Tom Walsh starts work before he gets to work.
Walsh works as a science writer at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor and commutes 80 miles round-trip every day from his home in Gouldsboro. But like a growing number of Jackson Laboratory employees, he takes advantage of a bus service subsidized by the laboratory, leaving his hands free for the long commute.
“I just bring my laptop with me,” Walsh said.
Walsh first learned about the bus service while writing a story about the laboratory for the Ellsworth American, and it was one of the reasons he applied for the science-writing job.
The bus service sells subscriptions for regular riders, but Walsh is on the subscription waiting list, and pays a per diem fee that totals $25 a week. When he finally lands a subscription, that fee will go down to $17.50, but he currently has no complaints.
“I would be willing to pay $10 a day,” he said.
The Downeast area is experiencing a bus boom, driven largely by the need to bus employees and tourists around Mount Desert Island. The Jackson Laboratory recently expanded its bus service through Downeast Transportation from three to seven buses, with bus routes running as far as Cherryfield and Bangor; the buses are either full or almost full.
For the past 10 years, the Island Explorer bus line, also run by Downeast Transportation and underwritten by Acadia National Park and L.L. Bean, has seen a steady increase in tourist and seasonal employee traffic, including a 14 percent increase in ridership last year. It carried about 4,400 people a day in 2007 from June 23 through Columbus Day, saving untold tons of carbon emissions and taking thousands of cars off the roads.
It’s been quite a turnaround for a region that, until recently, had few real bus options. Before the two bus lines flourished, the only daily bus service offered between Ellsworth and MDI wasn’t long enough to accommodate a normal workday, being built around a short school day for the mentally handicapped. Paul Murphy, director of Downeast Transportation, said the company’s bus runs were underwritten by social service organizations, but the demographics were shifting and ridership was decreasing.
“That service, we saw, was dying on the vine,” Murphy said.
As the traditional bus service was dying, the Island Explorer and Jackson Laboratory bus lines grew stronger. The two new bus services had the right mix for transit success: there was both a clear need and anchoring organizations able to underwrite costs.
In the case of Jackson Laboratory, the laboratory needed a workforce. One of the biggest employers in the state, it has been continually expanding.
“They exhausted the available workforce” on MDI, says Murphy.
According to Joyce Peterson, Jackson Laboratory’s communications manager, the laboratory pulls in workers from 72 different zip codes in 10 different counties. In a region with few jobs that provide health benefits and strong pay, Jackson Laboratory was a favorite employer. But even the pull of a good job wouldn’t have been enough for employees like Walsh to choose to commute.
“There was no way I was going to be driving 80 miles a day,” Walsh said.
The laboratory provides $50,000 in subsidies, making it more affordable to riders. Also, while most employees must either struggle through to get to work during snow emergencies, make up the work time, or take vacation time, Jackson Laboratory policy states that carpoolers and bus riders can stay home without penalty.
According to Tom Crikelair, a transit consultant who helped design both the Jackson Laboratory and Island Explorer bus lines, the expansion was popular before the summer spike in gas prices, but the current economic climate makes the move seem like genius. “It’s a great bonus for people who work at the lab,” Crikelair said.
The Island Explorer is funded by similar subsidies provided by Acadia National Park and L.L Bean, said Crikelair. The park service needed the bus line because of clogged trailhead parking and a mandate to reduce greenhouse emissions, while management at L.L. Bean wanted to increase its commitment to environmental stewardship. Parking is less of an issue on the island now, and local hospitality providers are seeing increased visits from carless travelers. The Island Explorer system benefits from access to cash collected from visitor entrance fees, keeping the bus fare-free.
Similar success stories have been happening in other Maine locations with seasonal economies, including two ski resorts and a stretch of southern Maine between Wells and Kennebunkport, according to Barbara Donovan, Maine’s transit project manager. These bus systems are vital for ferrying employees, including carless international workers, from workforce housing to their tourist jobs. While each system is different, Donovan said, they all have a common denominator: a motivated employer or organization that is willing to underwrite some of the costs.
“There seems to be a need for a champion,” Donovan said.
Funding for road construction is built into gasoline taxes, but there is nothing similar to fund public transportation, said Crikelair. Most transit systems receive about half of their funding from the federal government. In many states, much of the rest of the money comes from state funding. But Maine has one of the lowest transit funding levels in the country, he said, usually only accounting for 25 percent. The rest must come from local sources, usually employers like Jackson Laboratory.
Unfortunately, said Crikelair, there aren’t that many large employers in the state, and smaller employers are reluctant to band together to create the capital needed for a bus line.
That may change in the future, said Janet Wyper, L.L. Bean’s community relations manager. Businesses need to find ways to make the shopping experience more affordable for customers, given the high cost of gas, she said.
“You will see more businesses look at ways to move people in the state,” she said.
When employers won’t fund the buses, Crikelair has found that communities can through a local sales tax. He stressed that communities are going to need to get creative about funding bus services in order to survive in the post-peak oil era.
“If people want a service, they’re going to have to figure out a way to pay for it because it’s not going to fall down from the sky,” he said.