BRUNSWICK

Bowdoin College students and Brunswick residents alike have had a shared problem — a lack of public transportation options.

To help meet that need, the Metro BREEZ bus service expanded its express bus service from Portland to Brunswick in late August 2017. Since then, ridership has surpassed expectations.

Greater Portland Transit District Metro launched Metro BREEZ in June 2016 as part of a three-year pilot project, with stops in Freeport and Yarmouth, terminating in Portland. Brunswick joined the program in its second year.

BREEZ averaged 2,200 boardings a month when the expansion began in late August, and ridership spiked dramatically the following month and kept increasing. By October, there were 5,715 boardings.

Denise Beck, Metro’s marketing director, said prior to the Brunswick expansion, weekday ridership averaged 80-100 daily trips. After the Brunswick launch, daily trips rose to 150-plus, with some days seeing more than 200. Saturday trips grew from 50 to 100.

Metro BREEZ offers 14 daily weekday round trips and six on Saturday.

Of the BREEZ’s 13 stops, Brunswick Station has the second highest number of passengers boarding and departing, behind the Portland terminus. Other popular stops include Brunswick’s Maine Street and the L.L. Bean flagship store stop in Freeport.

Metro will host public meetings in all the communities it serves this spring, where it will encourage use of an online survey to help determine why people are riding.

“I can tell you that we know our ridership is students and we know that during the cruise ship season a lot of passengers went to Freeport,” Beck said.

Bowdoin College students — who can purchase tickets in Smith Union — benefit from the BREEZ, thanks to a stop near Pickard Theater. The college has kicked in $20,000 toward two years of BREEZ service.

According to the college’s office of the treasurer, 91 10- ride passes and 600 single ride tickets were sold on campus — the equivalent of 1,510 tickets.

Bowdoin College Treasurer Matt Orlando said with ridership doubling last fall, “we’re really, really pleased with the results and to be part of supporting the BREEZ program.”

He estimated a handful of staff and faculty routinely take the BREEZ to and from Portland; students performing volunteer work in Portland also use the service.

Michelle Veras is a sophomore at Bowdoin College and was taking the 1 p.m. Metro BREEZ to catch a Greyhound bus home to New Jersey. The $3 fare is affordable, especially compared to a $60 taxi ride to Portland.

Without a car on campus, Veras took the bus last semester to Freeport for shopping. She occasionally takes it to Portland with fellow students to hang out in the city or visit the Old Port.

‘Really convenient’

“It’s really convenient because the bus stop is right there near the center of campus,” she said. “I really like how on time the service is. When they say they’re going to pick you up, they pick you up.”

The bus route ends at the Portland Transportation Center, where riders can get on an Amtrak train or switch to Metro’s No. 5 bus to get to Portland Jetport, Beck said.

“We need to work closer with Bowdoin,” she said, in terms of getting a better sense of when there will be heavier ridership.

One challenge is a lack of parking near bus stops. Metro also wants to work with Brunswick Explorer to make more connections and help get people from their homes to the bus stops.

“We’ll always do outreach and surveys so we can continually look at how we’re doing,” Beck said.

dmoore@timesrecord.com