Lebanon
But officials say such a service could be years away, and finding funding for such a project is difficult.
About 1,500 people answered the call last October from the Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission to go online and tell planners about their difficulties driving in the region, and whether a bus service would be welcome.
Overall, 64 percent said they would use the bus at least once a week.
“The biggest takeaway from the survey is that people would be eager to see the (bus) service operate,” said Patricia Crocker, a planner with the commission, during a phone interview on Friday.
Not only could a bus service help alleviate congestion on roads, she said, but it could give students and professionals an alternative way of commuting between area institutions, such as Colby-Sawyer College, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Dartmouth College.
All employ a number of people who commute on I-89, according to the survey. Although a quarter of respondents live in New London and almost 20 percent lived in nearby Grantham, more than half work in Lebanon.
About 37 percent of those who responded work at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and another 11 percent commute to downtown Hanover to work.
Crocker said they’ve also been receiving complaints about traffic on Route 120, and suggestions about a bus service to alleviate those concerns.
“(The study) comes from what we are hearing about,” Crocker said. “There’s a big commuter corridor between Lebanon and New London.”
The commission is now working alongside the region’s planners, transportation groups and industries to create a plan for busing people up and down I-89.
“We’re using their guidance to evaluate the various transit services to see what makes the most practical sense,” said Jill Cahoon, a consultant on the project from AECOM, an engineering firm with offices in Manchester.
Together, the committee hopes to narrow down plans for the bus corridor. Initially, there were talks of buses originating from Exits 12 and 13, but the group is now addressing possible service to downtown New London. There’s are also ongoing discussions about what times buses should run, and where stops would allow people to best access their workplaces.
But isn’t not clear how the buses will be funded. Planners say the service likely would rely on federal funding, which some say is unlikely to come through.
“We have to take the ideal and scale it back to fit what’s reasonable because the federal funding is not growing by any stretch,” said Fred Butler, a transportation administrator at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.
Butler, who also worked on the I-89 study, said the possible bus service would be unlike most transportation projects in the state: encompassing a large service area but not traveling to other states.
The proposed I-89 bus service most closely resembles the Manchester Transit Authority’s buses to Concord and Nashua, Butler said. Those services received state subsidies in their first year, but have come out of the authority’s budget since, Butler said.
The committee working on the bus service proposal will next meet on Feb. 8, Crocker said. They’ll then discuss possible route times and bus stops. The committee also hopes to hold information sessions on a proposed plan sometime in March, and a draft report is scheduled to be completed in early April.
People can read more on the project at http://bit.ly/2kg5025
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.