Sunday, April 8, 2007
Staff photo by Jack Milton
Heeth Grantham walks to work from Portland to South Portland over the Casco Bay Bridge on a recent sunny day. Grantham walks to work five days a week, rain or shine.
Blethen Maine News Service by Joe Phelan
Tim Bolton, a MDOT specialist, says the money he saves on gas by walking to work more than makes up for the extra taxes he pays to live within walking distance of his office.
Anyone who drives over the Casco Bay Bridge around 9 a.m. on weekdays has probably spotted Heeth Grantham.
He's the tall, auburn-haired man cutting a path south across the bridge, sporting sunglasses and carrying a cup of coffee when it's sunny, wearing rainproof gear when it's stormy.
Grantham, 35, has been walking the same route from his India Street home in Portland to his job two miles away at Lone Wolf Documentary Group on Cottage Street in South Portland, every workday for the past three years, ever since his car died and he decided not to replace it. At the end of the day he walks home.
While walking to work is the way to go in pedestrian-friendly cities like Boston or New York, it's less popular in Maine, especially in rural areas where there are fewer sidewalks. Only 2.8 percent of the state's 630,591 commuting workers in 2003 did so on foot, compared to 80 percent who commuted alone in a car, truck or van, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nationally, about 2.3 percent of workers commute on foot.
But that could change. The Maine Department of Transportation has just instituted a new policy that over time could boost the numbers of people who depend on their feet instead of automobiles to get to work.
In January, for the first time, the department started incorporating "sidewalk analysis" into all new highway projects it designs and will include sidewalks in projects where the analysis shows they are warranted, said Dan Stewart, the transportation department's bicycle and pedestrian program manager.
The policy should result in more sidewalks and safer and more comfortable walking conditions in highly congested areas around the state. "If there is a need for sidewalks, we will do them," Stewart said.
More sidewalks would be welcome, say regular walkers like Grantham. But even without them, they add, it would take unusual conditions for them to stop their pedestrian commutes. They say buses and bikes are too fast. Zero fuel costs, improved physical fitness and a close connection to the outdoors make walking a better choice, in their view.
"It completely negates the need to go to a gym," Grantham said.
Unity residents have learned to set their clocks by Jimmy Hubbard's 2?-mile walk from his home on Stage Coach Road up Quaker Hill Road to get to his maintenance job at Unity College.
"Every once in a while he will go in early and freak us all out," said Willie Johnson, a salesman at Chase's Home Furnishings, which lies along Hubbard's route.
Hubbard has walked the route twice a day, every day for the past 25 years. Before that he walked 26 years back and forth to his job at a poultry farm. Hubbard, 66, said he has never owned a car. He got his learner's permit as a teenager but never followed through to get a full license.
"I just didn't care for (driving)," he said.
His friends drive him into Waterville when he needs to stock up on supplies. Except for an occasional offer of a ride when the weather is particularly horrible, Hubbard walks. He said his pedestrian commute allows him to enjoy wildlife in a way he would miss on a bike or in a car. He sees a lot of deer and wild turkeys. Due to retire in May, Hubbard said he will continue to walk every day.
"I am used to it," he said.
Some walkers say their commute gives them more time to think than driving would.
"It was a good time to run lesson plans through my head. I got a lot of work done," said Rob Kellerman, 45, who walked to work during his first eight months at his new job as assistant English professor at the University of Maine at Augusta.
Kellerman recently broke down, however, and bought a car. He said walking in subzero temperatures in February and March along streets with no sidewalks finally wore him down.
For the past two weeks he has been driving his new Ford Focus the 2.5-mile route instead.
"I do miss the walk," Kellerman said.
Tim Bolton, 59, of Augusta, figures that what he saves on gas more than cancels out the taxes he has to spend to live within walking distance of his job . He has made the brisk 15-minute walk to his office at the MDOT most days for 14 years.
He said growing up in Manhattan, where everybody walks, gave him a taste for commuting on foot, even though in Maine, where sidewalks and pedestrians are scarce, the commute can be hazardous.
"Drivers in Maine are not oriented to pedestrians so you have to make sure you have eye contact with the driver before crossing," he said.
Conditions for walkers are slowly improving. Stewart, of the MDOT, said the state first adopted rules in 1999 to allow the construction of road shoulders at least three feet in width to offer safer passage for pedestrians and bicycles. By 2004 alone, DOT was creating 116 miles of shoulder a year, compared to 28 miles five years earlier.
Starting this year all new projects being developed by the MDOT include an analysis of pedestrian needs and the state will now pay for the costs of new sidewalk construction in so-called "village areas," or densely developed areas with stores and houses, that in the past were the financial responsibility of the local municipality, Stewart said.
There are other moves afoot to encourage walking. The annual Commute Another Way event, which coordinator Carey Kish calls the largest transportation event of its kind in New England, promotes alternatives to commuting alone in a car. Since it started 12 years ago, thousands of people have participated, including 500 employers and 5,000 people last year alone.
It has been such a hit it was extended this year from a one-day event to a weeklong extravaganza, from May 14 to 18.
"There is a lot of interest in promoting walking," Kish said.
Staff Writer Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at:
bquimby@pressherald.com
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By the way, I believe the Citroen runs on leaded gasoline or diesel and does screw the air. My Honda hybrid gets 57 miles/gallon on unleaded.report abuse
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