In 2023, more than 7 billion trips were taken on America’s public transit systems, in towns, cities, and rural areas across the country. Demand for transit is growing, as the cost of car ownership increases and fewer young people express interest in driving. Moreover, as America’s population ages, an increasing number of people will lose the desire or ability to drive. Transit provides an affordable option that allows everyone—including older adults, people with disabilities, youth, and people without cars—to continue participating in the economic and social life of their community.
To meet this demand, transit leaders are finding innovative ways to provide service. Too often, however, these agencies must make difficult trade-offs, shifting and even cutting services as resources are insufficient.
Small Cities, Big Moves focuses on transit in small cities—places with populations between 50,000 and 200,000, of which there are over 300 in the United States. Transit serves an essential role in these communities, yet they are rarely studied.
Manchester, New Hampshire is the case study feature of this week’s quick takes—read on!
Manchester is New Hampshire’s most populated city, with a population of 163,289 in the urbanized area. Key economic drivers today include biofabrication, technology, and manufacturing. The Manchester Transit Authority (MTA) is the public transportation provider for Manchester and its surrounding areas. MTA’s ridership has bounced back quickly post-pandemic, already exceeding 2019 levels. The MTA system supports the city’s economy, connecting workers, students, and seniors to essential services while fostering unique partnerships with businesses and educational institutions to provide their service with limited resources.
MTA operates fixed-route buses, paratransit services, and intercity express routes while maintaining flexibility to expand and innovate. About one-third of riders use transit for work, one-third are students commuting to local universities, and one-third are seniors accessing health care and shopping. Today, MTA operates 13 regular bus routes throughout Manchester, including a free downtown circulator known as the Green DASH (Downtown Area Shuttle). These routes primarily serve the city of Manchester, with lines extending into neighboring communities such as Bedford, Goffstown, Hooksett, and Londonderry. The MTA express routes serve Concord, Nashua, and Salem, enhancing regional connectivity.
In 2019, MTA absorbed the Cooperative Alliance for Regional Transportation (CART), which provides fixed-route and on-demand services around southern New Hampshire. Because a significant amount of on-demand trip requests in the CART service area were between senior living centers, grocery stores, and other retail destinations, MTA launched the Salem Shopper route. This circulator route connects riders to popular destinations more efficiently and frees up the on-demand vehicles to serve riders going to other destinations. Further, MTA plans to launch a new service connecting the communities in southern New Hampshire to Manchester medical centers by the summer of 2025.
MTA prioritizes sustainable growth and is constantly identifying innovative ways to fund its service and meet the needs of its riders. MTA’s executive director, Mike Whitten, said, “If we’re going to do an expansion of service, I want the riders to be able to depend on it.”
Plans are underway for an autonomous downtown shuttle serving the Mill Yard, a growing tech and business hub. The goals are to improve efficiency and expand the workforce pool, as there are fewer physical and training requirements to oversee autonomous vehicles, allowing employees to focus on customer service.
Manchester is building its first dedicated transit center to replace the current configuration of sidewalk stops at the main transit hub. The $25 million project will provide riders shelter from the elements and give operators facilities for breaks between runs.
As the state of New Hampshire contributes little to no funding to MTA, they have turned to unique partnerships to cover their costs. MTA has strong partnerships with local businesses and universities, such as Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) and CalLogix, which fund routes benefiting their facilities. Today, MTA relies heavily on local property taxes, as New Hampshire lacks income and sales taxes. Innovative funding strategies and partnerships help bridge the gap. SNHU includes transit passes for students in tuition and student fees and provides the local match for the route that serves the campus. MTA also partners with Manchester’s school district to operate traditional school buses (without federal funding), establishing a unique revenue stream it uses as the local match for federal funding sources.
CalLogix, a fully integrated contact center that provides customer service for a range of companies, pays the local match for the route that serves its headquarters in Bedford, New Hampshire. CalLogix’s first call center was centrally located in downtown Manchester. Many of their employees walked or used transit to get to work. In 2006, they opened a second call center in the neighboring community of Bedford. Due to client demand and a need to update technology, the company expanded its footprint at its Bedford office and closed the Manchester office. At that time, many seasoned employees expressed that they didn’t have a way to get to and from the Bedford office. That’s when CalLogix CEO Sherry Leonard started looking into public transit options. She found there wasn’t much transit service in Bedford, and the existing routes didn’t serve the company’s new office. Together, Leonard and Whitten worked out an arrangement where CalLogix would contribute the local match for the route that, with a new stop, would serve their new office three times per day—at 8:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and 5:30 p.m. “I didn’t want people to lose their jobs, especially people who’ve been with us for a while,” said Leonard. “Having transit service at our office has been a huge help for our business and our employees. It would be great to be able to expand it, especially during evening hours and weekends. I think other businesses could benefit from following our lead.”