 to the drive less do more launch party I'm Casey Gilbert executive director of Portland downtown thank you for being here today as we introduce the community to drive less do more in partnership with the city of Portland greater Portland Metro bus the Northern New England passenger rail authority Amtrak down Easter and the Bicycle Coalition of Maine Portland International Jetport they were all of our collaborators throughout the development of the campaign so let's give them a round of applause for their partnership so the impetus for the drive less do more campaign was an advocacy letter that Portland downtown drafted in 2016 urging the city of Portland to look at ways to improve the transportation landscape we've been delighted to work on many action items in this advocacy letter including a parking study and this very campaign that we're here about today bringing in a wide range of partners and conducting a community-wide survey helped us to inform the direction of drive less do more I also want to recognize our expanded group of collaborators including those partners who you'll visit today at the transportation fair including Greater Portland Council of Governments domain and the Main Turnpike Authority shuttle bus zoom and others so we recognize that there's many organizations doing good work in the realm of transportation and we want to thank and applaud them for their effort so please join me in thanking all those who contribute in Portland so national and global trends all point to growing urban centers what that means for cities and metro regions is that we need to be proactive in planning for growth this includes working together on issues such as housing policy preparing for the effects of climate change and of course improving public transit and reducing our dependence on automobiles we know that not everyone can ditch their car but there are many who can choose alternatives maybe just one day a week or perhaps every day today we welcome you to learn more about the wide variety of options we have in Portland from trails and bicycling to buses and trains and even boats big boats there are so many ways to travel without it being a single passenger vehicle trip and when you choose these alternatives you'll find that you'll have more time to connect with people to catch up on emails to read a good book or just enjoy the view well I'm here with the executive director of the downtown Portland Casey Gilbert hello Casey hi good morning thanks for being here this is so exciting now what if what are you calling this event so this is our drive-less do-more launch party and this is a marketing campaign that we've been working on with the city of Portland and other transit partners to bring awareness about all of the modes of transit in the Portland region and to get people to think about how they're commuting downtown and how those modes of transportation are connected that's exactly right and we can always work to improve their connectivity so that the end user has a smooth experience and that they want to enter incentivize to take those modes of transit more frequently and I've noticed people are doing that I mean you see the buses with the bikes on the front coming from all over and and I know that the bus system has expanded beyond what they originally were going up almost to Brunswick maybe I'm not sure yeah it's excellent to see like the breeze is the one that you're talking about smaller buses going north of the city bringing commuters in back and forth and then of course they got us I'm on board so now we have college students taking the bus Portland high school students taking the bus so we're also encouraging this whole new generation of transit riders so it's very exciting yeah more people are biking more people are walking it's good to see you know as we see changes in climate changes in how cities are density housing all of that our transportation system is intrinsic to helping us grow but in a smart way right and Portland we're lucky Portland is a walkable city you can get I mean it's not very big that the peninsula anyway and once you get here you can walk anywhere it is another project that we worked on with the University of Southern Maine was a series of walking tour brochures so again encouraging people to walk around the city look up taken our beautiful architecture and discover some places you've never been but we're really excited to have a bunch of different partners here today so people can explore different transit options get to know our organizations pick up some great swag and enter some raffles so and I know that some of the nonprofits like Greater Portland Landmarks and Maine Historical they're they're offering walking tours more and more all the time in this city that connect to all of this and I mean I think it's amazing yes we have a wonderful city and it's so good to see other organizations all contributing to the beautiful fabric of our downtown so I'd like to introduce Natalie Bogart from Nepper Downeaster to say a few words thank you so much Casey hello everyone I'm Natalie Bogart I am the marketing director for the Northern New England passenger rail authority slash the Am Track Downeaster and I'm so glad to be here today it has been a great pleasure working alongside the city of Portland in the Portland downtown district and all of our partners on this great campaign whether you're a daily commuter or just an occasional traveler the train is a mode of transit that can get you where you need to go for those who live north of Portland you can hop on the train in Brunswick or Freeport and enjoy an early morning commute into Portland for those that live in Portland