AECOM chosen to guide regional Transit Tomorrow project
Photo / Tom Bell, GPCOG
Claudette Dupee, president of York County Community Action, at the March 7 Transit Tomorrow launch in Portland. The agency is one of seven collaborating on the effort.
Engineering firm AECOM, with offices in Portland, will help a group of seven Portland-area transit agencies put together the Transit Tomorrow project.
AECOM, which was chosen through a competitive bid process, will provide technical expertise, synthesize public input and produce a final plan over the next 18 months. The firm has offices at 2 City Center in Portland.
AECOM, based in Long Beach, Calif., was one of three bidders for the work, and will be paid $200,000.
Transit Tomorrow, a regional planning initiative that will guide investments in public transportation for the next 30 years, was launched March 7.
The effort is aimed at finding ways to prioritize transit needs as use of public transportation grows in Maine. While national use was down 2.9% nationally in 2016-17, it was up 6.4% among southern Maine’s seven transit agencies, according to GPCOG figures. There were 4,298,983 trips on public transportation among the agencies in 2017, as compared to 3,785,026 in 2013.
Members include GPCOG; Greater Portland Transit/ Metro; Biddeford, Saco, Old Orchard Beach Transit Committee, which operates Shuttlebus-Zoom; Casco Bay Island Transit District, which operates the Casco Bay Lines ferry service; Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, which operates Amtrak’s Downeaster; Regional Transportation Program; South Portland’s city bus service; York County Community Action.
"Transit Tomorrow will build a shared vision for the region’s public transportation network of buses, trains and ferries and lay out an investment plan for how to improve and expand our network over the next 30 years,” said Kristina Egan, executive director of GPCOG in a news release.
She said that investments in transit will be prioritized to “help workers, students, seniors and others get to where they need to go.”
“Knowing our priorities will position the region to access more federal dollars for improving and expanding transit,” she said. “To make transit work economically, we’ll focus on building better connections between our job and housing hubs. Better connections will encourage more growth in those areas.
“To keep up with technology, we’ll look at emerging technology, such as autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, and shared mobility services (like Uber and Lyft), and find ways to leverage these emerging opportunities.”
She said better serving rural communities, seniors and those with disabilities will also be a focus.
Egan said the process is open to everyone, and will be guided by an advisory committee composed of the leaders of transit agencies, municipalities and stakeholders, including social services, housing agencies, transit riders and the development community.
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