May 15, 2006
Road stories | Five commuters who've found alternatives to driving their own car to work describe their experiences
By Churchill, S. Donahue, W.richardson & T. Sm
It's the morning, and another workday awaits. As you do five days a week, you get in your car for the drive to the office. You drive alone, sleepily listening to the radio as you motor along the road or highway, burning increasingly expensive gasoline as you go. You probably drive for about 23 minutes ˆ the average commute time in Maine ˆ sometimes battling snow or heavy traffic. You eventually pull into your company parking lot, where there's a parked car for nearly every employee, and turn off the engine. The morning commute is over.
That's the way it's done in Maine, right? For the vast majority of folks, the answer is yes. Census data from 2000 says that nearly 80% of Mainers reported driving to work alone. But there are Mainers who have found another way, people who read a book as they ride the bus, talk to the friend they carpool with, or sit on the deck of a ferry and watch the sunrise.
What follows is a sampling of those people. It is not a representative sample. These commuters are from only one part of the state and they mostly work daytime jobs with regular hours. Most commute a unique way by choice, because they don't like sitting alone in a car, want to do something for the environment or are looking to save a few bucks on gas.
Not every Mainer, of course, has such a choice. Some work irregular hours, for example, and bus or train transportation is limited in most areas of the state. But some alternative commutes can be found in every corner of Maine. Live in Aroostook County? Chances are likely someone near you carpools to the office. Live outside Augusta? You likely pass a few bicycles on your way into town. Talk to those folks, and you might hear accounts like those that follow.
The cyclist
John Brooking
Home: Westbrook
Job: Business analyst, Sappi Fine Paper North America, South Portland
Length of commute: 20-25 minutes
I started biking in the summer of 2002. I had just moved from Standish to Westbrook and I work in South Portland. I had been feeling for a long time that I didn't really like the single-occupancy, car-commuting thing; it has always felt unsustainable and overkill and that there should be better options. So I figured I'd try biking, and I ended up liking it, kept going through the fall and before I knew it, it was spring and I had gone all year.
I bike close to 100% of the time now, five days a week. I've actually got it so that we've cut down from being a two-car to a one-car family. That's really exciting for me because the gas savings are not always as much as you might think; especially if you have a short commute. I estimate I've saved about $650 on gas in the last four years. But if you can actually get rid of a vehicle ˆ you know, the registration, insurance and maintenance ˆ the savings start getting big.
But another interesting statistic, since I'm environmentally minded, is that in the time I've been commuting [by bike] I've saved 3.75 tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere. If your car gets 20 miles a gallon you basically release a pound of CO2 a mile. I've probably gone 9,200 miles on my bike just on the commute.
In the last year I've started using the bike for more trips as well. I found a dentist within biking distance of my office and I do try to go to the grocery store if it's a small run ˆ maybe a dozen items. I have side bags that I use for that.
I don't see any reason why anyone who works within eight miles of their work and is healthy couldn't commute by bike. It doesn't take too much money to get started, especially if you already have a bike. There's a little extra involved if you want to ride in cold rain or after dark, or if you have to upgrade your bike. But I really think more people could do it. And a lot of people I think don't even realize they could do it, they just need something to spark that. High gas prices will probably do it for some people, but not everyone.
The carpooler
Murielle Christensen
Home: Hollis
Job: Eligibility specialist, Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Portland
Length of commute: 30 minutes
I used to carpool with the CEO of the Maine Center for the Blind, which is now the Iris Network. He lived in Standish and I live in Hollis, and we would meet at a shopping center in Buxton. His wife would drop him off there, and I'd pick him up and drop him off at work. But then he moved to Portland and I didn't carpool for awhile.
Then Mark Woodruff, who works over at the DEP, called me because I was on the GoMaine list [the state's carpooling registry]. We've been carpooling since September and I'll be carpooling with him through the middle of May. We carpool two or three days a week, the days when I don't have aquatics class after work. That works out well. We alternate drivers. I'm probably six miles further out then him, so I always drive to his house and sometimes I get in his car, and sometimes I pick him up. It's about a half-hour drive from his house. We leave early ˆ we leave his house at about 7 a.m. ˆ to beat the traffic coming in.
Carpooling saves a little bit of money and makes the ride interesting. We talk about work, the weather, vacations. You have to like the person, and I've been lucky. Mark is very pleasant. He's funny, and very easy-going. He has an older Lexis, and I have a Blazer. But I'm getting ready to switch to the Camaro. I take the Camaro off the road in the wintertime.
There are really no downsides to carpooling, because we don't ride every day. Doing it a couple days a week is fine. I think carpooling is going to be more and more common because it saves you money, it cuts back on dependency on foreign oil and it's good for the environment. I'd like to have my grandchildren be able to breathe fresh air. We have to think of future generations. With the ice caps melting and the temperatures warming, there are some very troubling things going on.
