Respondents could choose several reasons for riding.) Of the 20 or so people who responded to the survey, 60 percent make less than $15,000 a year, and 48 percent don’t have a car. If the bus wasn’t available, 52 percent said they wouldn’t have a way to make their trip.
Tipping points
There’s no funding at the state or county level (something Nichols said is “unusual” — most states provide some operating support for public transportation). And although federal funds cover much of Route 7’s costs, a significant burden falls on the communities it serves.
“The asks we have are not insignificant in their budgets,” he said. “And that state funding or county funding could make a real difference in whether or not we’re able to financially maintain that service.”
In fiscal year 2014, it cost COAST a base level of $208,000 to run Route 7. For every route, Nichols said, COAST is required by federal law to provide comparable service for riders with disabilities. That adds another 40 to 45 percent to the route’s cost, which means Route 7 costs about $320,000 in total to operate. Federal funds cover about 58 percent of that cost, with the rest coming from the individual communities, fare revenues, and revenues from advertising on the buses and in bus shelters.
But with Greenland, Stratham, and Portsmouth eliminating their contributions for Route 7, COAST has hit a “tipping point” on whether it can continue offering the route, Nichols said.
“Before Greenland and Stratham completely zeroed us out of their budgets, we were about $42,000 shy of what we needed from the towns to support Route 7 next year. Now we’re considerably higher than that, well over $50,000 (short).”
That means Route 7 is unlikely to make it through the end of 2015.
Regional challenges
The end of Route 7 is an example of the difficulties that come with a regional transportation network that’s not totally rural and not totally urban. The Seacoast is a car-centric region, and though you can get by without a vehicle, it’s difficult. When it comes to public transit, there are enough riders, for example, to support bus routes in Portsmouth and Dover that pick up riders every 30 minutes, but not enough to support increased stops in rural and suburban communities. And, with resources in short supply, rather than thinking regionally, communities are more focused on the bottom line of their own budgets.
Greenland town administrator Karen Anderson said the town contributed $3,000 annually for several years to COAST for Route 7. When selectmen received a request in 2014 for approximately $15,000, Anderson said, town officials voted not to contribute any funding to the route. The 2015 request was slightly lower, about $13,000, she said, but it was still more than the town could contribute.
“(Greenland) ridership is and has always been very minimal,” she said. “We’re a pass-through (town).”
Anderson said the route’s course through Greenland — mainly along Route 33 — makes it difficult for the town’s residents to use the bus. They’d have to drive in from town to catch the bus, and even then, there’s no place to park, she said.
And that’s another challenge for the region — more frequent buses along Route 7, for example, would increase ridership numbers, but it would also make the route more expensive. As the route is now, Anderson said it’s mostly attractive for people going to and from work, or for those who don’t mind a long wait between bus rides. Residents might be more inclined to take a bus to downtown Portsmouth or to Target on Route 33 if there were more buses that would bring them back home sooner, Anderson said.
“If we had the funds available to double or triple the number of (buses) that went through Route 7, there would be a much greater ridership,” she said.
“There’s a whole host of positive things we do for the state, and we get absolutely no support at the operating level.” — Rad Nichols