Carrie Jones

Sep 26, 2025

BAR HARBOR—Acadia National Park hopes to expand its Hulls Cove Visitor Center parking lot and transportation center and is set to apply for a federal grant to pay for it.

Recently, the park, which is spread throughout Mount Desert Island and the Schoodic Peninsula, has hosted approximately 4 million visits annually.

The proposed $25-million expansion would allow 439 parking spots for the public, an additional six for employees, 12 spots for tour buses, and another 26 at the visitor center building. The current parking space capacity is 270.

It would also allow for facilities to support Island Explorer bus system’s transportation of visitors.

The Islander Explorer is a fare-free bus service that services the park as well as communities the park rests within and Trenton.

There are multiple entrances into the park and destinations for hiking, biking, and sightseeing. The proposed expansion is one step of many hoped to decrease congestion and increase safety within the park.

A transportation plan created in 2019 calls for the Hulls Cove Visitor Center expansion as well as changes at Jordan Pond’s parking area and Liscomb Pit (by Eagle Lake) among other suggestions.

According to a draft support letter, “The project will redesign the parking area to encompass approximately 25,000 square feet and will increase parking to an estimated 400-450 parking spots.”

The park has been soliciting letters of support from others including area towns and chamber of commerces to help its efforts to get the grants.

The concept for the transit hub is complete and park officials expect to submit a grant application this fall under the Federal Highway Administration’s Nationally Significant Federal Lands and Tribal Projects program for the final design and construction funds. Combined, those costs come to $25 million.

Currently the Island Explorer buses use Bar Harbor’s Village Green as a transportation hub for Mount Desert Island routes. The Acadia Gateway Center in Trenton is the new multi-million dollar visitor center and transportation hub that had a soft opening this September.

“The redesign and expansion of the Hulls Cove Visitor Center parking lot into a new transit hub is a key element of the park’s Transportation Plan along with the Acadia Gateway Center (AGC),” said Amanda Pollock, deputy chief of interpretation at Acadia National Park and Saint Croix Island International Historic Site.

Pollock said that the two transit hubs will complement each other by serving different needs of visitors.

“The AGC will provide the opportunity for visitors who do not have lodging on Mount Desert Island to get park information, buy an entrance pass, and ride the Island Explorer for a car-free experience to Acadia and surrounding towns. The HCVC transit hub will serve visitors who have lodging on Mount Desert Island but may not have direct access to an Island Explorer route,” she said.

Bar Harbor’s Village Green also plays a role in the future plans.

“The Village Green will continue to be an important transit hub serving downtown Bar Harbor. It was the original transit hub for the Island Explorer but growing demand and changing lodging patterns have created the need for additional transit hubs at the AGC and HCVC,” Pollock said.

Back in 2019, the park created a transportation plan and improving the facilities at the Hulls Cove location was one of its goals. A management plan created in 1992 also said the Hulls Cove parking and access to other transportation needed to be approved. The center was originally designed in the 1960s.

In a February 2024 briefing statement to Maine’s Congressional delegation, it states that “Hulls Cove is the primary entrance to Acadia National Park and has evolved into a major transportation hub for visitors accessing the Island Explorer bus system to enjoy a car-free experience in the park.”

The brief continues saying, “Its current capacity and configuration create unsafe and inefficient conditions for Island Explorer buses, pedestrians, cyclists, and private and commercial vehicles.”

In the last five years there have been eight property damage accidents in the lot, but Pollock stressed that those accidents do not include conflicts and near misses among vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists in the visitor center parking lot.

The brief also says, “The park’s 2019 Transportation Plan/EIS states that the goal of improving visitor facilities at Hulls Cove is to ‘help mitigate crowding and congestion, improve visitor orientation, increase compliance with park entrance passes, manage road-based commercial tours, and support the Island Explorer public transit service.’”

It continues, “The proposed improvements would increase parking capacity to accommodate existing and future visitation levels; improve transportation efficiency by separating Island Explorer buses and private vehicle traffic; allow for improved capture of park entrance fees; create safe and accessible bus passenger boarding areas; and allow for expanded Island Explorer operations to serve an estimated annual growth in ridership of 8%.”

The brief also said that the Island Explorer has the “highest ridership of any bus/shuttle/tram system in Interior Region 1 (outside of D.C.), and it was the seventh largest out of the 57 systems in the NPS.”

Part of the rationale laid out in the brief is that is not adequate space for passenger queuing, boarding, nor are there bus shelters at the Hulls Cove site currently.

Similarly, the brief states, “The configuration of the parking lot was not designed to accommodate a transportation system, so it has inadequate turning radii and travel lanes, which impedes traffic circulation and creates significant delays in the scheduled bus service, as well as leads to unsafe interactions between buses and visitors.”

“The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe Center estimates that the proposed expansion of transportation facilities would increase Island Explorer boardings at Hulls Cove by 187%, which would help alleviate traffic and parking congestion at popular sites on the historic Park Loop Road,” the brief suggests.

“Acadia’s visitation has grown by more than 70% over the past 10 years making the Island Explorer more important than ever in reducing severe traffic and parking congestion. It is a critical component of effectively implementing the park’s Transportation Plan and managing private vehicles in the park,” it writes.

Already, the park has presented the project to a NPS investment review board.

The brief states that “Friends of Acadia has expressed an interest in funding the Preliminary Project Analysis (PMIS 289531) at an estimated cost of $250,000 to develop construction cost estimates and validate the scope of the project.”

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The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Brochures of Maine

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