MIDCOAST — There is a renewed push to study public transportation options in the Midcoast area, and it includes an online survey for area residents and visitors.
In February, the Mid-Coast Planning Commission posted the online survey and publicized the year-long study. The survey most likely will be online until July. The goal is to get a comprehensive, year-round picture of what regional residents and visitors desire in public transportation, said Don White, chairman of the Midcoast Transit Committee.
The study is being organized by the communities of Camden, Rockport, Rockland and Thomaston.
Regional planners have been paying attention to the success of public transportation options south of Rockland, including new Amtrak service from Boston to Brunswick, an intercommunity bus service in Brunswick and a summer tourist train from Brunswick to Rockland.
There have been several attempts in recent years at regular bus service in the Midcoast region that have petered out, but White and other planners believe the region’s future success will depend on creating better public transportation options, like the kind that existed in a bygone area.
“I see this as a very important piece for our future. It’s like going back to the future, if you will,” White said.
The study came out of a grassroots call to reexamine public transportation in the region, said Jane Lafleur, executive director of Friends of Midcoast Maine, a smart-growth non-profit.
In 2012, Tim “Sully” Sullivan, a community organizer and concert promoter in Rockland, brought together key stakeholders, including large employers, to discuss the issue. The momentum created by those discussions helped launch the study, along with some leftover transit study funds made available by Maine DOT and Coastal Trans, a non-profit bus service for area residents to travel to medical appointments.
All options are on the table with this study. The trick will be taking the survey results and turning it into a viable, long-term public transportation option, Lafleur said. It’s likely that any new public transportation service will start out small, and may not even have a fixed hourly route.
“It’s easy to find money for the capital expenses, like buses, but it’s harder to find funding for the operational costs, and they don’t usually make money in the beginning,” Lafleur said.
But like White, Lafleur believes it’s important for the region to make itself less car-dependent, both to accommodate the region’s aging population and to attract and retain the millennial generation, which has proven less enamored with owning a car.
“To me it always comes down to economic development,” Lafleur said.
The online survey is at: http://www.midcoastplanning.org/transitstudy.html.