U.S. grant to aid those Down East who commute

ELLSWORTH – Workers in Hancock and Washington counties soon will be able to catch a ride with other commuters under a new program financed by a federal transit grant.

The Washington Hancock Community Agency will launch its new “JobsLinks” program within the next month. The service will allow people to call either Ellsworth or Milbridge to get names of people who also commute and where they’re going.

Linda Belfiore, transportation director for the agency’s Hancock division, said Monday the new transportation dispatch service also would provide information to callers on other available transportation on any given day, including door-to-door commuter vans and buses.

The sprawling geography of the two counties, combined with a relatively small population, practically rules out a full-scale public transportation system in the foreseeable future, Belfiore said.

Public transportation “is just not affordable,” she said. “We have nowhere near enough people to support a system. So we are trying to take a little piece here and a little piece there and see what we can do to help people in general.”

The JobsLink program will help both the people who don’t own their own transportation and others who want to share the increasingly high cost of commuting to work.

The program is being funded by a $95,000 grant from the Federal Transit Administration and a $16,000 grant from the Community Transportation Association of America, Belfiore said.

The agency will build a database of people needing a ride or offering one and make the information available to callers, as well as to the state’s career centers. A new JobsLink Web site will be designed to get the information out to commuters, she said.

The grant also will allow the community agency to hire someone to go out into the field and recruit drivers to help people who are trying to get off welfare, but who have no way to get to work, Belfiore said.

Commuters who make room in their vehicles for ASPIRE workers will be paid 24 cents a mile, which could cover the driver’s transportation costs, Belfiore said.

Part of the money to pay drivers will come from the grant and some will come from the ASPIRE program, she said.

Other commuters would be left to make their own financial arrangements for carpooling, Belfiore said.

The Washington Hancock Community Agency will serve as a central source for transportation information, including Downeast Transportation commuter runs from Washington County to The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, and West Transportation in Steuben, which offers a daily bus run from Calais to Bangor.

Belfiore said her agency also hopes to use part of the grant money to work with the Pleasant Point bus system operated by the Passamaquoddy Indian Tribe to add a new commuter route from Pleasant Point to Calais.

Joyce Peterson, a Jackson Laboratory spokeswoman, said Monday that the commuter van service financed by the lab and its workers is a growing option for lab workers.

She said the new run from Cherryfield to Bar Harbor needs more riders, but the Franklin-Eastbrook run typically is “quite full and usually working just fine.”

The daily van run from the Bangor-Brewer area to the lab is becoming more popular, Peterson said. The 15-seat van will be replaced by a 28-seat bus in May as more workers sign up for seats.

Downeast Transportation, which operates the Cherryfield and Franklin runs, also will take over operation of the Bangor-Brewer run in late April, according to general manager Paul Murphy.

Peterson said the lab employs people from 11 of Maine’s 16 counties, and most of them commute.

“We really want to encourage public transportation,” Peterson said.

“It will save our employees money, especially those who work in far-flung parts of the state.”