Greater Portland Metro has implemented changes to its Falmouth-to-Portland bus route 7, which now runs to Portland International Jetport, with more changes coming in the fall. Eloise Goldsmith / The Forecaster

Metro Line 7, The line running between Portland and Falmouth was modernised with the aim of increasing passenger numbers.

In June, the route’s service was expanded to include the Portland International Jetport and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, taking over those duties from Route 5. On the way to the jetport, the line now makes stops and picks up people at several locations along Congress Street toward the West End.

Trains also run into the evening, with the last service from Portland to Falmouth departing after 10pm on weekdays, as opposed to the previous late service at 6.30pm.

According to Mike Tremblay, director of transportation development for Greater Portland Metro, the line had the lowest ridership in the entire Metro system in 2023. However, he noted in an email that the line is the least busy overall, so the low numbers are “not necessarily indicative of the line’s profitability.”

Elijah Gratz, a Falmouth resident, has access to a car for a time to commute to his job at Flatbread Co. in Portland. He said the route changes have been “excellent” for him. Because the route runs later, he can now rely on the bus to commute home.

“I used to have to take Uber home because I work evenings and the bus wasn’t running,” he wrote in one message. “In the summer, a 9-minute Uber ride could cost over $45!”

Blair Wilhem, who lives in Portland and has the opposite commute, takes the 7 bus to his job at Nouria, the gas station and convenience store on Route 1 in Falmouth. He said he was disappointed that the route changes did not include earlier service from Portland to Falmouth; the earliest pickup in that direction on weekdays is at 6:22 a.m., while it was previously 6:30 a.m. Service in the other direction toward the Jetport begins earlier, with the first bus leaving the Washington and Veranda stop at 5:10 a.m.

However, the changes mean he has a shorter walk to his stop in the morning. Since the line has more stops on Congress Street, he no longer has to walk to the Metro hub on Elm Street.

Portland resident Younes Ezekali said he was also pleased with this specific change. He had just returned from shopping at Walmart and now, instead of having to walk to a stop on Elm Street, he can get his pharmacy drop-off much closer to his home, near the Maine Medical Center.

“Going from here to Walmart is great,” he said.

Although he has not yet taken bus 7 to the airport, he plans to do so.

Tarun Kumar Vaswani, a third Portland resident who commutes by bus to his job at Goodwill in Falmouth, had more negative things to say about the changes.

“Ever since they started the bus to Jetport and DHHS, it’s always late in the morning. It’s difficult for me to get to work on time,” he said. He’s also experienced drivers leaving the Falmouth Shaw’s stop earlier than scheduled. He finishes work at 6 p.m. and has missed the 6:05 p.m. bus home several times, he said.

Denise Beck, Metro’s marketing manager, said no rider should leave the stop earlier than scheduled and encouraged riders who experience this or any other problem to contact Metro.

On the issue of delays, Tremblay noted that the route changes are new routes and could be affected by things like ongoing construction around the jetport, and said Metro will work to iron out any issues with arrivals.

Metro has other big changes in store for Line 7 service. Currently, there are limited stops at Falmouth’s Town Landing and the OceanView senior living community—parts of the route that have seen particularly low ridership—but starting this fall, that portion of the route will be served by a microtransit pilot program.

Here’s how it works: Passengers download an app and book a ride that picks them up at specified locations. The vehicle will be smaller than a Metro bus but will be able to accommodate multiple passengers, according to Beck. It will drop passengers off at another location in a designated zone in Falmouth or at a bus stop so they can transfer to the bus. The microtransit program will not transport passengers all the way from Falmouth to Portland. Route 7 service to Town Landing and OceanView will be discontinued once microtransit service is implemented.

“Falmouth ends up paying a lot of taxpayer money for these routes. So instead of saying, ‘we’re just going to cut the service,’ we’re going to try something different,” Tremblay said, adding that he hopes the microtransit program will become more flexible and more adaptable and therefore more people will use it.

“And we’ve already heard from Falmouth residents that they’re happy to take their children in this vehicle to take them to soccer practice or to friends’ houses because that’s a perfectly acceptable use for it.”

Overall, there has been an upward trend in metro ridership in recent years. There was steady growth between 2020 and 2023, but the pre-pandemic peak in 2019 has not yet been reached.

The pilot project, which is expected to start in the fall and run until the end of 2025, will be funded with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, Tremblay said.

In line with Metro’s goal, Line 7 gained one commuter on a recent morning.

On the morning of Aug. 20, Landu Mamamba, a new resident from Angola, was waiting for the bus across the street from Shaw’s in Falmouth. She was in good spirits because she had just found a new job as a dishwasher at the Foreside Tavern on Route 1. She doesn’t own a car, so she will ride the bus to her shifts.

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