New bicycle racks capable of holding heavy e-bikes will soon appear on every Bangor-area bus thanks to funding from the Maine Department of Transportation.
The Bangor City Council’s Government Operations Committee agreed on Monday to accept $45,000 from the Maine DOT’s Carbon Reduction Strategy Plan for 22 new bicycle racks. The city will install the racks on every bus in the Community Connector fleet, which serves Bangor, Brewer, Orono, Hampden, Old Town, Veazie and the University of Maine.
While Community Connector buses already have bicycle racks, they don’t accommodate some bikes, such as those with larger tires. The existing racks also have a weight limit lighter than most electric bicycles on the market, according to Madeline Jenson, a planner for Bangor Area Comprehensive Transportation System, which helped facilitate the Maine DOT award.
“Micro-mobility devices, like bikes, are very important for increasing the convenience, range, and flexibility of the existing fixed route transit system,” Jenson said. “Anything we can do to support those users is beneficial to the system as a whole.”
The award from Maine DOT is especially timely, Jenson said, as e-bikes have spiked in popularity in the U.S.
A December 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Energy found that 1.1 million e-bikes were sold in the U.S. in 2022, nearly four times as many as in 2019, when 287,000 were sold.
Finding more ways for people to use public transportation falls in line with Bangor’s 2022 Comprehensive Plan, which listed improving bicycle and transit networks’ accessibility as a priority.
