Brief Summary
September 11 Island Explorer/ANP Transportation Meeting

       -- Bill Zoellick, 17 September 2003

Highlights from Presentations

·         Management goals that are yet to be met:

o        provide a new gateway and welcome center

o        limit parking to capacity of existing lots within ANP

o        implement a parkwide visitor strategy for MDI

·         The Island Explorer is not a “nice to have” for ANP, but is viewed as critical to continued operation, given visitor demand for access

·         ANP is viewed as critical to the entire Maine economy

·         Island Explorer Use:

·         Currently 17 buses working 8 routes, including Schoodic

·         The focus has been on overnight visitors, not on day visitors

·         Increases in bus capacity (more buses, more routes) have resulted in immediate increases in use by visitors

·         Funding is from towns on MDI, from State and Federal government, from FOA, and from L.L. Bean and other private donors

·         There is not yet enough funding to do meet current plan objectives

·         Light rail and/or other non-highway improvements to the Route 1A-Route 3 corridor are a decade into the future

Analysis and Possible Conclusions Regarding Schoodic

·         Motivations and objectives differ for MDI and Schoodic (critical and immediate need vs. desire for orderly growth)

·         If use of Schoodic route continues to be light, there will be pressure to reallocate limited resources to where they will produce a more immediate return,  (Perhaps not next year, but following year?)

·         The bus is possibly critical to growth of inbound ferry use.  It is less clear that it is critical for visitors staying or living on the Schoodic peninsula.

·         Local support, in the form of increasing awareness of the bus and promoting bus use, might help in increasing use by visitors.