When Clara Rowe runs out of a kitchen item or needs an errand done, it’s not as simple as hopping in the car and driving to her local Shaw’s.
Since moving from Penacook to her Antrim Village apartment three and a half years ago, getting around has been a challenge. Her car got repossessed years ago when she fell behind on payments due to medical bills, and Antrim, like most of the Monadnock region, has no public transportation.
So, Rowe, 78, finds workarounds. She pays neighbors to give her rides and pick things up for her at the store, and she relies on a volunteer service for longer, planned trips, like doctor’s appointments.
That assistance is helpful, she said, and that people would volunteer their time to help is “a wonderful thing.”
Still, Rowe used to be more independent, she said. She misses it.
“I was a nurse … I was a very independent person,” Rowe said, “and it’s very difficult for me to become the person to ask for help. I was always the helper.”
The Monadnock area is one of the more rural and car-reliant corners of New Hampshire. It’s well removed from the I-93 corridor and city hubbub — a welcome reprieve for many who move to the region — but for people who can’t drive or don’t have cars, there are limited options to get around.
J.B. Mack, assistant director of the Southwest Region Planning Commission, said that this is due to the region’s rurality and also to funding constraints. Though New Hampshire has increased its transportation funding over the past few years — it spends $43.3 million in federal, state and local funds annually — Mack said the Granite State has one of the lowest per-capita spending amounts for public transit in the country.
There’s a bus route in Keene, and a few towns near the Vermont border have access to the neighboring state’s transit system, but the rest of the Monadnock region relies on ride services provided by volunteers and community groups. Taxicabs and commercial rideshare services are scarce at best.
“When we’re talking about the typical definition of transit, where you think of maybe a bus or something, it’s very isolated in the Monadnock region,” Mack said.
For Rowe, non-profit services like the Community Volunteer Transportation Company have been “a real blessing.” CVTC, founded in 2008, looks to fill the transit gap in the Monadnock region by offering free car rides to residents who need them.
It has amassed a coalition of about 70 volunteer drivers who service an average of 440 rides every month, said executive director Allan Gillis.
One of those drivers is Linda Greenwood of Peterborough, who drove Rowe from Antrim to her appointment at Concord Hospital on Tuesday.
Greenwood said she generally picks up one shift each week and usually selects longer drives like Rowe’s, enjoying conversation with riders and running errands and exploring in her downtime.
Most of Greenwood’s riders either don’t own cars or can’t drive due to age or disability. Others need a ride for anesthetic procedures or surgeries, where patients are told not to drive themselves afterward.
Before moving to New Hampshire, Greenwood grew up on Long Island and worked in Manhattan — transportation was everywhere.
“I can appreciate the fact that we live in a rural area with no public transportation,” Greenwood said. “I appreciate the fact that around here people just, you know, they have no way of getting to an appointment if they can’t drive.”
CVTC can’t service every call, however. Gillis said the system allows volunteers to pick which requests they take, so there’s no guarantee that each and every ride will be completed. Usually, about 90% of requests are filled.
“Even if we had 50 more volunteer drivers, we couldn’t guarantee 100% coverage,” Gillis said. “It’s just, the system’s not made to work to be 100%.”
The regional planning commission hopes to expand on-demand public transit in the Monadnock region, starting with the towns adjacent to Keene. Mack said the commission’s vision for a “next-generation” transit system would include a mobile app and a call center where people can request rides.
Once it can prove the model would work in the greater Keene area — which could take years, with funding yet to be secured and a goal start date of 2027 — Mack hopes to expand that toward Peterborough and Jaffrey.
More traditional bus routes, though, would be a stretch for the Monadnock area. With a low population density and diverse directions of travel, Mack said, a scheduled bus system may not be the best fit.
“To make them work really well, you need a high volume of ridership. You need to be on routes that are well-traveled, kind of everybody going sort of in the same direction. Usually, there needs to be predictable amount of demand,” Mack said. “Those are the kinds of aspects of a transit system that work really well in really urban environments, but don’t tend to work as well in suburban or rural environments.”
Rowe hopes to move back to Penacook, where she used to live with her daughter and her family. Wanting to have her own space — and give her family their space — Rowe decided to move out.
She wasn’t looking to leave Penacook, but Antrim Village, where she pays a discounted rate made available for low-income seniors and people with disabilities through Section 8, was the only housing she could find.
Rowe is now on a waiting list for an affordable housing complex in Penacook, where she’d be closer to family and the Concord Area Transit bus stops right out front. With 20-something-odd people ahead of her in line, though, she has little hope of getting in anytime soon.
As she waits, the lack of transportation can make life difficult, she said.
“It contributes to depression,” Rowe said. “People feeling, ‘I can’t get to where I need to go. I ran out of something or I need something from the store.’ … It’s isolated.”