Two weeks ago, I drove from Bangor to Boston for a concert. Booking a hotel was fine, looking around the venue for food was fine. The part I dreaded was the drive. Knowing I needed to drive in and through Boston was a drag. I’m from Texas, where you have to drive on Interstate 10 to get a license, and city driving isn’t something I am afraid of. The pain about driving through Boston is not because it is a big city. It comes down to convenience. Boston is convenient to walk through and inconvenient to drive through, from paying for parking to dealing with traffic from working against the public transit network.

There are plenty of feasibility studies that you can find about a passenger rail between Portland and Bangor. This would connect Bangor not only to Boston, but the rest of New England. A connection to Bangor would benefit the University of Maine System. There is an abundance of academic conventions and events that happen in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, New Jersey, etc. If you are a student without a vehicle, it would be difficult and economically challenging to pursue traveling to any of these events. If that deters a student from applying, it means that UMaine is losing the chance to represent their research and their students in these national academic conventions and conferences. It does not just go one way. It is not only about students leaving from Bangor to go to Boston for an academic conference, but it also benefits the population of students who come from nearby states to UMaine who could visit home if they did not have a car or the means to visit.

It would also eliminate the need to drive home during the winter. It would mean that the rest of New England can travel to UMaine and it would not be a problem. Being in New England means we have the unique advantage of access to a rail system that connects these cities, and Bangor is left out. The opportunity to experience concerts, academic conferences and major sporting events should be feasible for students who do not have a car or access to a vehicle or nearby family. A rail system does not simply benefit individuals, it improves entire communities, and UMaine would benefit significantly from a rail system connecting to Bangor.