Multiple times each week, Kevin Coughlin walks an hour and a half back from his job as a line cook and dishwasher at a Stillwater Avenue restaurant to the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter.
Often soaked from washing dishes, Coughlin, 26, trudges through the freezing weather for 3 miles, on routes that don’t always have sidewalks.
This is Coughlin’s only option because the Community Connector, the Bangor area’s regional bus service, has long stopped running by the time his shift ends between 11 p.m. and midnight.
Coughlin has remained sober for six months after grappling with substance use disorder for 10 years. Today, he’s living at the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter and working two jobs to save his money to get his own apartment. Eventually, he wants to become a substance use counselor.
“I’m trying to keep myself on the right track because if I keep working, good things will happen,” Coughlin said. “I can’t sit around and wait for something to fall into my lap. It’ll never come if I do that.”
Coughlin is one of the many Bangor area residents who are left with limited public transportation options, which is just one of many challenges the city’s most vulnerable residents face when working to save money for permanent housing.
And while the bus system has wanted to expand its hours since 2015, a series of obstacles stands in its way.
The Community Connector has 10 different routes serving Bangor, Brewer, Orono, Hampden, Old Town, Veazie and the University of Maine, and runs from about 6:15 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The bus reinstated Saturday service in June 2023, but still does not offer service on Sunday.
That leaves people who work late hours in restaurants and stores out of luck.
Boyd Kronholm, director of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, said it’s not uncommon for guests to not be able to take the bus to their job due to its limited hours.
Some guests get hired for jobs that have overnight hours when public transportation isn’t an option. Others have gotten jobs based outside of where the bus route serves and must walk the remainder of the way.
“Even if the bus is running, it’s really hard for anyone who has medical appointments, work or an appointment to get a voucher to get anywhere because there’s a large percentage of the greater Bangor area that the bus doesn’t cover,” Coughlin said.
While some people take Ubers or taxis to and from work, that can use all of the money they’ve made that day, Kronholm said. This makes it impossible to save money for housing or other necessities.
Coughlin has looked into taking an Uber from work or purchasing a bicycle, but both were too expensive. He has never asked a coworker for a ride home because, “Nobody has ever given me any favors and I don’t expect them to.”
Laurie Linscott, Bangor bus superintendent, said she began looking into expanding the bus’ hours in 2015, but found every bus in the fleet needed to be replaced first.
Linscott was able to get new buses by 2020 using multiple grants, but then a shortage of drivers stood in the way of expanding the bus’ operating hours. Around the same time, the process through which someone earns their commercial driving license changed entirely.
When Linscott joined the Community Connector in 1999, she earned her commercial drivers license by reading the book from DMV, taking a paper test, practicing driving and then taking a driving test.
Today, students need to find a commercial driving course with a certified instructor, then undergo 43 hours of classroom instruction. Students then take a written test after completing 48 hours of driving practice.
If they pass that test, they are added to a state database and then need to learn the state commercial driving book before applying to take a state test on the computer.
If they pass the digital test, students then take a road test at the Bangor Department of Motor Vehicles, Linscott said.
The process can take students about three to four months to obtain a commercial drivers license.
“Years ago, it was so much easier, but now there are state requirements, federal requirements, and it’s very time consuming,” Linscott said. “It’s hard to have a full time job and take this class, then get all of your driving hours.”
To further complicate things, there aren’t many schools in the area offering the training, Linscott said. In the Bangor region, Northeast Technical Institute seems to be the only option.
But, just as earning a commercial license has become an arduous process, so has becoming a certified instructor.
Anyone looking to become an instructor needs to have six to 10 years of experience in the industry. They then must earn a certification from a 40-hour class, get a letter from their employer, have CPR and first aid training, and get fingerprinted, all before they can take a final test, Linscott said.
“I can’t have longer hours right now because I don’t have the staff, and I don’t know where the staff will come from unless I teach them myself,” Linscott said.
The Bangor Area Comprehensive Transportation System, a local nonprofit aimed at improving regional transportation, is planning to conduct a study in partnership with the Community Connector to see if and how the bus’ hours should expand.
The study hopes to reveal which routes should have longer hours, what the hours should be, how much it would cost and how ridership could increase, according to Madeline Jensen, the system’s planner.
The nonprofit hopes to complete the study by the end of 2025.