Title

A history of Portland's 25-year-old Metro bus system, which is taking initiative

Authors

Sarah Goodyear

Source

Casco Bay Weekly

Date

7-23-1998

Pages

10-11, 14-15

Abstract

A history of Portland's 25-year-old Metro bus system, which is taking initiatives to increase ridership, such as the Zip bus which last year shuttled 28,000 commuters from the Park & Ride lot off Marginal Way to the downtown. In 1996, when a program started to get students to use bus, 6,800 Portland and Westbrook students took advantage of the discount fare. Metro has information cards detailing bus routes to everything from cultural destinations to Portland Trails, but officials admit that it is an uphill battle to wean people from their cars, and that the battle is won one person at a time. Metro is trying to overcome the image of bus riders as "transit-dependent", elderly, or poor, and to educate people to use the bus, since an adequate level of service requires a healthy ridership. With details on the South Portland bus system and the Zoom shuttlebus between Biddeford and Portland, which is 80 percent funded by a federal grant, with additonal money coming from the Maine Turnpike Authority.

Subjects

Buses

https://digitalcommons.portlandlibrary.com/cbw_1998/31/

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