On a recent public Zoom meeting to discuss transportation in the region, Mary Vallier Kaplan, a Peterborough resident who is legally blind, lamented the lack of public transportation options.

“There are a lot of us in Peterborough who are unable to drive and who need transportation to Keene,” she said. “People need to get to appointments or support groups at Cheshire, or they take classes at OLLI at Keene State. Right now, there are hardly any options for us.” 

Even an existing public transit system like Peterborough-based Community Volunteer Transportation Company has its limitations. CVTC offers free rides in 34 towns across the Monadnock region, with the majority for non-emergency medical reasons and most of the rest for shopping. However, Executive Director Ellen Avery explained that since rides have to be reserved five business days in advance, they can’t serve the people who call looking for rides within the next 24 hours.

“We’re very limited,” she said. “We don’t take people to get their hair cut. We don’t take people to the gym, unless it’s for (physical therapy).”

A potential option to fill that gap in the Monadnock region could be microtransit, a transit service technology that can respond to requests from the public in real time, according to a transit study completed by the Keene-based Southwest Regional Planning Commission.

During the meeting, organized by the SWRPC, Steven Falbel, a transportation consultant from Steadman Bell, described how microtransit could work in more rural areas.

“Microtransit can potentially be a great option for rural areas that cannot sustain traditional regular bus routes because of low ridership numbers,” Falbel said. 

Public microtransit, also known as “on-demand transit,” or “demand-responsive transit,” would enable flexible routing and flexible scheduling of vehicles. Members of the public would schedule rides on public microtransit the same as they would schedule a ride with private ride-sharing companies such as Uber or Lyft. 

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Avery, who was a member of the study committee, is excited about microtransit’s potential.

“The more options there are for individuals to get where they want to go, that’s a good thing,” she said.

The study looked at the feasibility of both fixed-route and microtransit options, taking into account the differing needs in the different parts of the region. One goal of microtransit is to use smaller, more-efficient vehicles, including cars and minivans, as opposed to larger, commercial-size vans, eliminating the need for drivers to have a CDL license. 

The study recommended a phased approach to implementing a microtransit network, starting in the Keene area and expanding to Winchester and the Peterborough/Jaffrey area. The study, which states that the long-term goal is to establish a public microtransit network covering most of SWRPC’s service area, looked at existing transportation networks in Keene available to disabled people, people without transportation and people needing transportation for medical care.

Microtransit success in Vermont and Idaho

Southeast Vermont Transit – known as “The MOOver” – pursued microtransit for Windsor and Brattleboro for two very different reasons.

Despite the presence of a high school, hospital and light industry in Windsor, Southeast Vermont Transit CEO Randy Schoonmaker explained that the town did not have any fixed-service public transit. Meanwhile, Brattleboro has more than 100,000 users of its fixed-ride service annually, but the service only runs from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday for employees and its growing population of refugees.

The service in Windsor has been running since Jan. 20, 2023, offering rides Monday to Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. In Brattleboro, service began April 15 from 5 to 11:30 p.m. To establish the service, Schoonmaker said SEVT relied heavily on public input, holding public meetings and consulting with stakeholders that included senior citizens, schools, town government and police and fire departments.

That input, he said, basically built the system.

“We listened and incorporated every suggestion we were given,” Schoonmaker said. “They ended up with what they asked for, and we ended up with a good service.”

So far, Schoonmaker said the service is doing well, with 25 to 35 rides per day in Windsor and 20 to 25 daily in Brattleboro. SEVT uses a Ford Transit van in Windsor and a 12-seat bus in Brattleboro. Rides are curb-to-curb and free. But more than that, he said, it is people who now can go to jobs, go shopping or visit people.

“It’s about the numbers, but it’s also about the impact you can have on somebody’s life,” he said.

Maxine Durand, city transit coordinator for the Ride TFT system in Twin Falls, Idaho, shares the same sentiment about the service, which offers both reserved and on-demand rides Mondays through Saturdays.

“People call me and tell me this has changed their lives,” she said. 

In particular, Durand cited the approximately half of riders over age 60 who pay the discount fee of $1 per ride – the standard fare is $3 – who started using Ride TFT for services but now use if for everything.

“They’re out for a cup of coffee. They’re going to see friends. This is how they engage,” she said. “It makes a lot of people who were invisible really hard to ignore.”

Ride TFT will have its first anniversary July 1, but its roots go as far back as a transit study plan in 2016. Durand said the issue is that while Twin Falls had a population of around 50,000 in the 2020 Census, and probably has an unofficial population of 53,000 to 58,000 thanks to the number of people moving to Idaho, its low population density makes it hard to set up a fixed-route service. Avery said a similar situation exists in the Monadnock region.

“There’s a huge demand for transit, but it’s really sprawled out,” Durand said.

To illustrate that need, Durand said there are six groups of city blocks where at least 10% of the population does not have a personal vehicle.

Funding challenges

Avery said the biggest potential obstacle to the program is cost.

“That’s the big one,” she said. “It’s not an inexpensive venture.”

