Greater Portland Metro is changing its routes to improve service between downtown Portland, the airport and The Maine Mall.
The changes, which were implemented last week, are designed to make bus service from downtown to the mall faster and make service to and from the airport more reliable and plentiful, according to Mike Tremblay, director of transit development.
Route 7, which used to run from Falmouth to downtown Portland, now runs to the airport.
Route 5 now bypasses a stop at the airport on its way between downtown Portland and Maine Mall. Without that detour, Tremblay said, the route is now more efficient, shaving five to eight minutes off.
“Sometimes we would make that detour and we wouldn’t catch anyone either,” Tremblay said.
“What this does is now those riders don’t have to worry about making those detours — they can just go straight to the mall,” said Andrew Clark, transit program manager for the Greater Portland Council of Governments.
The council conducted a study in 2022 called “Transit Together,” which recommended ways the Portland area’s seven major transportation agencies could be more connected. Their results partly informed Metro’s route changes, Clark said.
Now that Route 7 reaches the airport, ground transportation to and from the airport is more frequent and consistent. Only a fraction of trips on the old Route 5 stopped at the airport each day, Tremblay said.
“(A) goal with the service change…was to provide a consistent level of service to the airport so that every trip on a given route goes to the airport every day and doesn’t have to look at the schedule. and that’s what we did with Route 7,” he said.
He said these changes will benefit all Metro passengers, not just those going to the airport.
“There’s more service along Congress Street,” he said. “If your primary focus is to go, say, from Maine (Medical Center) to Washington (Avenue), that’s another option that didn’t exist before. “So even if you don’t go to Falmouth or the airport, it becomes an option for more people.”
For Gabriella Guardado, 50, an airport employee who uses the bus to travel every day, Route 7 is much more reliable.
“Now that Route 7 comes to the airport every hour on the hour, it’s totally convenient,” Guardado said Monday from his seat on the bus returning from work. “It really helps me with my work schedule. I feel more at ease now. If I have to stay overnight, I don’t have to wait or walk outside the airport to catch the bus.”
Service to and from the airport now also begins about 30 minutes earlier and later in the day than Route 5 on weekdays. Route 7’s first arrival at the airport is at 5:40 a.m. and its last departure is at 9:50 p.m.
Airport director Paul Bradbury said the new schedule would help many, but not all, passengers.
It offers “hourly connectivity, which is significantly better than the select trips we had on Route 5,” Bradbury said. “That being said… we have passengers that start arriving at almost 4am, or even a little earlier for that first departure, which can be as early as 5:15. And then the incoming arrivals – those last terminators arrive until midnight if it’s a regular operation, so it’s still a challenge.”
Bradbury said he doesn’t expect the route changes to reduce demand for long-term jetport parking, which is increasingly scarce.
“We don’t believe long-term parking is generally within the Greater Portland metropolitan area,” Bradbury said. “Where we serve is the entire state of Maine and Canada and northern and western New Hampshire, and there just isn’t public transportation to capture all of that impact.”
Bradbury believes the route changes can reduce the number of vehicles passing through.
“Many people allow a friend or neighbor to drop them off. Maybe they’ll opt to take the bus now, right? Because it will reduce the number of trips to the airport, it will reduce ground transportation and congestion.”
The changes, which are funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, are part of a series of efforts by Metro to return ridership to 2019 levels.
In May, Metro had about 164,000 passengers, significantly more than the 149,000 passengers it had in May 2023, but still below the 186,000 it had in May 2019, according to data provided by Tremblay.
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