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Destination Tomorrow?
Last week, scores of people, including at least 60 young adults organized by Portland’s League of Young Voters, converged on a public hearing held by the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation (PACTS), the regional advisory board whose job is to recommend transportation solutions and policies for the greater Portland area, to ask members to rethink their priorities for the near future.
The Portland League of Young Voters turn out for public transportation!
Transportation planning may not sound like the world’s sexiest issue, compared to, say, the U.S.-led war in Iraq or genocide in Darfur. I can almost guarantee you’ll never see Bono or Alicia Keys doing a benefit concert to fund better bus service, but among young Mainers, transportation is a hot topic. Last week, scores of people, including at least 60 young adults organized by Portland’s League of Young Voters, converged on a public hearing held by the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation (PACTS), the regional advisory board whose job is to recommend transportation solutions and policies for the greater Portland area, to ask members to rethink their priorities for the near future.
There is a growing consensus building in this country that something has to be done about America's oil problem. Lately, references to sustainability and the need to wean ourselves off of foreign oil have been popping up in the most unlikely places, peppering the speeches of moderate, and even conservative politicians, who just a few years ago chose to stay mum about environmental concerns. Now, the race to build the most viable alternative energy-fueled automobile is underway, but there’s no reason to wait around for the perfect car of the future to be unveiled. There are steps most of us can take right now to conserve fuel and lessen the amount of carbon and other pollutants we release into the atmosphere, by walking more, biking more, and relying on public transportation whenever practical.
Unfortunately, despite Maine’s reputation as a haven for environmentalists, public transportation options here are pretty scarce, and those that do exist are widely acknowledged to be under-funded, impractically small, and unfriendly for users. In fact, unless you own a car, that old Bert & I radio gag that warns “you cahn’t get they-ah from hee-ah” rings more true than ever. If you want to get from Portland to the nearby population centers of Brunswick/Bath or Lewiston/Auburn, you pretty much have to drive there. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just to the south of us, in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, commuter rail lines like the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s popular “Purple Line” make regional travel both convenient and affordable.
According to a recent PACTS report bearing the magniloquent name of “Destination Tomorrow,” creating a commuter rail line to link Portland and Brunswick, and/or Portland and Lewiston, is among the board’s highest priorities. A high priority, that is, after a number of radical, and expensive, road projects, the largest of which would widen portions of Interstate 295, the coastal highway that bisects the city of Portland, connecting the city and its closest suburbs to Brunswick, before swinging northward toward Augusta and Central Maine.
But members of the local League of Young Voters, and many others, say plans to widen 295 will only make the region’s transportation problems worse. Last week, Alec Maybarduk, Field Director for the League, presented PACTS members with a petition signed by more than 450 people. The attached letter demanded that PACTS take the I-295 project off the table and focus, instead, on enhancing mass transit options, including commuter rail, which are not only better for the environment, but also more cost effective.
Still, some at last week’s hearing disagreed. One Portland woman suggested the more than 100 people gathered to oppose the widening of 295 represented a “very vocal minority,” and expressed doubts that a commuter rail line would attract enough riders to justify the cost.
“While the cost of rehabilitating existing rail lines is estimated to be about $1 million per mile, highway lanes cost about 10 times more and can carry only a fourteenth of the people and freight,” said Maybarduk.
“In this time of near recession and large budget cuts, governments and consumers have to make their money go farther.”
Not only that, but transportation planning that leans heavily toward road building excludes many segments of the population.
“Automobiles serve only those who are legally, physically and financially able to drive, which does not include the young, the elderly, the poor and the handicapped,” Maybarduk continued, as a room full of transit advocates held up signs declaring “If you build it, we WILL ride.”
“We can’t ignore automobiles as the primary form of travel. I don’t believe trains will change the way people travel,” she said, pointing out that the Downeaster, Amtrak’s passenger train providing service between Portland and Boston, has so far failed to become financially self-sufficient.
For their part, proponents of commuter rail argue that expecting trains to be completely self-funding sets up an unfair duality.
“Roads are 100 percent subsidized by tax dollars. We spend billions of dollars every year to build, repair, maintain and widen roads. Why not shift some of that money to pay for rail service,” asked Eric Favreau, a University of Southern Maine student.
Bruce Wallingford, owner of Ernie’s Cycle Shop, said the poor state of the region’s existing mass transit infrastructure creates the kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that makes transportation planners feel justified about their failure to invest in improvements.
“The more convenient you make it for people to drive, the more they're going to drive. The more convenient you make it for people to get around in other ways, the more they're going to get around in other ways.”
