Amherst voters say no to bus, fields

Thursday, March 18, 2010

AMHERST – More than 100 Amherst residents who have been using a low-cost bus service to get to medical appointments or the grocery store will be grounded starting on April 30, because voters at Town Meeting rejected a petitioned warrant article to pay for the town’s share of the Souhegan Valley Transportation Collaborative budget.

The article would have required paying an additional $1.50 to register each motor vehicle.

The service will continue operating in Milford, Hollis and Brookline, where voters and selectmen have supported it.

A transportation group had asked the town to commit $7,500 to help run the transportation collaborative but it was rejected by a more than 3-to-1 margin, 2,241 no to 616 yes.

“We did a lot of telephoning and talking to people in Amherst,” said Marcia Nelson, past chair of the collaborative and now the secretary. “Some supported it, but not enough people did. A lot said they didn’t think it was necessary.”

The transportation collaborative grew out of a work by the Granite State Organizing Project, a coalition of religious, community, and labor groups that identified access to health care a major problem among area residents.

The board of directors for the collaborative, a volunteer group, is made up of representatives from the four participating towns.

Riders, who are picked up at their homes, pay $2 for each trip or $4 for a typical excursion to a doctor’s office or grocery store and home. Community agencies such as SHARE and the Hollis Seniors provide vouchers for residents who are unable to pay

The bus, contracted through Nashua Transit, can accommodate two wheelchairs and carry about 14 riders.

The service is in its second year and was created to provide rides for anyone without transportation: the elderly, the disabled, and others, no matter their age or health, who need a lift to and from a medical appointment or the grocery store.

Amherst was part of a pilot project that began in October 2008, funded by grants.

During the first five months of the second year, the collaborative provided 684 rides to residents in the four-town area, a dramatic increase over the first year, in which 984 rides were given during the entire 12 months, said to Janet Langdell, chair of the SVTC.

Langdell said she was “startled” by the decision by Amherst voters to discontinue the program.

“It was an interesting year in Amherst. A number of community-building articles were turned down,” Langdell said, ticking off a list that included recreation, health and human services, and the bus service.

Neither the Board of Selectmen nor the Ways and Means Committee supported the $7,500 warrant article to fund the bus program, and both rejected a request for $3,500 in the human services budget to fund part of the bus costs.

In Hollis, for example, voters last year agreed to a $1 increase in motor vehicle registration fees to fund the program, an arrangement that continues from year to year to finance the town’s share of the bus service.

In Brookline, which has the lowest ridership, the Board of Selectman pledged $1,500 to the transportation project; in Milford, the area with the highest number of riders, voters at Town Meeting last week said ‘yes’ to spending $37,000 for the bus service.

In Milford, during the first year, the bus provided 646 rides. That compares with 229 rides in Hollis, 96 in Amherst, and 13 in Brookline.

But SVTC officials said the numbers are rising.

In Amherst, for example, the number of rides jumped to 109 during the first five months of the second year of the program, from October 2009 through February 2010.

Langdell, the head of the SVTC, said it wouldn’t be fair to ask Hollis, Milford and Brookline residents to pick up the tab for Amherst residents.

The collaborative is in the process of applying for grants to support the transportation project, she said, adding, “If the funds become available, there’s always a seat on the bus for Amherst.”

But unless a benefactor steps forward, the Amherst bus service will cease at the end of next month.

Asked why an affluent community like Amherst voted down an additional $1.50 car registration fee, collaborative members pointed to the economy. Voters were reluctant to approve spending for anything, save the “bare necessities,” said Hollis resident Ellen Groh, treasurer for the SVTC.

“They voted down a lot of things: recreation fields, health and human services,” Groh said. “It seemed like we were part of an overall mood of not funding anything.”

Still, Groh said, the town’s decision to pay for road repairs, an ambulance and a fire truck reflects their priorities.

“It says to me the voters don’t value the service enough to pay for it,” she said.

Hattie Bernstein can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 24 or hbernstein@cabinet.com