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Air travel has largely rebounded since the COVID pandemic. The Portland International Jetport has seen passenger numbers steadily rise. For example, the number of travelers using the airport this holiday season is expected to be nearly 7 percent higher than last year. That growth is predicted to continue.
Because the jetport serves a huge swath of Maine, and some of New Hampshire, most of the airport’s travelers drive there. In addition, more people are taking longer trips and parking their vehicles at the airport for longer periods of time.
As a result of these factors, the jetport is increasingly short on parking spaces with some passengers surprised to belatedly learn that they must park at a satellite lot and take a shuttle to the airport.
To alleviate the parking problem, the jetport has long proposed to build more spaces over the coming years. The first phase calls for a new parking lot on land the airport owns on the access road to the terminal, near the Embassy Suites hotel. The new lot is part of a master plan for the jetport, which has been in place since 2018. The new lot, which would accommodate an additional 734 vehicles, is part of a larger plan to build more parking garages so that people can park within walking distance of the terminal.
The parking plan is about density — keeping the lots close to the terminal for traveler convenience and to minimize environmental impacts from sprawling parking areas that would require more shuttle buses, Airport Director Paul Bradbury told the Bangor Daily News editorial board.
Like so many other proposed projects in Maine, this one is now facing some local opposition.
Opponents, including the editorial board at the Portland Press Herald, argue that instead of a new parking lot, the airport should utilize unused spaces at the Maine Mall (which is not owned by the airport or the city of South Portland) and that travelers use public transportation and taxis to get to the jetport.
We, too, support increased use of public transit — as well as the building up of more and better public transportation options throughout the state. However, for many airport users, a bus is not a viable option.
The jetport, the state’s largest airport, serves all of Maine, not just Portland. Three-quarters of the jetport’s outbound passengers live outside of Cumberland County. Penobscot County accounts for more than 10 percent of the jetport’s passengers, the third highest by county. Some passengers who fly out of the jetport come from New Hampshire and Canada as well.
Those coming from Bethel, Old Town or Fort Kent, for example, can’t readily use a bus to get to the jetport. Nor do they want to park miles from the airport and take a shuttle to the terminal.
As this plan is considered and parking is in short supply at some times, it is incumbent upon the airport to find ways to alert passengers to the parking shortage well before they get to the terminal. Bradbury said additional signs near the interstate are in the works.
If you are flying out of the jetport and planning to park there, be sure to check the airport’s parking web pages to see what lots have availability.
As the project moves forward — likely, along with opposition to it — we’d remind policymakers that the jetport has a statewide role, in addition to a statewide impact to the tune of more than $1 billion a yea r. Many of its passengers from beyond Portland can’t hop on a bus to the airport. And if it becomes too inconvenient, expensive or unreliable to fly out of the jetport, they may keep on driving to another airport, which could be bad for the environment, and perhaps bad for Portland, and Maine, as well.