Bangor Can Do Better by its Bus System

What is going on with Bangor’s bus system?

Three years ago this December, we celebrated the opening of the Bangor Area Transit Center, a beautiful new nexus for the Bangor Community Connector, in the perfect location. The station still looks good. There’s new electronic signage, and new software than can tell you when the next bus will arrive and where it is on its route.

But in terms of basic service, it’s been one setback after another.

Saturday service disappeared. Key routes have been suspended or canceled. We’re no closer to extending service hours later into the evening than we were when I started writing Slower Traffic ten years ago.

We also seem to have lost, at least for this year, the longstanding tradition of free rides on Election Day. This was sprung on unsuspecting passengers with no advance warning.

When I called to ask about this, I was referred to James Landry, Bangor’s Transit Operations Administrator. He first told me that he was new to the position. Then he said the decision to charge fares on Election Day was “more complicated than you’re making it out to be.”

Pardon me if I don’t see the complication. Free Election Day service involves no change of routes or schedules. You don’t charge fares for a day. Period. It’s that simple.

In the interest of full disclosure, my job gives me free bus rides. My partner had to pay, though – and so did anyone else who wanted to go to the polls and vote for, among other things, City Council candidates who directly influence spending and policy concerning public transportation in the greater Bangor area.

I wonder how many members of the Bangor City Council, and the governing bodies of the surrounding towns served by the bus system, have ever actually used it. It’s a wonderful system, as far as it goes, but the perception persists of the bus as some sort of charity or welfare, existing primarily for the benefit of lower-income people who can’t afford to own a car.

This inaccurate perception is the biggest obstacle standing in the way of improvements to public transportation infrastructure that will make the Bangor area a better place to live for all of us.

Consider the issue of parking. There is no law that requires businesses to provide free, onsite parking for employees. On a per-person basis, a parking space is more expensive than a bus pass. The University of Maine is one of the few employers in the area that gets this. (The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor is another.) Yet other schools, including Husson University and the Bangor campus of the University of Maine at Augusta, have opted out of the Community Connector’s program that provides free bus passes to students, faculty, and staff. Even the University Maine is tearing down one of its oldest buildings to make way for a parking lot.

This only encourages more car use in a world suffering from automobile over-saturation. It creates a false market in which people who can drive are forced to drive, and marginalizes everybody else.

Incentives ought to work the other way. Businesses of a certain size within a certain distance of a bus route could be directed to offer free bus passes to their employees in lieu of free parking. Recruitment of drivers could be made easier by offering full benefits and flexible schedules. And ridership could be encouraged by dedicating buses to events such as concerts, hockey games, elections, and meetings of local governing bodies.

Public transportation has a large, untapped clientele, in addition to those who have no other option. Many people would leave their cars at home if they could. Many households could reduce the number of vehicles they own. Many citizens like me might ditch their cars altogether and spend some of the money they save at local businesses.

All we need is a little more support from the people in position to provide it.