Take the Cooperative Alliance for Community Transportation (COAST). COAST is a network of busses, trolleys and cab-like shuttles that provides public transportation throughout the Seacoast area, including towns such as Rochester, Farmington, Exeter, Newmarket, Dover and Portsmouth. COAST formed in the early 1980s following the realized need for public transportation and integration with the University of New Hampshire’s student transportation system. Though once scaled back due to funding cuts,  COAST has been experiencing a comeback, expanding its routes, hours and area covered.

However, even a network as successful and beneficial as COAST faces obstacles common to most public transportation organizations. According to Dianne Smith, COAST’s Manager of Coordination Planning and Operations, one such difficulty is coordination. For example, one of COAST’s goals is to provide the transportation necessary for people who are not able to operate a motor vehicle, notably the elderly and the disabled. Yet Medicaid provides funding for (and requires that hospitals provide) transportation for such people, making integration a potentially difficult process. Another obstacle cited by Smith is the lack of dedicated, constant funding, especially given the economic climate and New Hampshire’s monetary emphasis on highways and roads.

Despite these difficulties, COAST, along with advocates for community transportation across the country, will continue to “get the word out and the interested generated,” according to Smith. This effort will entail getting a larger range of the public involved and changing the view of community and public transportation from a matter of need to a matter of want, where citizens from every social and economic class are opting for such beneficial networks.

Being a fairly rural state, many might assume that community transportation does not apply to certain swaths of New Hampshire. While that might be how many of the transportation networks have started, the goal is to grow to incorporate smaller communities, providing a more environmental and practical option to people all over New Hampshire.  This is where we, the average commuters, come in. Such networks will require the moral and political support of not only communities, but individuals.  While we may not be able to play a major role in influencing large-scale environmental policy in Washington, we can certainly cast a vote for the sound practices and future of our planet that we support by doing what we can to make a difference.  Smith says it best in stating that community transportation is “not only environmentally beneficial, but also economically beneficial.”  Given the costs of our current driving habits, community and public transportation simply makes sense.

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