As tourism in Bar Harbor continues to grow, the town this year surpassed $4 million in parking fee revenue for the first time.
In 2023, which was fourth year that the seasonal parking fees have been in effect, the town netted $3.4 million in paid parking fees. This year, from May 15 through Oct. 30, the town pulled in $4.1 million.
That’s nearly $2 million more than the town collected in parking fees in 2022, according to figures reported at the time by the Mount Desert Islander.
The main reason for the leap in revenue this year is not increased traffic, though Acadia National Park is on pace to have roughly 80,000 more visits than it did in 2023, which would make 2024 the park’s third-busiest year ever, behind 2021 and 2022.
Bar Harbor increased its hourly parking rates in July of 2023, and so collected more money this past May and June than it did for the same months last year. The fees went from $1.50 and $2 per hour, depending on where you parked downtown, to $2 and $4 per hour.
Bar Harbor pulled in roughly $100,000 more in parking fees this May than it did in May of 2023, and around $430,000 more in the month of June than in the same month the prior year, according to town records. The Bangor Daily News obtained copies of Bar Harbor’s parking fee accounting records this week after submitting a Freedom of Access Act request to the town.
Though not disappointed by the increase in revenue — which town officials say can help reduce the burden of paying for a new $58 million K-8 school — Bar Harbor’s main objective with raising its parking rates was not to raise more money. The increase has shortened the amount of time that the spaces are occupied, which has created more turnover in downtown parking, officials said.
This in turn has made it easier to find parking spaces in public parking lots and along the village’s primary commercial streets, which town officials say was their main goal.
The town had not yet released figures on how much it had collected this season in parking fees. James Smith, Bar Harbor’s town manager, told the council on Tuesday that staff was doing an analysis of the parking revenue “to make sure that we’re meeting the policy objectives of the paid parking program.”
“We’re moving cars,” Sarah Gilbert, the town’s finance director, said of how the fee increase has affected parking behavior. “Parking is available.”
The parking fee system operates primarily with payments kiosks that are located near parking spaces, or online via the ParkMobile app. The town previously had meters at individual spaces along streets but did away with those at the end of 2023.
The town launched its paid parking program in 2019 as a way to generate income directly off visitors that could be used to help pay for wear-and-tear on the town’s streets. Residents and property owners are eligible for parking permits, as are employees who work in the downtown village and guests who stay overnight and don’t have access to private parking.
