Maine

The Last Mile

Hank Garfield

Last month Lisa and I ventured out of Maine to see Bob Dylan perform in Mansfield, Massachusetts, south of Boston. We did 99 percent of the trip by public transportation. It’s easy to get from Bangor to Mansfield and back by bus and train. There isn’t a compelling reason to drive it, even if you own a working vehicle, which we do not. The problem is the last (or first) mile.

As I wrote in a recent post, transporting a dog can be challenging without a car. Fortunately, I have a few readers, and I’m happy to report that this blog stimulated the economy by creating a job. Rita got to the kennel, we got to the bus, and the process was reversed the next day.

We had booked a hotel within walking distance of the concert venue, formerly known as Great Woods, but now called the Xfinity Center. The train from Boston stopped in the center of Mansfield, by all appearances a nice New England town with a village green, well-kept homes, and a central commercial district. But the hotel and the Xfinity Center weren’t located close to anything except an interstate highway exit, some three miles away. It was in no way walkable.

What to do? A few people were around, including a guy about our age who had gotten off the train and, as it turned out, had ridden the same bus down from Maine and was staying at the same hotel and going to the same show. Unlike me, he has conquered the entrance exam for Uber, and we all shared a ride, arriving at the hotel around 3:30.

The concert started at five with an opening act (one of four acts in total), and the hotel bar and restaurant opened at five. A poor bit of planning, I thought, especially since we hadn’t had lunch. The desk clerk at the hotel named a couple of restaurants a couple miles down the road, which was of course useless information to people without a car.

Maybe because I was hungry and a bit irritated, I decided to press my luck. “Do we get a discount on our room because we’re not using a parking space?” I asked.

He laughed, as if the question were ridiculous.

But I remember staying at a hotel in Quebec City many years ago, where the policy was just that: one charge for the room, and a separate charge for the parking space. It was nominal, I think about twelve dollars, but if you got there without a car, it was twelve bucks you didn’t have to pay. And why should you? By including parking in the price of the room, the hotel is effectively making you subsidize the cost of parking even when you don’t park. But we are so accustomed to accommodating cars and their owners that most people don’t see it as unfair.

The next morning, I asked at the front desk if we could get a cab back to the train station. The bad news was that, as in many places in the US., Uber has effectively killed off the local cab companies. The good news was that the guy at the desk was extremely polite and helpful, and called us an Uber on the hotel’s dime.

Still, I must wonder: why doesn’t the Xfinity Center provide a shuttle between the train station and the hotel on event nights? Why do they assume that everybody is going to arrive and depart by car, and why are there so few alternatives for those who don’t?

What we have here is an illustration of the “last mile” problem in public transportation. It’s easy to get from one transit hub to another. But only a car can take you from the front steps of your house to the gates of a concert venue. Does that make it worthwhile to drive from Bangor to southern Massachusetts? Obviously not. But the last mile problem discourages people from using public transportation even when it’s the most convenient option. Cities, towns and businesses that benefit from visitors must work together to come up with better solutions.

“I Can’t Take You Anywhere”

Hank Garfield
Rita at the recent eclipse in Greenville

Our dog is incorrigible in a car.

She isn’t in them often, and seldom in the same one twice since we went from a one-car to a no-car household about a year ago. But even in Lisa’s Jeep she was terrible. She chewed through a seatbelt the first time we left her alone. She barks, growls and snarls at every pedestrian she sees. In rental cars, she’s figured out how to open the power windows herself. She’ll lunge at motorcycles, other dogs, even oncoming trucks. She’ll invade the front seat and position herself at the center of the windshield, alert for all threats, real and imagined. She’ll lean on the driver or the front-seat passenger when the car goes around a curve. She’s a little better when she rides shotgun, but not much.

Rita, or sometimes Rita Mae, is a four-year old mix of possibly Rottweiler, Shar-pei, and some kind of hound (we don’t really know), with an abundant exuberance for life. We’ve had her for a little over two years. She’s personable but protective, sixty-odd pounds of potential energy that can turn kinetic in a hurry. Ask the mailman, the pizza delivery guy, or the two cops who pulled Lisa over for a missing taillight.

Bottling up all that energy in a car makes for interesting travels. But how else are you supposed to take your dog to the vet, or to the beach, or a total eclipse of the sun? Come to think of it, how are you going to get her to the kennel when you want to get away for a few days?

Veterinarians all seem to have offices on the outskirts of town. The kennel is a 35-minute walk from our house – doable for both of us, but logistically difficult, and it doesn’t open in the morning until after the Concord Coach bus has already departed for the coast. The Community Connector bus allows service dogs, but regular dogs must be in a carrier. I’m not strong enough to lift Rita plus carrier onto the bus. I would have to get a Flintstone model, with holes for the dog’s legs, and I doubt that such a thing is available, or that Rita would put up with it. And would she behave on a bus full of strangers?

