Portsmouth Herald July 1998

Editorial

Plans for Pease Bike Bridge, shuttle service are good ideas
Projects help protect air quality, enhance the community

Plans are underway on the Seacoast for two transportation projects that will both protect the environment and serve the community. The plans would reduce the number of cars traveling our roads and provide alternatives for people who choose not to, or who cannot, drive.

The first project, which received final approval last month and is now in the design phase, calls for the creation of a Seacoast-wide bicycle network that links existing bike paths from Portsmouth to Dover, with plans to extend further north and south. The centerpiece of the network will be an $800,000 bicycle bridge that crosses over the Spaulding Turnpike from Rockingham Avenue in Pease International Tradeport.

The second project, being spearheaded by the Pease Development Authority in cooperation with the city of Portsmouth, would establish a shuttle service between Pease and the city's downtown. It would use trolley-style buses fueled by natural gas. The service could be in place as soon as 18 months from now.

The time is now Ñ not a decade down the roadÑto take action to protect the air we breathe. While the Seacoast is not an area that would appear to have serious air quality problems, our air is more at-risk than the average person may realize. The Environmental Protection Agency has designated the Seacoast as an ozone non-attainment area and Rye had the worst air quality in the state last year.

Although some of the factors contributing to poor Seacoast air quality include pollutants that arrive here from the Midwest via the jet stream, there are steps that we can take locally. The No. 1 thing local residents can do is reduce the number of trips they take in their personal vehicles, and for most of us, the trip we make most regularly is to work. That's where the two proposals come into play. Both the bike network and the shuttle service would provide environmentally sound ways to get to and from work that will be convenient and low-cost, if not free, for the people using them.

The cost to the community as a whole to establish both programs is also relatively low, thanks to the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. Better known as ISTEA, the act will pay for 80 percent of both projects, leaving only 20 percent to be funded locally.

Both the PDA and the city have committed to funding a portion of the cost of the bike network and will likely provide money for the shuttle service. Fundraising efforts are underway by Seacoast Area Bicycle Routes (SABR) the group behind the bike network, to secure the remaining $40,000 needed before construction can start on the bridge

With both the bike network and shuttle service running through Pease, it seems the tradeport's role as an important component in the community, and as a center of transportation of many kinds Ñ be it bus, air or bike Ñ will be cemented.

Both programs, in addition to their transportation benefits, are an excellent example of how well federal and local resources can be combined when the par- ties work together. The bike path alone, while it took more than five years to develop, has brought together everyone from local cycling enthusiasts to state legislators to municipal planners. And the shuttle service proposal shows that, when they want to, the PDA and the city can cooperate nicely. Let's hope the lessons in cooperation learned on both projects can be used again in the future.

2008 © Seacoast Area Bicycle Routes : info@seacoastbikes.com
P.O. Box 412 Durham, NH 03824

Site Designed and Hosted by Harbour Light