For nearly two years I’ve tracked local news stories about motor vehicle crashes in central Maine, logging more than 140 crashes, at least 37 of which were deadly. That’s nearly a crash per week and two deaths per month, and that’s only the crashes serious enough to make the news. This is just a snapshot of the human cost we pay to rely exclusively on highway travel to get around in central Maine.

And what about the taxpayer costs? MaineDOT recently rolled out a $4.74 billion, three-year work plan for all transportation in Maine, more than $3 billion of which is earmarked for highways and bridges alone.

This is necessary context for understanding the state House of Representatives’ failure to pass L.D. 860, a bill that would have authorized the Northern New England Passenger Rail authority to apply for federal funding to conduct a feasibility study for a passenger rail system connecting Portland with Lewiston, Auburn, Waterville and Bangor.

L.D. 860 would have cost just $20,000 of the state highway fund to cover consulting and preparation costs for the federal grant application. Compare $20,000 upfront to the possibility of securing between $375 million and $902 million in federal funds to support passenger rail connections in central Maine. That’s a risk of just $20,000 out of a $4.74 billion transportation work plan, a pebble’s worth in an ocean of transportation spending.

Virtually all of the municipal officials, legislators and economic development groups in the cities along the corridor pertaining to L.D. 860 supported the bill.

Among the representatives who spoke against the bill were Rep. James White, of Guilford, who represents an area that lies considerably outside the corridor, and Rep. Dan Ankeles, of Brunswick, who represents an area that’s already conveniently connected by passenger rail. Apparently, Maine’s coastal cities deserve passenger rail and central Maine cities do not.

The rationale among those such as Reps. White and Ankeles is that there aren’t enough people, nor enough demand, for passenger rail in central Maine. Rep. White’s claim is easily disprovable. According to 2022 American Community Survey data, the total population of Portland and Brunswick is 89,791, significantly less than the total population — 109,105 — of the cities named along the corridor that L.D. 860 referenced, Lewiston, Auburn, Waterville and Bangor.

Rep. Ankeles’ claim that there isn’t enough demand in central Maine for passenger rail transportation is condescending and misleading.

A recent feasibility study by Cambridge Systematics found “demonstrated and growing demand” for public transportation between Portland and Lewiston-Auburn, resulting in a MaineDOT pilot bus service between these two cities that might serve as an indicator of “latent demand and potential market for enhanced public transportation between the Portland and Lewiston-Auburn regions,” regions with fewer people than the combined population of the L.D. 860 corridor. To study latent demand for intercity bus service, MaineDOT looked at a combination of census data and StreetLight data (tracking peak weekday morning travel by car commuters), finding 1,606 southbound trips and 1,537 northbound trips each weekday between Portland and Lewiston-Auburn.

A 2018 MaineDOT and Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority study for the same intercity route found a ridership demand for between 700 and 1,900 daily trips by 2040. These figures aren’t directly comparable to the intercity bus figures — they represent different timeframes, and the bus study surveyed peak commuting hours while the train study did not — but nevertheless reflect similar ballpark demand for intercity public transportation options.

The question is: Why is MaineDOT willing to move forward with an intercity bus pilot program to meet and demonstrate latent demand, but blocking any further study to demonstrate latent demand for passenger rail?

MaineDOT and allies in the house who opposed L.D. 860 — despite officials and community members in cities it impacts being strongly in favor of it — are telling us we don’t have the evidence to move forward while blocking the only way we can get that evidence. It’s like saying you’ll stop sterilizing your chickens once they start producing eggs. The pilot intercity bus program shows willingness to discover and address latent demand for intercity public transportation, just not for rail and not for the people of central Maine.

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