Falbel encouraged participants in the meeting, which included members of the public, community advocates, social workers and representatives from municipal and state agencies, to “push for change” with their local governments.

“A new agency will need to be formed to develop this transit system,” Falbel said. “There are many different ways that could look, whether it is a nonprofit, municipal or hybrid model. Local municipalities could be key partners in this initiative.” 

Falbel said the SWRPC will also be working with the state Department of Transportation to determine potential sources of state and federal support as well as institutional partners to find potential private funding sources.

Vallier Kaplan said the Peterborough Sustainability Hub could be a good option as a partner organization for the project. 

Jaffrey Town Meeting approved $5,500 for CVTC and $6,650 for Monadnock Family Services, which does provide some transportation. Town Manager Jon Frederick said that if a microtransit system was well-thought-out, made sense and looked like it would work for town residents, town officials would likely support it. Ultimately, however, he said a decision on financing would likely be a Town Meeting decision.

“Something like that should really be up to the residents,” he said.

Frederick also said bringing public transit to a rural area can be a tricky topic, because many people think they don’t need it and the people who do may not know how to express it.

Windsor’s funding consisted of a $120,000 federal Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality (CMAQ) grant, plus a $30,000 match from the state, while Brattleboro’s funding was a combination of federal money, funds from Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, the Town of Brattleboro and the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

The CMAQ funding is annual for three years, and can be continued if the program goes well. If not, Schoonmaker said SEVT would seek other funding sources, but “We’ve had a number of CMAQ projects over the years, and none of them have failed.”

In Twin Falls, funding for Ride TFT came from a $3 million CARES Act grant, which the town used to contract with Downtowner, a company that develops transportation systems for municipalities. Durand is a city employee and manages the Ride TFT program, but the drivers and other staff are Downtowner employees.

“They came in and effectively helped us run the program from the start,” she said. “If we didn’t have that, we’d still probably be here trying to figure out how to set up a bus system.”

Ride TFT’s fleet is mostly cars, and two ADA-compliant vans are also available. The service recently added a sixth car due to demand. 

“We had the need, because we’ve had a lot of demand since we started the project,” Durand said.

The grant money is intended to last two years, but between fees and operating under budget, Durand said it should last two years and four months. Once the CARES Act funding runs out, Durand said the city will use grant funding from the Federal Transit Administration, which carries a 35% local match.

“That’s ultimately what’s going to come from the city budget,” she said.

Durand said the city would also pursue partnerships to offset part of its costs.

“Everybody’s got a vested interest in keeping the program running,” she said.

Details and development

When the service started, Durand said she did not know what to expect because even though the service was needed, the city had never done anything like it. In the first month, July 2023, the service had 3,251 rides and 4,338 riders. By May, those numbers had increased to 6,712 riders and 8,334 passengers.

The system’s popularity has actually caused a problem, as Ride TFT tries to keep waiting times under 20 minutes for on-demand rides, but has only been able to meet that goal its first month, and people were sometimes left at their locations, especially in the first month.

Durand said the service also ran up against people who thought it would fail because they didn’t think it was needed.

“That took a lot of time,” she said. “That took a lot of effort. That took a lot of hard conversations,” she said.

Durand gets a “heat map” every month showing where rides are going, and said the hottest area is shaped like a capital “J,” which includes the downtown, the hospital, the College of Southern Idaho and shopping.

“As we get more population density, we’ll probably need some sort of fixed-ride service,” she said.

A note on the websites for both Vermont towns states it cannot serve large numbers of riders at the same time, so people may be asked to reschedule or postpone rides, walk to or from their stops and share with other riders.

SEVT shoots for a waiting time of no more than 30 minutes, and people are encouraged to reserve rides as soon and as far out as possible by calling the office, using the QRyde app or online. When building a system, Schoonmaker said it is vital to have good booking software.

“That makes or breaks our ability to deliver rides,” he said.

Both the Windsor and Brattleboro websites note that microtransit is not meant to replace existing transit systems, but to complement them, and Durand said it won’t solve public transit issues by itself, particularly in areas with higher population density.

“This is not a one-and-done. This is not a Band-Aid,” she said. “It can be a really good idea, but it’s not the best idea for everybody.”

As Keene is roughly 19 miles from Brattleboro and less than 50 miles from Windsor, Schoonmaker said he is keeping an eye on the local process.

“It seems like they’re doing everything right,” he said. “We wish them well, and it seems like they’re moving along a good path.”

Having been director of transportation and parking in Portsmouth, which is part of the COAST public transportation system, Frederick said it is important to get support and buy-in from communities in the region, as a system that had backing in Jaffrey but nowhere else between there and Keene wouldn’t work.

“Then you’ve got yourself one community sitting on an island,” he said.

The Microtransit Feasibility and Fixed Route Transit Service Plan Design Assistance Study was conducted on behalf of the Southwest Region Planning Commission, in partnership with Home Healthcare, Hospice, and Community Services, the Monadnock Region Coordinating Council (MRCC) and the City of Keene. The study project was  supported by the  Federal Transit Administration 5305(e) state planning and research funds and administered by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.