and want to travel to Boston for work or play we can get you there too the Am Track Downeaster has stops throughout Maine so if you haven't gotten on board I encourage you to check out Am Track Downeaster.com and learn where we can take you traveling and commuting by train is a great alternative or a compliment to the automobile travel well I'm with Natalie Bogart with the marketing director of Am Track Downeaster hi hi how are you I'm fine what an exciting day for you it is an exciting day this has been a project that's been a long time in the works and we're super excited to roll it out today encouraging the residents and visitors to Portland to drive less and do more in this beautiful city and I know your your marketing reach goes way beyond the state bringing people in on the Downeaster and and trying to get them to get off and walk so tell us a little bit about what you're doing to make that happen well we just finished a very successful train to Maine campaign where we encourage people in the greater Boston market to leave their car at home and to come to Maine and explore not just Portland but all of our fabulous station communities we just came off of a record-breaking August we transported over 60,000 people and it's the best month that we've ever had so we're really excited about what we're doing to bring more people to the state of Maine we've developed a few new passes so we have a discover Maine pass which is 10 trips within a seven-day period for only $19 which is really designed for the residents of Maine to get out and explore car free but also for tourists to have a great opportunity to maybe hub in Old Orchard Beach but explore free port or come to Portland and enjoy all the great things that we have going on that's wonderful and you know with the climate conference going on in New York right now and everybody talking about alternate transportation because we are all wanting to get away from our cars and help in some way and this is a great way to do it absolutely we look forward to be being part of that solution we look forward to being part of the workforce solution and we look forward to exposing more young manors to alternate modes of transportation so I think that the Downeasters positioned really well for the goals of this administration and for the next 10 years for the growth of the state of Maine and you've expanded your line in Maine or planning to we have expanded our line in Maine so we're operating all five round trips daily now to free port in Brunswick we have 10 trains a day that go between Brunswick and Boston we're looking at a pilot program to expand weekend seasonal service between Brunswick and Rockland so we have a lot of really exciting projects in the works right now and do you offer fall you know trips on the Downeaster is that we do what we do is we strategically develop itineraries to encourage people to get out and see the beautiful foliage so one of the great trips it's just a quick little lunch in but we encourage people to take the train from Maine down to the UNH Durham stop and they can have lunch with all sustainable farm-to-table food a delicious ice cream and then hop back on but it's a great way to just ride part of our gorgeous route and experience the foliage so it's a fun little trip I want to do that and well riding the train is a romantic thing too I mean it takes you back in time so there's certainly a nostalgia to it and we really try to position ourselves as modern public transportation but there is a nostalgia to riding trains families love it children love it and it is a great way to go so come on down and there are senior discounts if you're a grandparent senior discount 65 and older half price every day so you'll never pay more than $30 roundtrip good morning it's my pleasure to be here I want to thank Natalie and Casey for their comments as I was introduced by Natalie I'm the city's economic development director before I stop my remarks I'd like to recognize council the city council Blinda Ray for attending this event I know we've got some city staff here as well Christine Grimondo I saw earlier I think former planning director Jeff Levine I saw on the background as well but we are thrilled to work on this project it's important from a partnership standpoint that we bring everybody together we can't do anything by ourselves we do much more collectively but improving the transportation landscape of the Portland region is a critical priority for us this coalition has come together not only to support marketing alternative modes of transportation but to also collaborate on joint investment opportunities I also want to recognize warp and web for their that's the marketing firm that's behind the program for all of their collective creativity and energy so please join me in a round of applause for our marketing the city over a number of years has been working on improving quality of life in Portland including comprehensive plan process improving what we call mobility technology which is another way of saying traffic signals with smart technology along forced avenue and Franklin street are improving traffic flow we've also added bike lanes bicycle parking we've implemented a passport parking app and I should give a shout out for some of the more corporate headquarters that we've brought to the city wax is one such company they have purchased three shuttles that they're operating and they're transiting their employees in from South Portland so we're very proud of the fact that we're supporting and encouraging transit option opportunities we have ongoing transit related support through our partners and Greater Portland Metro and the Greater