Community Conversation in Peterborough on transportation focuses on needs and costs

Through his work for the Monadnock Regional Council for Community Transportation, Terry Johnson said he gets calls from people seeking transportation.

“Over the past year, of the approximately 55 calls I have gotten, I was able to help fulfill two of them,” said Johnson, senior project manager for the Southwest Region Planning Commission.

Johnson was one of the “conversation starters,” along with Monadnock Community Hospital Vice President and CFO Richard Scheinblum and Mandy Carter, community resource specialist and Kinship navigator at The River Center, during a Community Conversation Wednesday night on transportation at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture.

The dominant themes for the hour-long event, hosted by the Monadnock Center and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, were the need for transportation options – particularly for seniors, people with disabilities, workers, low-income people and veterans – what a transportation system might look like and how to pay for it.

Johnson favors a “Next Generation” system that would start with a microtransit service similar to Uber or Lyft in urbanized areas such as Keene, Swanzey and Marlborough, followed by a microtransit zone for Peterborough and other eastern Hillsborough County and western Cheshire County communities. The problems with bringing transit to the eastern part of the Monadnock region, Johnson said, are low population density, a low tax base to support such a project and distances between towns.

Scheinblum said the hospital’s 2024  Community Needs Assessment found transportation to medical services as one of the top needs, behind mental health, senior and substance abuse services, primary care access, specialized medical services, urgent care and walk-in clinics and crisis and prevention support. He also noted that by 2040, the number of people 80 and older is expected to triple in New Hampshire.

“This is about patients’ lives, people’s lives,” he said.

Transportation is more than just getting people to medical appointments, however, as Scheinblum said it reduces isolation and increases connections.

“Peterborough has always been a community that takes care of its own,” he said.

While he said “absolutely not” as to whether the region needs a large urban transit system, he added that transportation needs more support. He cited statistics that in 2020, the median per capita state investment in public transportation was $5.94, but only 59 cents in Massachusetts. Neighboring states Maine and Vermont invest 18 to 21 times as much, he said.

Carter talked about an older River Center client who continues to drive long past the point of doing so safety in order to get groceries or medical care.

“They know it,” she said. “There’s no rides, no bus routes.”

Carter was one of multiple speakers during the evening who praised Community Volunteer Transportation Company, which provides free rides to non-emergency medical and social service appointments, the grocery store, the pharmacy, the bank and post office in 34 towns in the region. However, the service depends on having volunteer drivers available, and rides require a minimum of one week’s notice.

The lack of transportation is an area that must be addressed, Carter said.

“Transportation is not a luxury,” she said. “It’s a lifeline.”

Danica Melone, Peterborough’s director of planning and building, organized the panel, saying transportation was her first thought when she was asked to develop a Community Conversation. After five years with the town, she said she understands generally what is needed, but also that the money isn’t there.

“There’s certainly a need for creative solutions,” she said, adding that before COVID, a bus service had a stop in Peterborough before pulling it due to low ridership. Melone said she has been working to get that service back.

Cheshire County Commissioners Vice Chair Claudia Stewart, whose district includes Dublin, Jaffrey and Rindge, said a new system would be comparable to Walmart coming to town and wiping out local businesses. Instead, she  recommended supporting the systems currently in place as being more cost-effective and taking advantage of existing relationships.

“There’s no doubt there are needs, but is creating a whole new model the right way to address these needs?” she said.

A Rindge resident, Stewart also said taxes are an issue, and that if the state is asked to provide more funds, “The state gets its money from us. They’re taking it from us.”

Later, Stewart said she volunteers for Rindge Woman’s Club, and its donations have included providing money to families so their children could go on field trips.

“If families can’t give their kids a field trip, that’s the reality families are living in right now,” she said.

Tucker responded by again praising CVTC, but asking what an immigrant who needs to get to Manchester for a hearing should do, to which Stewart replied that’s an example of just one person.

Melone noted that New Hampshire Ball Bearings asked for permission to use the Recreation Department’s bus to transport its employees, and Johnson said the goal is to coordinate services between existing human service agencies and others.

“The last thing we want to do is hurt the existing infrastructure,” he said. 

Erin Tanner of Rindge noted that as the population continues to get older, it will be harder for CVTC to maintain its pool of volunteer drivers, to which Monadnock Center Executive Director Michelle Stahl said, “All nonprofits are struggling to find a new generation of volunteers.”

Tanner’s father Mark said, “I am my daughter’s transportation to work, because we’re in Rindge, and there is no transportation.” He suggested developing a series of transportation hubs and satellite towns off those hubs, but it needs to be a quasi-business and nonprofit partnership.

“Nobody wants to pay for transportation, and to be honest, New Hampshire taxpayers are tapped out,” he said.

Scott Symonds is the CEO of SMARTRide LLC, which offers non-emergency medical transportation via wheelchair van for people traveling to and from hospitals, health care centers and medical offices for appointments. The company has eight vehicles, and Symonds said, “I feel like we say no more than we say yes.”

SMARTRide LLC does receive assistance from Medicaid, but Symonds said is provides about a third of the funding it needs.

“I run at a net loss every day,” he said.