The Little Bus That Could

Acadia National Park recently received permission to raise its seven-day entry fee, in 2004, from $10 to as much as $20 – still a bargain. This will put Acadia in good company with $20 national parks such as Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion. By law, 100 percent of Acadia’s added money must go toward public transportation, in this case the Island Explorer propane bus serving the park and Mount Desert Island.

The park has shown excellent leadership in seeking this unusual form of funding, which helps move Acadia in the direction of financial self-sufficiency in an era when all national parks are experiencing enormous fiscal stress. (Acadia is 53 percent underfunded according to an analysis paid for by the National Parks Conservation Association and Friends of Acadia.) The fee increase should deliver more than a million new dollars to the Island Explorer each year. This will strengthen Acadia National Park as the annual producer of $130 million in goods and services in the region.

As big-city transit goes, the 17-bus Island Explorer system is modest, running for only two months a year, usually from late June to Labor Day (and through Columbus Day starting this fall). But in its 295 days of total operations (1999-2002), the Explorer has carried a whopping 856,000 passengers. An average day last summer saw 3,900 riders, the peak day 5,600. Often it’s standing room only. The Little Bus System That Could may be comparable, proportionately, to Bangor’s or Portland’s, according to the Maine Department of Transportation.

Whether they enter by foot, bicycle, private vehicle or Island Explorer, Acadia National Park visitors must have a pass. In 2002, visitor fees contributed $306,000 of the system’s $573,000 operational cost, and sales of park passes at the Bar Harbor Village Green doubled from the previous year. With the revised park fee in 2004, the Island Explorer will remain fare-box free but will receive much more funding.

The no-fare-box policy is a major draw for riders, and part of the hospitality quotient of MDI. It also minimizes transaction costs, keeps buses on schedule, and lets bus drivers concentrate on driving. Although details have not been worked out, the additional fee income will mean more buses, shorter waiting times, new fall service (to be initiated this year thanks to a $1-million L.L. Bean gift to Friends of Acadia), and cleaner air and less road congestion for all.

The major operational funders of the Explorer are park visitors (through fees), Friends of Acadia, L.L. Bean, the U.S. and Maine Departments of Transportation, local businesses and municipalities. In 2002 Bar Harbor contributed $30,000, Mount Desert $14,000, Southwest Harbor $10,000, Tremont $3,000, and Cranberry Isles and Trenton $1,000 apiece. The revised park fee will not eliminate the need for the towns’ financial involvement. As a matter of equity, they should always contribute, because their year-round and summer residents, including working commuters, constitute a fifth of the passenger load. Since 1999, this segment of the ridership, with year-rounders in the majority, has increased by 159 percent, to 59,000 passengers, compared to 100 percent for the general ridership. Moreover, the towns gain from public transit’s decongestion factor, avoid having to construct expensive parking facilities, and benefit from the spending patterns of 281,000 riders (2002) of the Explorer, an economic delivery device that injects business into the cores of small communities.

Friends of Acadia believes that the new entry fee can mean that annual bus payments from currently participating municipalities can remain at about present levels plus inflation, even as the system expands. In other words, the new fees can help prevent some property tax increases over time or at least limit their rise. For our financially burdened communities, this is an important policy implication of the bus funding structure.

Income from the new fee will also create more jobs at Downeast Transportation Inc., the Ellsworth-based nonprofit that operates the system. And the fee will be a factor in discussions about establishing the Island Explorer on a trial basis at the Schoodic section of Acadia National Park, to serve Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro.

Embedded in the new fee is a “polluter pays” philosophy. Every full Island Explorer propane bus represents 10 to 14 conventional vehicles removed from the road. The system has eliminated 316,000 automobile and RV trips since 1999, preventing 24 tons of smog-forming pollutants and immeasurable amounts of planet-warming gases. Because most Acadia visitors, we residents included, arrive by automobile, it is appropriate that all of us should underwrite emissions reductions that help purify the air.

The public transit landscape is littered with systems that survived the capital test (vehicles purchased and set in motion) but failed the operational test (vehicles kept in motion long-term). By contrast, the Island Explorer is on the road toward permanent solvency, courtesy of the L.L. Bean grant coupled with park entry fees that more closely reflect markets. This income stream will fortify the powerful little bus so it can contribute yet more to preserving Maine’s most visited natural destination, helping sustain Acadia National Park as a mighty economic generator for this state.

Ken Olson is president of Friends of Acadia, an independent philanthropy that has helped develop and fund the four-year old Island Explorer propane bus system.