Portland Council of Governments we are committed to kind of maintaining Portland's vitality we feel our secret sauce if you will is a pedestrian friendly landscape so our partners are committed to that level of partnership I'm with Denise back the marketing director of Portland Metro hi Denise hi it's great to see you and be sitting on the bus with you oh this is great this is one of our brand new buses we just got six new buses this month and this is one of the new ones that we have here it smells new and it looks beautiful yeah well what's really great is um this is one of the buses that we're introducing automatic voice announcements in so if somebody's on one of the new buses they'll be able to hear where the next stop is so that's pretty exciting for me that's really important I know when I go to New York or something I was listening and and you don't want to miss it right just like that just like New York only on a friendlier level so riding the bus people really get to know the their co-riders don't they yeah there's a real sense of community I mean certainly the bus operators you know who ride who drive the same routes every day they know a lot of their riders and a lot of their riders know each other and so it's great it's a great sense of community here and you've expanded your territory a bit haven't you or we've done a lot in the last few years I'm in 2016 we introduced metro breeze which goes to Yarmouth and Freeport that in 2017 we added Brunswick in 2018 we added the husky line which creates which is service between usm campuses and also downtown Gorham and to be to Portland and then we also added another route 3 which is a crosstown route that goes from like Riverton to Westbrook to the main mall area and then continues on to Portland we have done a lot yeah nobody needs a car in this city right no really I mean you know and we're just going to be improving we're going to be working on the peninsula loop the downtown loop it takes a while it gets you to where you want to go a lot of the times but it takes a long time to do it so we're taking a real good look at that and seeing how we can improve it that's terrific and and right now you know we're talking about climate change and all that that is bringing to our world and this is a way to help a little bit oh yeah rather than one person in one car um take the bus I mean definitely take the bus take the ferry take the train um take transit because it really does make sense and it gets people out of their one person cars so and the thing that you said community it does build community you know we we're always so busy with our little cell phones or our laptops but getting on a bus with people you you start to recognize people as someone who's your neighbor oh yeah you can meet some really cool people on the bus and if you don't feel like talking you can't play with your cell phone and no one's going to give you a hard time about it because you're not driving well it's great and I know that um there's more to come and we look forward to talking to you more about that but thank you for being here today and for showing us these beautiful new buses thanks for coming thank you well I'm with Matt Sulem the membership and office manager for the Bicycle Coalition of Maine hi Matt hey how you doing it's great to have you here it's great to be here helmet and bike and all yep yeah so how long have you been involved with biking uh biking a long time but uh I've been involved with the coalition for about two years and what what got you involved um honestly moving here from uh I've moved here from out of state and I was really shocked to see all the distracted driving that goes on in this state and uh I really want to be a part of making a positive change uh in that regard and thankfully uh just a few days ago they passed the ban on using cell phones and other electronic devices while driving so that's a a big victory I think it's it's it's one of the best things we've done yeah absolutely I mean it's it keeps uh pedestrians safe it keeps cyclists safe and uh it also keeps other motorists safe so tell me what the Bicycle Coalition of Maine is focusing on right now well generally you know we're just trying to make the the state safer for biking and walking um we just wrapped Bike Maine which is our yearly week-long bike trip across a different area of Maine every year so we were in the mid-coast uh starting in Waterville we went through Hope, Damascada, Belfast and Rockland and uh so that was a really successful event that brought 450 riders to Maine's mid-ghost and got to experience the the culture of all those nice towns wonderful towns and was that a fundraiser for the bike coalition um sort of I mean we're a non-profit so some of it goes back into uh back into the coalition but we do grants with a lot of the money that we make and so after each year's Bike Maine we give grants to five different communities to further their bike and pedestrian infrastructure projects well that's wonderful I didn't know that yeah and and we I've been talking with everyone that with the climate change issues and and New York right now in the UN um that's a big part of your marketing isn't it absolutely I mean we're really just bikes are they're they're green machines they're there to help people commute and put fewer cars on the road and you know free up parking spaces and just get more people out and active and we've seen a huge increase in that number of people biking that's what we're hoping for yeah uh it's it's you know it's little by little uh baby steps but or that's what we're that's what we're hoping for just to get more people out biking and walking well I'm