Milford Cuts Funding for Bus Service

About fifteen residents showed up for a public hearing at the Milford Town Hall on Monday night.

Most of them found out about the hearing from their bus drivers, who said the Nashua Transit System was ending service to Milford.

Three out of four selectmen were there to answer questions, and Executive Councilor David Wheeler, who lives in Milford, sat at the back of the room.

Nashua�s Transportation Director, Paul Newman, said Federal regulations required him to be there.

T3 Newman 5:10 � [One of them is that] anytime there�s a significant reduction in service, the community needs to hold a public hearing, and that�s really what this is about.

[fade Newman under track and out]

The reduction in service he�s talking about applies to the mostly federally funded bus route between Nashua and Milford.

The route is part of a program Nashua started in 2000 to offer reliable transportation for people moving from welfare to work

The city won federal funding from the Jobs Access Reverse Commute grant.

And matching funds came from the government�s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program � or TANF.

After two years, the Nashua Transit System decided to expand the program to serve people who work in Nashua but live in communities outside the city.

Newman approached officials in Milford, Amherst, and Merrimack to ask for money to supplement the TANF funds, and all three communities pitched in.

But Milford Town Administrator Katie Chambers says the other towns� contributions were out of proportion with the number of their residents who were riding the bus.

Track 1 Chambers 4:03 - 4:17
Milford was definitely paying the lion's share. We weren't necessarily the lion's share of the ridership, you know the pickup or the dropoff, of the whole system, so we wanted that looked at, and maybe some other people to kick in some more.

At the same time, it was starting to become clear that there weren�t enough people riding the bus in general, to justify the cost of the route.

When it was time for the Nashua Regional Planning Commission � or NRPC � to renew the program last summer, Merrimack pulled its contribution, and left Milford and Amherst to split a 36 thousand dollar bill for this year�s service.

Even though surveys showed ridership was increasing, Chambers says Milford Selectmen weren�t sure the program was worth the cost.

Track 1 3:16 Chambers
They looked at our other services we need to provide, and budgets being always tight, they just felt that for the amt of ridership they could no longer support the expense.

While Milford officials weighed cost of the program, Nashua Transit took the proposal to renew funding for the TANF portion of the program to the Governor�s Executive Council for approval.

But the action failed because the council wanted the program reworked.

Executive Councilor David Wheeler says despite the program�s valuable contribution to the community, Nashua was asking for twice the budget the program started with.

And the proposal wasn�t clear about where that increase came from.

He says that�s why it failed again when Nashua brought it back in March of this year:

Track 14 Wheeler 0:10ish
The state is very committed to this type of transportation. But frankly this route doesn't have the ridership �We can better use those funds in other places. That's why the governing council turned down these funds, not once but twice� [remove sound here until] �We sent it back to the agency and said, ''find a better way to get this job done,' and we're waitin' for their answer.

Meanwhile, the Milford Selectmen voted in March to pull their funding and terminate the bus route.

Starting May 7th, that leaves some locals without a ride to work.

Track 6 Robert Currier 0:05
I'll be switching jobs if they stop the bus. [cut to] �It'd be $160/week for cabs, and I'd just be switching jobs. I'll have to I got no choice.

Track 5 Timothy Jonsick 0:20
I moved into Milford because of the bus, being able to get back and forth to my place of employment, [cut to] I do not want to lose my job. The city bus is my way of getting back and forth to work, and I use the bus every single day. I can not afford a cab 6 days a week.

Track 3 Linda Perry 6:30
I think everybody here obviously needs the bus for a different reason, whether it's for work, or to go grocery shopping, or just to get errands done. The town of Milford has nothing to offer here. We don't have anywhere to go. We have to go to Nashua right?

Which brings up another issue � the program is funded by an intiative that�s designed to help with job access.

But NRPC surveys showed that 22 percent of riders were taking the bus to WalMart or the Pheasant Lane mall to go shopping.

Cynthia Herman chairs the Board of Selectmen. At this week�s hearing she pointed out that this was just another reason why the program wasn�t working.

Track Herman 0:10
WalMart was the primary destination, that was where the most riders got on and off. So WalMart was the primary benefactor, if you will, of the bus. [cut to] �WalMart wasn't interested in contributing anything to the bus service.

0:49 And when you're talking about the volume of dollars that the entire project costs and the amount that the $72 thousand just to run the Milford side of things for what we were showing as a very small number proportionately of users, we can't justify spending the taxpayers' money that way, quite honestly.

1:17 (man from the chairs) that's dollars, what about people, it's their lives.

Herman: I understand that but...

(woman from the chairs) obviously you don't care.

Herman: (laughs in frustration) well, first I would point out to you that I'm here, and the caring part comes from the place of, we've got an entire community we have to care about. [cut to]� 1:46 - 1:57 Herman
We understand your consternation, but you've gotta conversely look at $72,000 boiled down to what we had, what 30 users? When you do the math on that, it comes... we should be buying everyone a car!

Regardless of how the math gets done, bus service to Milford will end unless Nashua Transit can come up with a budget the Executive Council will approve.

But the NRCP�s Executive Director Steve Williams says that won�t be easy.

T23 Williams 2:19
This service was about the best deal you could possibly get. [cut to] 3:34 I think I�d have to say, in the current fiscal picture, for the town and the city and the state, it�s probably not fiscally feasible in the situation. I hate to say it but I think that�s the truth.

To help workers when the bus stops coming, some local organizations and members of the Milford community have offered to help drive people to their jobs until they can come up with another option.

After that, if they want to ride the bus to work in Nashua, they�ll have to move there.

For NHPR News, I�m SM.