Concord Coach bus line suspends all Maine service
File Photo
Concord Coach Lines, including this bus at the Portland Transportation Center last year, will stop service indefinitely beginning Saturday.
Concord Coach Lines, which provides intercity bus service between Boston and over a dozen Maine communities, will suspend operations Saturday because of concerns about the spread of COVID-19.
Buses will not run and terminals will be closed until further notice, the company said Wednesday, the same day New Hampshire health officials warned that a person with the illness rode on Concord Coach four times in the past two weeks.
Express service to New York City will also be suspended.
The unidentified passenger traveled on early-morning trips from Concord, N.H., to Logan International Airport in Boston on March 11 and March 14, and on afternoon return trips March 13 and March 16, according to a notice from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services.
“We have made this decision [to suspend service] with the health and safety of our employees, our passengers, and our communities in mind,” Concord Coach said on its website. “This is a difficult time for all of us.”
The company, based in Concord, N.H., dates to 1967 and began serving Portland in 1992. Concord has added other Maine stops over the years, and now carries over 600,000 passengers in the state annually.
But even before Wednesday’s suspension, the company had curtailed service, as New Englanders reduced travel in reaction to the coronavirus outbreak.
A new bus schedule introduced Sunday consists of just eight round trips between Boston and Portland, with only one continuing to Auburn, Augusta and Bangor. Concord Coach usually makes nearly 30 round trips a day with as many as 17 stops, including ones in Belfast, Rockland and Waterville.
Concord will continue the limited service through Friday before shutting down the next day. Service in New Hampshire, which also had been curtailed, will also stop.
The only other intercity bus carrier serving Maine, Greyhound Lines, continues to make 10 stops in southern and central parts of the state and has announced no service changes. But last Friday, in response to the pandemic, Greyhound said it will exchange passengers’ tickets on upcoming trips for ones later in the year, at no charge.
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