AUBURN — Work on a bus station near the Maine Turnpike should bring Concord Coach Lines bus service to the Twin Cities by next fall.
Crews should begin building a bus station next to Auburn’s park-and-ride lot at Exit 75 on the turnpike this month. When it’s done next summer, it will be the center for Concord Coachlines’ bus service in the Twin Cities.
“This will be a full-blown, intercity bus station very similar to the station they have in Augusta and in Portland,” Sue Moreau of the Maine Department of Transportation said. “It will have a ticket counter, a waiting area, restrooms and then 100 spaces of free parking.”
The station isn’t meant to replace Auburn’s new Great Falls Plaza Transportation Center, Moreau said. The downtown bus station is scheduled to open next week. A grand opening ceremony for the Great Falls Plaza station is scheduled at 3 p.m. Oct. 20.
“We are not duplicating services because they have very different purposes,” Moreau said. “The one downtown is for local service, with Citylink (the Lewiston-Auburn public bus service). The new station has a different purpose: Intercity transit.”
Concord’s service to Lewiston-Auburn should begin after the station is finished, likely next fall, she said.
Ken Hunter, vice president of Concord Coach Lines, said his company plans to start regular service between Lewiston-Auburn and Portland — between three and five trips daily.
“The schedule’s not set yet,” Hunter said. “We have not even begun, so you can’t hold me to a number yet, but that’s what we’re thinking.”
Plans have the bus service starting at Bates College in Lewiston, stopping at Auburn’s Great Falls Plaza transportation center and continuing south to the Exit 75 station and continuing on Interstate 95 to Portland. From Portland, Concord Coach Lines offers service to Boston’s Logan Airport and the South Station Bus Terminal and to New York City.
“Our plan originally would have the route start at Bates College and work through the Auburn area and then come down to Portland,” Hunter said.
Concord offers regular service from Portland north to Brunswick, Augusta and Bangor with stops along the way, including Rockport and Belfast.
“This thing has been cooking for awhile,” Moreau said. “We identified this as a corridor that needed regularly scheduled intercity transportation back in 2011 and we began soliciting letters for someone to start the service in 2013.”
The state has budgeted $850,000 to build the Exit 75 bus station. It will be owned by the state and leased to Concord Coach Lines, Moreau said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.