It’s 3:30 p.m. on a weekday in Bath’s South End. First shift at Bath Iron Works (BIW) just ended, and the mass exodus is about to begin.
"It’s madness," Jason White said. "I can't describe it, there’s people everywhere."
Right on cue, workers stream out of the shipyard gates and hustle towards trucks, vans, cars, motorcycles and shuttle buses crammed in parking lots and all along side streets. Then they start racing, at a crawl, to Route 1.
"The BIW 500? Yeah, it's different every day," Richard Donovan said. "Parking lots get jammed up. Really parking sucks. Traffic at the end of the day. It’s no fun."
White and Richard, both pipefitters, are two of the 5,000 or so employees who build warships for the U.S. Navy at BIW’s main shipyard on the Kennebec River. The company, which is a subsidiary of global defense contractor General Dynamics, employs about 6,500 people total across its facilities in Brunswick and Bath, making BIW the largest single-site employer in Maine, and the state's biggest manufacturer. On average, each worker commutes about 70 miles round trip.
"It doesn't matter whether you're driving 35 miles from Lewiston, or you're driving two miles from the other side of Bath," said BIW's Director of Communications Julie Rabinowitz. "People like having their cars."
Rabinowitz said over the years, the company has tried different strategies to reduce the number of employees driving alone. BIW promotes ride sharing, offers preferred parking for car and van pools, and runs shuttles to offsite lots.
Two years ago, a $750,000 workforce transportation grant, administered by the Maine Department of Transportation and funded by the federal American Rescue Plan, helped BIW launch a dedicated bus for workers coming from Lewiston. And beginning this month, there's another option for those commuting from Portland and points north.
Normally, electrician Keith Devine would be in the BIW 500, jumping on a shuttle bus to his truck, then racing home to Yarmouth. But today, he’s chilling in the back of a blue Metro BREEZ bus that he caught at 3:40 p.m., right across the street from the shipyard.
"So what do you do instead of driving now?" asked Maine Public reporter Nora Saks.
"I take a nap, or I read a book, or I just listen to a podcast, kind of a way to degas from the day," Devine said.
Devine was the first, and at first the only, BIW employee to take advantage of the express public bus service that goes from Portland, to Yarmouth, Freeport, Brunswick and now Bath. Though anyone can ride it for $4, the extended route is scheduled around BIW’s first shift.
Devine has ridden the BREEZ up and back since the bus service was rolled out.
"It’s way less of a hassle and the time is a wash," he said.
That kind of review is exactly what Greater Portland Metro and Bath Iron Works love to hear. Metro's Executive Director Glenn Fulton said funding public transit is challenging, so BIW’s ability to unlock federal money made this expansion possible.
"Not only do they provide transportation options for their workers, but it also, being a public transit provider, provides better transit for everyone. So it's really a win, win in that sense," Fulton said.
Bath Iron Works is reimbursing Greater Portland Metro for the roughly $10,000 a month it costs to extend BREEZ bus service to the City of Ships. General Dynamics, which made almost $48 billion in revenue last year, is paying that tab with the workforce transportation grant and some required matching funds.
BIW’s Julie Rabinowitz said the defense contractor turned to federal funding to stand up the pilot program. Because until ridership picks up, "there's not an immediate return on investment for the company. It does also benefit the community," Rabinowitz said.
And post-Covid, workers are looking for more from their employers.
"We are not an employer that can offer work at home to build a ship. We need our employees to come to work," Rabinowitz said. "And trying to rethink how we can make it easier for people to come to work — that's how we've used this grant."
Most of the BIW workers Maine Public chatted with on their lunch break said, yes, they’d heard about the new public bus.
"If there was a bus, I would definitely ride it. Sleep on the way to work, sleep on the way home. One hundred percent," said preservation technician Keahnu Rivera. But since he commutes from Waterville, so he can't take advantage of it.
Welder Joe Day, however, lives in Portland.
"Are you thinking you’re going to ride it today?" asked reporter Nora Saks.
"No. It just takes forever, that’s the problem," Day said.
In its first week, Metro BREEZ had one or two shipbuilders on each trip. But Julie Rabinowitz said BIW isn't fazed by the slow up-take. It was the same for their Lewiston bus, and now it's full. It takes time for people to change their habits and give alternative modes of transportation a chance.
"And once they discover it," she said, "we find that they often stick with it.
Back on the bus, loyal Metro BREEZ commuter Keith Devine said, "It works for me, so I’m happy with it."
BIW’s pilot program with Greater Portland Metro is slated to run through September 2026. If there's enough demand, Metro will consider expanding its bus service in Bath.
It's what it is," Devine said. "It's riding the bus."