with Belinda Ray City Councilor and president of the board of Portland Metro yes well thank you very much for having me well this is an exciting time I know you live right on the peninsula and you probably walk everywhere ride your bike take a bus I do I rarely get in my car these days and it's I feel very lucky to be able to transport myself without an automobile so often but the transportation in Portland is really coming up um we have not only new infrastructure for bicyclists and also a very walkable community but the public transportation in terms of the buses the frequency the routes being very effective at getting you where you need to go has all improved tremendously in the last three or four years and the ridership is way up the ridership is and that's interesting because nationally ridership is down on public transit but here in southern Maine we are bucking the trend and we are up that's terrific and I know coming in from Falmouth the bikers all over the place and people are getting used to it now the drivers of the cars yes they are and I would I had a great um I commuted bike commuted to a meeting over um just in Portland but across Tukey's bridge today and it was amazing on my way back to see how many bikes and pedestrians there were it made me so very proud of this just active and forward thinking city I think it's terrific in and with the climate change issues we need to be doing this we absolutely do and when you improve your public transit your access to public transit you touch on so many important things and one of them is climate change because we're taking cars off the roads we are having fewer greenhouse gas emissions but we also touch on economic development because businesses tend to develop around transportation hubs where people can easily get to the organizations and the businesses and you also hit on public health everyone who takes public transit is typically a pedestrian on either end of the trip um and we also give people better access to housing and jobs so public transit is really key to addressing many of the challenges we face and a lot of it is some people have never gone on the bus and there's a fear there I think and you know maybe to have little guides little volunteer guides to hold their hand on a trip truly I think it would be great to have a Portland adult ed class about taking the bus because it is intimidating so we're trying to do things to make it less intimidating you can now use an app on your phone you can download the transit app and use that to be able to locate the bus or the ferry or the train and know how far away they are from you you can text at various stops to find out will the bus be here in one minute five minute ten minutes um and then we're also trying to get different transit agencies to work together on the way that we collect fares so that people will be able to pay with phones or pay with smart cards across different agencies and we're also working to try to unify our schedules so we know that the system needs to be more user friendly and we're certainly working to get it there so that more people will hop on the bus and it's beautiful it's a beautiful bus oh my gosh and you have wi-fi yeah and you can just sit here and the it's it's wonderful to have someone else drive you it's much nicer than my car I know me too and I love the collaboration with casco baylines with you know with all the people you're working the down Easter yeah that's key to making it work it is because there are seven transit agencies and I could try to name them all but I'm afraid I'd leave somebody out but there are there are seven and so we really do all need to come together and make sure we're we're always thinking of the user so we have wonderful services within our silos that we need to join those silos to make it so that users can easily cross over because they don't you don't care as a user if you want to go from portland to soco you don't care if you're taking different municipalities different branches you just want to get there well thank you it's really exciting it is very exciting thank you turn out thank you for representing us absolutely thank you so much and before we conclude our press conference i just want to give a few more shoutouts to the portland downtown transportation committee and our entire board of directors without our organization and our volunteer support this just couldn't be possible they've worked tirelessly on transportation related advocacy in recent years so i'm just very very appreciative to them philip kotievsky if you've seen our drive less do more video which is awesome and it's going to be launching on cw soon um he did an amazing job with that video so check it out to adam mcdonald's portland downtown's very own marketing director who brought this campaign to its final vision and he organized single-handedly today's transportation fair so thank you to our drive less do more models viva chamba and colin who infuses campaign with life and made it reflect our beautiful community to port city bikes for these gorgeous bikes today and really to everyone who continues to make portland an amazing place to live work and play we thank you the question i leave you with today is what will be your more what will you do more of when you choose to drive less we invite you to share your more with us on social media we can't wait to see what we all can collectively achieve with our more thank you everyone hey portland traffic can be bad we know why not hop on the bus walk with friends hail a cap or take a ride once you drive less you'll do more so get out there and join the movement toward a happier healthier portland drive less do more