Is there a dog taxi service in Bangor? Would a regular taxi – if you can get one – allow a dog? Uber is problematic enough without throwing a largish, excitable dog into the mix. That leaves rental cars and dog-tolerant friends. It seems ridiculous to rent a car for the day to take the dog to the vet, but part of not owning a car is taking responsibility for your own transportation needs. Most friends are happy to do an occasional favor, but you can’t make a habit of it. No one likes a freeloader.

Dogs don’t depend on cars, but dog owners often must. It seems like a good business model: take people and their dogs to various appointments and outings, at a cost less than a 24-hour car rental. There must be other dog owners without cars who would use such a service.

Some surely choose to take the path of least resistance (but most expense) and buy a car: another example of the American car culture creating a perceived necessity of something that should be one among several options. Vets and kennels don’t all need to be in outlying areas. Services should exist at reasonable cost for transporting pets and their owners. Not everyone wants to own a car, but much of our transportation infrastructure is built around the assumption that most people do. Rita’s attitude toward cars is much like mine: if it’s the only way to get there, then I guess I’ll put up with it. She acts out a lot more than I do, but that’s forgivable in a four-year old.

I’m not buying a car just for a dog who doesn’t behave in cars. A lot of people don’t behave in cars, either. What they – we – really need are viable alternatives.

All My Uber Trials

Hank Garfield

Why do people think Uber is simple to use and the public bus system is complicated?

It’s exactly the opposite.

Recently, I decided to up my car non-ownership game and sign up for Uber. I’ve had great success living in Bangor, Maine for the past 17 years without owning a car. I sing the praises of the Community Connector bus system. I rejoiced with my fellow riders when the downtown Bangor Area Transit Center opened in December 2022. But the buses run only during the day, and they can’t go everywhere. It’s tough to get a taxi in Bangor, for whatever reasons. So, I thought I’d give Uber a shot.

I downloaded the app onto my smartphone, no problem. I was a bit surprised that it didn’t ask for my credit card information. Friends assured me that I would be asked to enter it the first time I used the service. After that, they said, the service would be seamless.

I wasn’t at home the first time I needed a ride. I rarely need rides from home, as I live within walking distance of town and the Transit Center. I lined up a ride, and sure enough, the app asked for my credit card info, which I dutifully plugged in. But then it wanted to send two micro-payments to my credit card. I was to report the exact amounts of the payments for verification. The only problem was that I don’t do banking on my cell phone, and I was miles from my laptop.

Fine, I thought. The next time, I would schedule the ride in advance, from home, where I could access my credit card account. (None of these steps were spelled out in advance.) However, the first two times I tried this, I got a message: “pickup location unavailable.” I have yet to take my first ride.

All this is preamble to an observation that gets more and more cemented in my psyche with each passing day.

When I posted the first two sentences of this piece on Facebook, my friend Félix, who lives in Bulgaria, replied (and I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting him here): “the public bus system is a public service and Uber is a twisted organization that tries to make their greed and consumerist anxiety look like sociality and coolness.”

As the Brits say, spot on.

I was trying to help Lisa get to and from a business on the other side of town. After striking out with Uber, I walked to the Transit Center, where a dispatcher (whose name I don’t know but who deserves praise) helped me plan the most convenient route. The bus driver was also helpful, showing us where we would need to be, and at what time, for the return trip.

There is no one to call at Uber for such assistance. And this is par for the course when a private company tries to masquerade as public service. When was the last time you called any private enterprise and did not have to navigate a series of automated prompts before connecting with a human being?

The bus system isn’t perfect. It needs longer hours. Paying passengers taking multiple rides in one day can’t use the transfer system for brief stops. Still, I hate to criticize it, because despite its imposed limitations, it works well. Anybody who can read a printed schedule can use it, and it’s inexpensive and reliable.

The great lie of the post-Reagan era is that the private sector is more efficient than the public. The focus of public services is convenience for the end-user. The focus of private enterprise is convenience (and profit) for the owners of the business. This is happening across society. To see a doctor, you used to make an appointment and show up. Now you must navigate a maze of pre-registration, pre-pre-registration, on-line verification, and electronic confirmation. To get a cup of coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, you have to “interface” with a touch-screen menu when the guy who’s going to pour your coffee is standing right there, getting an order ready for the drive-thru. And don’t get me started on self-checkout at the grocery store.

More and more, the end-user (the customer) is required to navigate steps in the service process that should be handled by competent, knowledgeable staff. Rather than hire and train and pay employees, companies are increasingly putting the customer last, by making them take on more of the tasks they are supposedly paying for.

Don’t get me wrong: business does many wonderful things. But public services, like education, health care, and especially public transportation, aren’t among them.