Buses and Trains

The Bangor Community Connector, and others

Recent Adventures in Public Transportation – 3

Hank Garfield
Rockland Harbor

I drove to Rockland and back in one day recently. I could have taken the bus. But the only bus on the route leaves Bangor at 7 a.m. The return trip leaves Rockland at 3:30 p.m. Even in September, that’s much too early to leave the coast on a sunny day with the afternoon southerly sea breeze kicking up. 

Once upon a time, there were two daily buses serving the coastal route from June to October. You could leave Bangor at seven, spend the whole day on the water, have a nice dinner in Rockland, and catch the late bus at 9:30. Or you could choose to leave Bangor in the late morning or Rockland in the late afternoon. You had options. But the pandemic changed all that. 

I can’t blame Concord Coach, really. They’re just trying to stay in business at an uncertain time for public transportation. I have noticed that ridership on the route has increased. The buses are fuller now that the number of daily trips has been halved. But that doesn’t account for all of the increase. People are discovering that it’s a good deal. The buses are punctual and comfortable. The price is comparable to the cost of the gas you would otherwise use, without the work of driving. 

The primary problem of public transportation in the United States is that we cling to a business model for it. People want buses and trains to turn a profit, or at least break even. They forget that the single most subsidized form of transportation in this country is the private automobile.*

The expectation of profit has left us with a few bus lines that provide skeletal service between Bangor and Portland, Bar Harbor and the Downeast coast, and Aroostook County. But there is no interconnected network, though the different bus lines do their best to co-ordinate schedules. It’s not unusual for people traveling by bus to be stranded in Bangor overnight.

Business, by and large, does well with concrete commodities created in competition. Build a better product; people buy it; the company profits; everybody makes money. But services – education, health care, police protection, public transportation – deal in a different coin. They work best when cooperative and connected.

Tax dollars spent on public transportation more than pay for themselves in the overall economy. Public transportation gets people to jobs and hobbies and medical appointments and vacations. We need more of it.

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* – There is a raft of literature on this. I have cited some of it in previous posts, and I don’t need to repeat the arguments here. Construction and maintenance of parking lots and parking spaces is just one example of welfare for cars. 

Recent Adventures in Public Transportation – 2

Hank Garfield

To get from Bangor to Rockland without a car, I use the Concord Coach bus, which leaves Bangor at 7:00 every morning. On weekdays, Bangor’s Community Connector bus gets me to the depot on Union Street in plenty of time for a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

I remember a time when coffee and doughnuts, along with orange juice and the Bangor Daily News, were available to bus passengers at no extra charge. Sadly, in part due to inane expectations that public transportation should somehow “pay for itself” (as if cars do), those small perks are no longer available. But there is a Dunkin’ Donuts within easy walking distance of the bus station, and on a recent morning after buying my ticket, I sallied forth.

The usual line of cars idled at the drive-thru. But the lobby was closed. A hastily scrawled sign apologized for the staffing shortage, assuring me that the drive-thru window and something called “on the go” were still available.

“What’s “on the go?” I asked the man in the car leaving the drive-thru

“It’s an app. You have to download it on your phone.”

“To get a cup of coffee?”

Now, I may not own a car, but I’m not a Luddite. I do own a smart phone, and it even has a few applications on it. (No one uses the full word, much as Dunkin’ Donuts has become simply “Dunkin’”.) But I had cash in my pocket and a bus to catch. In disgust, and with the faint beginnings of a caffeine withdrawal headache, I walked back to the depot.

What a sad commentary on these impersonal times in which we live. Service was available for cars and for cell phones, but not for human beings without a vehicle or the proper electronic accessory.

I don’t really have to point out a moral here, do I? Why not close the drive-thru when short of staff and require customers to use the lobby? It might take them a few more minutes, but so does walking or riding a bus to work, yet both are eminently more pleasurable that driving. And why are we all in such a hurry, anyway? Slow down and smell the coffee.

Recent Adventures in Public Transportation – 1

Hank Garfield

One of the nice things about a small-city bus service like Bangor’s Community Connector is that you get to know the drivers – if not by name, at least by face and personality. And they get to know you, and where you need to get to, and when.

Thus I found myself on a recent morning waiting for the Old Town bus on Exchange Street to take me to an appointment at the University of Maine. It’s not a regular stop; it’s one of those intersections where you can flag the bus down (a system soon to change). I had a bag of books and didn’t want to walk to the temporary depot by the pocket park near the Sea Dog restaurant. 

The Old Town bus is first to leave. (A detour during the month of August has made this temporarily untrue.) It usually turns onto Exchange Street and then turns right to go up State Street hill. It’s followed closely by the Mount Hope bus, which turns left on Broadway at the top of the hill, while my bus continues up State Street to Orono and Old Town.

On this day, for whatever reason, the first bus didn’t turn at Exchange Street. The Mount Hope bus did, though. I waved and the driver stopped. We recognized each other. “Is the Old Town bus behind you?” I asked him.

“Nope. That was him that just went by the other way.”

“That’s my bus.”

“Get on,” said the driver. “I’ll see if I can catch him.”

I boarded, and he called the Old Town bus. At the top of the hill, both buses waited as I crossed State Street from one bus to the other, and greeted another familiar driver. I don’t know either of their names and I doubt that they know mine, but through a series of light conversations and interactions over a span of time, we’ve come to sort of know one another.

The upshot of this escapade is that I made it to my appointment at the University on time after all, with help from two helpful bus drivers. I suppose designated stops will put an end to this sort of thing. The new system will surely be more efficient and reliable. But there’s something to be said for the neighborliness of our earnest bus system, which may have been what someone was thinking years ago when they changed the name from the BAT to the Community Connector. At first I didn’t like the new name, but I’ve changed my mind. It really does connect the community, in more ways than one.

They’re looking for drivers. Who knows? You could be the anonymous hero of some future blog post.