Transportation officials release 30-year transit plan for Portland region
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Last fall, two new buses were added to Biddeford Saco Old Orchard Beach Transit's ZOOM Express service, to meet growing passenger demand to and from Portland.
Transportation officials throughout the Portland region are unveiling a first-ever strategic plan to expand and enhance its public transit system.
The Transit Tomorrow plan, developed through the Greater Portland Council of Governments, maps out ways to create more frequent transit connections, improve rapid transit and work with communities to help more people walk and bike, according to a news release Wednesday.
The public transportation system in the Portland area is currently a patchwork of local and express bus services, as well as the Casco Bay Lines ferry service and Amtrak Downeaster train service.
Transit Tomorrow, developed from two years of planning with residents, businesses and other stakeholders, identifies a region-wide approach to meeting current and future demands over the next 30 years.
For example, the plan calls for expanding service hours on existing routes from 6 a.m. to midnight seven days a week, and adding new high-frequency downtown circulator routes throughout the region.
Other recommendations include the development of commuter rail or bus rapid transit in key regional corridors to provide high-speed travel between Saco-Biddeford and Brunswick, South Portland to Gorham, and Portland to Windham.
"Transit Tomorrow provides the best roadmap I have seen for how to improve our bus, train and ferry services sustainably and to the economic benefit of the Portland region,” said Jeff Levine, who has served on the Greater Portland Transit District's Board of Directors since 2014. He is the former director of planning and urban development for the city of Portland and currently a lecturer on economic planning and development for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
To see the complete plan, click here.
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Interesting. In a world where transit ridership has been plummeting for 75 years, these people have come up with a 30-year plan to make more empty buses and trains available to growing legions of people who don’t want them. Only government would come up with ideas like that.
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