The Zoom shuttle rider
Judith Morin
Home: Biddeford
Job: Assistant director of financial aid, Maine College of Art, Portland
Length of commute: 30 minutes
I probably started riding the ZOOM bus soon after I started working here six years ago, but I didn't ride it on a consistent basis. Then, when gas prices spiked last year, that's when I started riding it all the time. I just decided that economically it wasn't worth driving in ˆ even sharing the driving wasn't worth it. It's much easier than driving because you can just get on the bus and relax. You don't have to drive home. Especially when the weather's bad ˆ it's great to just get on that bus and let the driver do the driving.
I buy a monthly pass, which is $58 a month, and then for an additional $2.00 you can get two parking passes for the Portland Public Market garage so that if you have to drive in for some reason, you have a parking space. I tell you, that dollar to park there for the day is absolutely worth it. Like last night, I was meeting friends for dinner and knew I wouldn't be going home by 6:30, which is the last bus. But there are six bus runs in the morning and six in the afternoon, so it really can fit in to your schedule. Usually I get the 4:00 p.m. bus and I'm in Biddeford by 4:33, and that's pretty good. I come in on the 7:40 a.m. bus, which gets me here right after 8:00 a.m.
When I was commuting with another person, I used to fill my gas tank once a week. It used to be $25, now it's closer to $33. If you take that number times four, you're over $100 a month. And the other person I rode with paid for a parking space that cost $90 a month. So it's pretty much a no-brainer to spend $58 and not have the wear and tear on your vehicle.
The ferry rider
Michael Richards
Home: Peaks Island
Job: Attorney, Troubh Heisler, Portland
Length of commute: 40 minutes
I've lived on Peaks Island for 20 years, and when I first went out to look at my house it was a beautiful day in June, with a southerly breeze. I got on the boat and I'm sitting on the upper deck in the sunshine and I'm thinking, "Are you kidding me? This is the commute?"
It beats driving Route 302 ˆ or any other route. It's about a 20-minute ride. [The ferry] leaves about every hour from six in the morning to midnight, depending on the season. The 6:15 boat off the island, the first one, is the one I take. The 7:15 is loaded with school kids and it's a lot like riding a school bus. It's noisy and crowded. So I would rather avoid the noise and the crowd and take the 6:15. That means getting up at five, but I'm used to that now.
It's about a 10-minute walk down to the ferry landing from my house. I read the paper in the quiet of the 6:15. My wife often takes the next boat, so I leave the paper for her. I hide it in a little hiding place that she and I know. Of course, everybody on the boat sees me hide it, so they know where it is.
There's a group of people, the diehards, who ride the upper deck no matter what. They're crazy, but they're entitled. You have to dress for the ride, that's one of the things about commuting this way. The last couple of days when it was raining, I had my Bean boots, my Gore-Tex pants, my rubber raincoat. I've got my backpack on my back all the time, and I've got a special waterproof cover that goes over the pack to keep it dry. We watch the weather rather religiously so we know what to expect the next day.
The boat lands in Portland, I hide the newspaper, get off the boat and walk up to my office. It's about a 10- or 15-minute walk up the street, and I arrive at my office at about 10 minutes to seven.
One of the stresses of this lifestyle is that you have to make the boat. I know I have to leave the office right at four so I can get to the gym and get a good workout in. I keep my eye on the clock, and leave the gym at quarter past five or so. As long as I've left on time, I'm going to make the 5:35 boat. If I've left on time and I'm comfortable I'm going to make the boat, I can just stroll down. I'm already starting to relax and unwind. And if I want, I can stop at Casco Bay Variety and grab a beer for the boat, as many people do.
The train rider
Charlie Summers
Home: Scarborough
Job: Regional administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration
Length of commute: Variable
Being the regional administrator of the Small Business Administration means I have responsibility over the six New England states. This week, I'm in Maine, Concord, N.H., down in Providence, R.I., Bar Harbor on Wednesday, up in Boston next Thursday and back in Maine, in Augusta, Thursday evening. As you can see, I bounce around a lot.
Depending on the time of year and the week, I may ride the Downeaster three times a week or maybe more, but this time of year I'm probably riding one or two times a week. And I'll tell you, it's fantastic. I wish I could ride it every day. Given today's gas prices, it makes a lot of sense to commute that way.
I usually pick up the train in Saco in the morning. The days that I'm able to ride the train ˆ and it's not as frequent as I'd like it to be ˆ it's just really great, because I'm able to work if I want. Most of the time, I sit back in the coach section and grab a Portland paper and a USA Today or a Boston paper.
