PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 23, 2025
Another summer with more big traffic jams on the way to Mount Desert Island, Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. The breathtaking air and scenery of MDI seems worth it. MaineDOT is clearly out of ideas, but there’s another one we haven’t properly considered: passenger trains with full-size buses. In the 19th century, visitors reached Maine’s coast by train or boat. Then came the great automobile romance and demise of passenger trains. If trains stopped in Bangor, it’s a 40-minute bus ride to Bar Harbor. Yet MaineDOT and the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority that runs the Downeaster insist new riders would be minimal and necessary investments would be pointless. Worldwide, train travel is booming. A new study determined 260,000 passengers would ride trains to Bangor yearly. ~ Douglas Rooks