If They Build It, Will They Park?
Acadia National Park Visitor Center on Route 3 Rises
TRENTON—A $27.7 million regional transportation hub and visitor information center for all of Maine is framed up and getting closer to reality after decades of planning and funding.
The Acadia Gateway Center on Route 3’s west side is well into its second phase and meant to be completed in 2025. The first phase, which created the park and ride lot, office space, and the Downeast Transportation maintenance facility, was completed in 2012. Maine DOT awarded Nickerson & O'Day of Brewer the contract. Construction started in early May. The project is scheduled to be finished by May 2025.
During its budget workshop last Thursday, the Bar harbor Town Council briefly mentioned the Acadia Gateway Center, which will also house state tourism information. One councilor wondered if it would end up bringing more visitation to Acadia and the region rather than help with traffic congestion in the park and Mount Desert Island. That discussion quickly dead-ended and went back to the town’s budget.
The plan is part of the park’s 2019 “Final Transportation Plan.”
THE CENTER, BAR HARBOR, AND PARK’S IMPACT
Friends of Acadia describes the center “as a location where visitors can access park information, purchase park entrance passes, and leave their cars while riding the Island Explorer to the park and surrounding towns. The site also includes a year-round park-and-ride facility, as well as the maintenance center and offices for Downeast Transportation, the operator of the Island Explorer.”
The nonprofit first purchased the land in 2007 and contributed financially to create Downeast Transportation’s maintenance hub. It sold the land to Maine DOT. It also contributed $1 million to construct the hub and visitor center.
According to Friends of Acadia, “The center will also incorporate several sustainability features, including a geothermal heating and cooling system, a rooftop solar panel array, and electric vehicle charging stations.”
There are almost four million annual visits to Acadia. Acadia was the fifth-most visited national park in 2022.
Friends of Acadia said last year, “With its small footprint, particularly compared to National Parks with similar visitation numbers, traffic and parking in and around the park are a challenge.”
"National Parks are a popular destination for travelers, and as one of the most visited, Acadia is a major draw for travel to Maine," said Steve Lyons, Director of the Maine Office of Tourism. "The new transportation hub in Trenton will improve the visitor experience with expanded park access and information about regional and statewide attractions."
A Maine Office of Tourism report says that Downeast Maine visitors (including Acadia) impacted the economy by $1.5 billion last year. The state benefits from that income by collecting taxes on various items, which is then redistributed throughout the state.
For Bar Harbor, that means that approximately 5,000 residents and businesses support a tourism industry that currently requires a full fire department and police department and additional infrastructure for hotels and roads and waterfront through property taxes. Cruise ship fees and parking fees have helped defray some of those costs. Cruise ship fees can only be used for costs that can potentially benefit cruise ship passengers. Parking fees, thanks to a recent change in Maine rules, can now be used for more than just direct parking expenses. Each year, when the town is determining its budget, this tension between costs and services is explored. The Town Council expects to begin work on sustainable tourism this spring.
Bar Harbor in 2021 generated $236 million in restaurant and lodging sales tax revenue for Maine, but less than 1% of that comes back to the town from the state’s coffers.
“In this current fiscal year, we budgeted $616,600 for state aid for our schools and $350,000 of revenue sharing for municipal services. That’s $966,600,” former Town Manager Kevin Sutherland told The Bar Harbor Story in December 2022. “Less than one percent. Less than half of one percent is coming back to the community in which it was generated.”
Local towns cannot currently have local option taxes to help support the costs of infrastructure (roads, fire, ambulance, police needs and so on) for those visitors. Legislative efforts to do so have failed for decades. There has been talk in the Bar Harbor Town Council to continue to advocate for those changes.
Approximately 27 states have local options sales tax. In some states there are also regional special districts which collect a local tax for one specific purpose. Helping to fund a town program or build a marina would be examples of a specific purpose.
CENTER’S PURPOSE
At the new center, visitors can plan trips and hop on the Island Explorer, which many hope will help alleviate traffic congestion in the park and throughout Mount Desert Island. Since it began in 1999, the Island Explorer has served 8 million.
In the meantime, Acadia National Park’s Hulls Cove Visitor Center may be renamed the George Mitchell Visitor Center. That federal bill is pending. The site in Trenton positions the center in Trenton between Ellsworth and Mount Desert Island.
"The Town of Trenton is pleased to see the completion of this project," said Fred Ehrlenbach, first selectman for the Town of Trenton, earlier this year. "The permitting of the Acadia Gateway Center and the Downeast Transportation facility is the result of collaboration between MaineDOT and the town. Hopefully, the visitors and locals alike will take advantage of this free transportation service."
According to Friends of Acadia, “other partners include the National Park Service, U.S. and Maine Departments of Transportation, Maine Office of Tourism, Maine Tourism Association, Efficiency Maine, and more.”
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
https://friendsofacadia.org/our-impact/acadia-experience/acadia-gateway-center/
https://friendsofacadia.org/announcement/construction-begins-acadia-gateway-center/
https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/town-manager-delves-into-potential
The way some of our visitors drive and park, it is a good opportunity to administer a driving test to all that want to visit. It would have simple questions, such as ; Are you the only car on the road? Is it acceptable to do a 3 point turn in the middle of town? Etcetera. If they do not pass, they will be instructed to park and take the bus.
The answer to the question, "If They Build It Will They Park?" has been asked by a thousand communities across the nation and across the world and the answer has always been the same. Yes, they will come and come and come and come and so we will have to build and build and build and build so they can park and park and park and park. And before ya know it there's nothing left worth coming to because all you've got is endless traffic jams and overcrowded parking lots!
The answer to controlling the run away congestion that is destroying Acadia National Park is Not to build more parking lots. As a famous conservationist one remarked, "The job is not one of building highways into lovely areas, the job is one of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind." Years ago while driving from San Francisco to Boston on the Trans Canada Highway I heard a radio interview discussing what I thought would be the correct solution to the overcrowding of national parks in both the USA and Canada. The speaker suggested that since many, if not most, visitors to national parks were simply trying to escape the hideous cities where they lived and needed little more than a spot to park their RV or pitch their tent, cities should construct large parking lots and camp grounds just beyond the city limits and close the national parks to all but those with an authentic interest in nature and wildlife.
Sounds like a good idea to me, now if only we can convince the major cities we'll be all set!
In the meantime building parking lots locally will not only not solve the overcrowding problem it will make it worse. And I can't help but wonder how much enthusiasm FOA would have for building parking lots if the proposal was to build them in Northeast Harbor or Seal Harbor?