Lost Connections-The Challenges of Public Transportation in Maine

Passengers wait to board a Concord Coach bus at the Union Street Depot in Bangor, Maine.

At just after 6 a.m. on a cool, October morning, I walked from my Bangor home to the nearest bus stop, caught the first outbound Capehart bus of the day, and got off near the Concord Coach terminal on Union Street. At 6:45, the only bus of the day from Bangor to Rockland pulled out onto Union Street. Through the bus window I caught the first rays of the sun as it peeked above the horizon.

Public transportation is all about making connections. It’s embedded in the name of Bangor’s local bus system: the Community Connector. But the bus service recently cut one of its two Capehart routes. Where buses formerly left the downtown Bangor Area Transit center at 15 and 45 minutes past the hour, they will now only run this route at 45 minutes past the hour. This means that it is no longer possible to use the local bus to connect with the bus to Rockland. I will either need to walk, ride my bicycle, or take an unreliable cab or Uber.

This connectivity problem--the challenges of public transportation in Maine-- has long existed on the other end. Concord Coach buses arrive in Bangor from Boston and Rockland at around 5:30 p.m., minutes after the last inbound Community Connector bus of the day has passed by. Bangor residents returning home are hung out to dry – an illustration of the infamous “last mile” problem that plagues public transportation almost everywhere in Maine.

I have often wondered why there seems to be little effort on the part of either bus service to facilitate connection between the two. A Concord Coach driver will often ask passengers if they need to connect with the Cyr bus bound for Aroostook County, and if anyone does, the Cyr bus will wait. No such arrangement exists between Concord Coach and the Bangor Community Connector.

Moreover, the loss of one of the two Capehart buses has worsened connectivity within the Community Connector system itself. A person taking the inbound Capehart bus must now wait more than half an hour to connect with the Old Town, Mount Hope, and Hampden routes – connections that used to be immediate.

Public transportation has a built-in clientele, consisting of people who can’t drive, people who shouldn’t drive, and people who don’t want to drive. The first group has no choice. The second and third groups aren’t going to be encouraged to use the bus when connections are deliberately made more difficult by the very entities delivering services.

In an age of environmental and economic challenges brought about by emissions, sprawl, and car-centric development, these continued cuts to essential services are particularly counterproductive.

It is possible to travel to and from Bangor via several different bus services. Concord Coach can take you to Belfast, Rockland and Brunswick, and to Augusta, Portland, Boston, and the world. Cyr serves northern Maine. West Transportation runs daily between Bangor and the Downeast coast. Downeast Transportation serves the Ellsworth and Bar Harbor areas. The services are there. The overriding issue with attracting more riders is connectivity.

Maine needs a Public Transportation Commissioner, with staff throughout the state, to help bring accessible, reliable, and above all, connected bus (and rail) service to as many Mainers as possible. We have a Highway Commissioner, do we not?

Great care is taken to provide convenient access for drivers between one highway and another. In the past several years, we’ve seen highway extensions, roundabouts, and new exit ramps built in our area at taxpayer expense, while public transportation has hardly expanded at all. We don’t have Saturday bus service in Bangor. Extended evening hours remain a dream. And while the Hammond and Center Street routes have recently returned to regular service, the diminished Capehart route inconveniences many regular riders.

The net effect of cuts to public transportation will be to push more people into cars, resulting in more traffic, more environmental degradation, more belligerence behind the wheel, and more demand for more parking. Maine deserves better.