I get on about 6:42 in the morning in Saco, and for the first 40 minutes or so I look through the papers and grab a cup of coffee and get something to eat. It's funny, because I have a tendency to look at my watch, and it's usually 7:45 when I'm done with the papers. And then I'll get on my BlackBerry or my laptop and I can answer e-mails and make phone calls. And the great thing is, not only do you get to Boston without fighting traffic or finding parking, but I've already worked for a good hour. I can fold my laptop up and when I get to my office, I'm right back where I left off. It's a very productive use of time.
That's the way it's done in Maine, right? For the vast majority of folks, the answer is yes. Census data from 2000 says that nearly 80% of Mainers reported driving to work alone. But there are Mainers who have found another way, people who read a book as they ride the bus, talk to the friend they carpool with, or sit on the deck of a ferry and watch the sunrise.
What follows is a sampling of those people. It is not a representative sample. These commuters are from only one part of the state and they mostly work daytime jobs with regular hours. Most commute a unique way by choice, because they don't like sitting alone in a car, want to do something for the environment or are looking to save a few bucks on gas.
Not every Mainer, of course, has such a choice. Some work irregular hours, for example, and bus or train transportation is limited in most areas of the state. But some alternative commutes can be found in every corner of Maine. Live in Aroostook County? Chances are likely someone near you carpools to the office. Live outside Augusta? You likely pass a few bicycles on your way into town. Talk to those folks, and you might hear accounts like those that follow.
The cyclist
John Brooking
Home: Westbrook
Job: Business analyst, Sappi Fine Paper North America, South Portland
Length of commute: 20-25 minutes
I started biking in the summer of 2002. I had just moved from Standish to Westbrook and I work in South Portland. I had been feeling for a long time that I didn't really like the single-occupancy, car-commuting thing; it has always felt unsustainable and overkill and that there should be better options. So I figured I'd try biking, and I ended up liking it, kept going through the fall and before I knew it, it was spring and I had gone all year.
I bike close to 100% of the time now, five days a week. I've actually got it so that we've cut down from being a two-car to a one-car family. That's really exciting for me because the gas savings are not always as much as you might think; especially if you have a short commute. I estimate I've saved about $650 on gas in the last four years. But if you can actually get rid of a vehicle ˆ you know, the registration, insurance and maintenance ˆ the savings start getting big.
But another interesting statistic, since I'm environmentally minded, is that in the time I've been commuting [by bike] I've saved 3.75 tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere. If your car gets 20 miles a gallon you basically release a pound of CO2 a mile. I've probably gone 9,200 miles on my bike just on the commute.
In the last year I've started using the bike for more trips as well. I found a dentist within biking distance of my office and I do try to go to the grocery store if it's a small run ˆ maybe a dozen items. I have side bags that I use for that.
I don't see any reason why anyone who works within eight miles of their work and is healthy couldn't commute by bike. It doesn't take too much money to get started, especially if you already have a bike. There's a little extra involved if you want to ride in cold rain or after dark, or if you have to upgrade your bike. But I really think more people could do it. And a lot of people I think don't even realize they could do it, they just need something to spark that. High gas prices will probably do it for some people, but not everyone.
The carpooler
Murielle Christensen
Home: Hollis
Job: Eligibility specialist, Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Portland
Length of commute: 30 minutes
I used to carpool with the CEO of the Maine Center for the Blind, which is now the Iris Network. He lived in Standish and I live in Hollis, and we would meet at a shopping center in Buxton. His wife would drop him off there, and I'd pick him up and drop him off at work. But then he moved to Portland and I didn't carpool for awhile.
Then Mark Woodruff, who works over at the DEP, called me because I was on the GoMaine list [the state's carpooling registry]. We've been carpooling since September and I'll be carpooling with him through the middle of May. We carpool two or three days a week, the days when I don't have aquatics class after work. That works out well. We alternate drivers. I'm probably six miles further out then him, so I always drive to his house and sometimes I get in his car, and sometimes I pick him up. It's about a half-hour drive from his house. We leave early ˆ we leave his house at about 7 a.m. ˆ to beat the traffic coming in.
Carpooling saves a little bit of money and makes the ride interesting. We talk about work, the weather, vacations. You have to like the person, and I've been lucky. Mark is very pleasant. He's funny, and very easy-going. He has an older Lexis, and I have a Blazer. But I'm getting ready to switch to the Camaro. I take the Camaro off the road in the wintertime.
There are really no downsides to carpooling, because we don't ride every day. Doing it a couple days a week is fine. I think carpooling is going to be more and more common because it saves you money, it cuts back on dependency on foreign oil and it's good for the environment. I'd like to have my grandchildren be able to breathe fresh air. We have to think of future generations. With the ice caps melting and the temperatures warming, there are some very troubling things going on.
