Island Explorer, the free bus system that carries people into and around Acadia National Park, has just finished its third year as a roaring success. It carried 239,971 passengers this past summer – 25 percent above last year. Its

17 propane-fueled buses running on seven

different routes reduce traffic congestion in the park, cut back air pollution, help towns and villages in the area deal with their traffic problems, and provide a

welcome service to people who would rather ride than drive.

But wait a minute. Warm weather is still with us and visitors are still crowding into the park, but the service closed down after

the Labor Day weekend. Even during the

season, the buses sometimes were overloaded. And, while the buses served people staying at campgrounds, inns and hotels, why isn’t there a place where people who drive down for the day from Bangor or Ellsworth can leave their cars and take the bus?

Tom Crikelair, who started the free shuttle service as an offshoot of the Downeast Transportation system and remains its planner, knows that it needs to expand. He says it should run the buses on into the fall, to serve the September crowd and the October “leaf peepers.” He says it could use eight more buses right now, and more in the future. It needs a lot more. Its headquarters is a van, its car barn is an open field at the back of Carroll’s Supermarket in Trenton, and its recent staff meeting was on the asphalt in the shade of a bus. It needs a big administrative center and parking lot, probably in Trenton, where visitors could leave their cars and catch the buses.

Expansion will be costly. Members of the partnership that now supports the park bus system – the park, the local towns, local businesses, Friends of Acadia, the Maine Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Department of Transportation – can hardly be expected to do a lot more.

One proposal is for a special transit fee that would be added to the present park entry fee in the summer season. A pending bill in Congress would provide finds for capital expenditures but includes nothing for operations. Perhaps more promising is a

current search for some private entity with vision and a love for Maine’s natural wonders to come forward to help finance the necessary expansion.

Whoever pays for it, there can be no doubt that the already successful Island Explorer system must have additional funding to meet the increasing need.