The Zoom shuttle rider
Judith Morin
Home: Biddeford
Job: Assistant director of financial aid, Maine College of Art, Portland
Length of commute: 30 minutes
I probably started riding the ZOOM bus soon after I started working here six years ago, but I didn't ride it on a consistent basis. Then, when gas prices spiked last year, that's when I started riding it all the time. I just decided that economically it wasn't worth driving in ˆ even sharing the driving wasn't worth it. It's much easier than driving because you can just get on the bus and relax. You don't have to drive home. Especially when the weather's bad ˆ it's great to just get on that bus and let the driver do the driving.
I buy a monthly pass, which is $58 a month, and then for an additional $2.00 you can get two parking passes for the Portland Public Market garage so that if you have to drive in for some reason, you have a parking space. I tell you, that dollar to park there for the day is absolutely worth it. Like last night, I was meeting friends for dinner and knew I wouldn't be going home by 6:30, which is the last bus. But there are six bus runs in the morning and six in the afternoon, so it really can fit in to your schedule. Usually I get the 4:00 p.m. bus and I'm in Biddeford by 4:33, and that's pretty good. I come in on the 7:40 a.m. bus, which gets me here right after 8:00 a.m.
When I was commuting with another person, I used to fill my gas tank once a week. It used to be $25, now it's closer to $33. If you take that number times four, you're over $100 a month. And the other person I rode with paid for a parking space that cost $90 a month. So it's pretty much a no-brainer to spend $58 and not have the wear and tear on your vehicle.
The ferry rider
Michael Richards
Home: Peaks Island
Job: Attorney, Troubh Heisler, Portland
Length of commute: 40 minutes
I've lived on Peaks Island for 20 years, and when I first went out to look at my house it was a beautiful day in June, with a southerly breeze. I got on the boat and I'm sitting on the upper deck in the sunshine and I'm thinking, "Are you kidding me? This is the commute?"
It beats driving Route 302 ˆ or any other route. It's about a 20-minute ride. [The ferry] leaves about every hour from six in the morning to midnight, depending on the season. The 6:15 boat off the island, the first one, is the one I take. The 7:15 is loaded with school kids and it's a lot like riding a school bus. It's noisy and crowded. So I would rather avoid the noise and the crowd and take the 6:15. That means getting up at five, but I'm used to that now.
It's about a 10-minute walk down to the ferry landing from my house. I read the paper in the quiet of the 6:15. My wife often takes the next boat, so I leave the paper for her. I hide it in a little hiding place that she and I know. Of course, everybody on the boat sees me hide it, so they know where it is.
There's a group of people, the diehards, who ride the upper deck no matter what. They're crazy, but they're entitled. You have to dress for the ride, that's one of the things about commuting this way. The last couple of days when it was raining, I had my Bean boots, my Gore-Tex pants, my rubber raincoat. I've got my backpack on my back all the time, and I've got a special waterproof cover that goes over the pack to keep it dry. We watch the weather rather religiously so we know what to expect the next day.
The boat lands in Portland, I hide the newspaper, get off the boat and walk up to my office. It's about a 10- or 15-minute walk up the street, and I arrive at my office at about 10 minutes to seven.
One of the stresses of this lifestyle is that you have to make the boat. I know I have to leave the office right at four so I can get to the gym and get a good workout in. I keep my eye on the clock, and leave the gym at quarter past five or so. As long as I've left on time, I'm going to make the 5:35 boat. If I've left on time and I'm comfortable I'm going to make the boat, I can just stroll down. I'm already starting to relax and unwind. And if I want, I can stop at Casco Bay Variety and grab a beer for the boat, as many people do.
The train rider
Charlie Summers
Home: Scarborough
Job: Regional administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration
Length of commute: Variable
Being the regional administrator of the Small Business Administration means I have responsibility over the six New England states. This week, I'm in Maine, Concord, N.H., down in Providence, R.I., Bar Harbor on Wednesday, up in Boston next Thursday and back in Maine, in Augusta, Thursday evening. As you can see, I bounce around a lot.
Depending on the time of year and the week, I may ride the Downeaster three times a week or maybe more, but this time of year I'm probably riding one or two times a week. And I'll tell you, it's fantastic. I wish I could ride it every day. Given today's gas prices, it makes a lot of sense to commute that way.
I usually pick up the train in Saco in the morning. The days that I'm able to ride the train ˆ and it's not as frequent as I'd like it to be ˆ it's just really great, because I'm able to work if I want. Most of the time, I sit back in the coach section and grab a Portland paper and a USA Today or a Boston paper.
I get on about 6:42 in the morning in Saco, and for the first 40 minutes or so I look through the papers and grab a cup of coffee and get something to eat. It's funny, because I have a tendency to look at my watch, and it's usually 7:45 when I'm done with the papers. And then I'll get on my BlackBerry or my laptop and I can answer e-mails and make phone calls. And the great thing is, not only do you get to Boston without fighting traffic or finding parking, but I've already worked for a good hour. I can fold my laptop up and when I get to my office, I'm right back where I left off. It's a very productive use of time.
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