Tag Archives: eric-stiles

Q&A: FOA’s Eric Stiles on budget, major projects at Acadia

Eric Stiles, president & CEO of Friends of Acadia since July 2022

Eric Stiles, president & CEO of Friends of Acadia, has presided over big expansion of housing for Acadia National Park’s seasonal workforce. (Photo provided by Friends of Acadia)

The Friends of Acadia charity is helping advance some major projects at Acadia National Park. The philanthropic group is led by Eric Stiles, who started as president and CEO of Friends of Acadia in July 2022. Formerly leader at New Jersey Audubon, Stiles lives in Bar Harbor with his family including wife Lydia, a teacher at Mount Desert Island High School. Stiles spoke with Acadia On My Mind about a wide variety of issues, including the record-long federal government shutdown, an expansion of housing for seasonal workers at Acadia National Park, the Trump administration’s treatment of federal employees and major projects at Acadia such as the initially estimated $850,000 East-West Connector Trail on Cadillac Mountain, called a “visionary project” by FOA. Here are edited questions and responses:

Q. No entrance pass was required during the federal government shutdown that ended Nov. 12, and the park lost a significant amount of entrance fees that normally would have been collected during October and part of November. Entrance fees could be used on major projects such as the Cadillac East-West Connector Trail, considered a visionary project by FOA.

ERIC STILES: You can’t make up for the lost visitor fees. The park may have lost $1.7 to $1.8 million in entrance fees considering it collected $1.5 million in October 2024 and there was a 5 percent increase in visits this October and fees were not collected during two weeks in November. That is big money. Eighty percent of those fees would have remained at the park to fund visitor service programs, personnel and infrastructure projects. In addition, the staff that worked during the shutdown were largely being paid from prior entrance fee revenue. The park was spending its existing kitty at a much higher rate while starving revenue that would be important for the future. It’s a double whammy.

Continue reading →

New Gateway Center to cut Acadia traffic, parking problems

A huge new transit and welcome center quietly opened this month, launching a high-stakes effort by Acadia National Park and key partners to persuade more visitors to take the park’s fare-free shuttle and reduce Acadia traffic and parking problems.

The arrowhead emblem of the National Park Service graces a main sign for the Acadia Gateway Center in Trenton.

The Acadia Gateway Center, a key aspect of the park’s transportation plan, is strategically situated off Route 3 in Trenton about 11 miles north of the national park’s Hulls Cove Visitor Center, which can be so busy, drivers may circle around for minutes looking for a parking spot while at the same time having to watch out for pedestrians, bicyclists and RVs.

The Gateway Center, as yet largely undiscovered, aims to head off southbound visitors, allowing them to obtain information about the park and region, leave their cars and board the Island Explorer to reach popular attractions in Acadia on Mount Desert Island. The Gateway Center could also be used by commercial tours, boost carpooling and app-based ride sharing, and allow electric vehicles to charge up.

State owned and run by the MaineDOT in partnership with the National Park Service, Downeast Transportation, which operates Island Explorer, and the Maine Office of Tourism, the Gateway Center cost $32 million, including $27.7 million, to construct.

Planned for more than 20 years, complete funding for the project was uncertain until the first Trump administration awarded a stunning $9 million election-year grant in 2020, pushing financing to the finish line to tackle Acadia traffic and parking problems. US Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican up for reelection at the time, announced the grant as part of the Federal Transit Administration’s grants for buses and bus facilities program. Separately, in 2020, Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, a bipartisan, multi-billion-dollar funding law, introduced by Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent and cosponsored by Collins, that provided $32.6 million for a maintenance facility at Acadia and $7.8 million to rehab water and wastewater systems in Acadia’s Schoodic District.

The Acadia Gateway Center in Trenton features Level 2 and fast-charging EV chargers and more than 400 spots in the day-use lot, which was mostly empty on a recent Friday.

The 270-space parking lot was full to capacity at the Hulls Cove Visitor Center on a sunny Friday afternoon at Acadia National Park.

Meanwhile, that same day, it was tough to find a place to park in the 270-space lot at the Hulls Cove Visitor Center 11 miles south in Acadia National Park.

Continue reading →

Seasonal workers at Acadia get new RV camp, lower rents

Jim Turner, an Island Explorer bus driver this year, said he is impressed with his site at Acadia National Park’s new RV camp, called White Birches and built partly to help attract seasonal
workers at Acadia during a shortage of such workers at the park.

“This camp is fantastic,” said Turner, a retired optical network engineer and Army veteran who has stayed at RV places around the US while volunteering or working at national parks, a national forest and other sites. “They did a great job laying it out,” said Turner, who is working for the first time as a driver for the fare-free bus that services Acadia.

Amid scarce affordable housing in communities around Acadia, the new RV camp and a string of other new housing projects are aimed at lowering housing costs for seasonal workers at Acadia and thereby boosting services for visitors. With more economical rents, the number of seasonal employees at Acadia should eventually increase from the low numbers each of the past several years that have hurt some services for visitors, officials said.

Jim Turner, driver for the Island Explorer, at the new RV camp for seasonal employees and volunteers at Acadia National Park.

Jim Turner, with his dog, Kara, a mixed Chihuahua breed, stands outside his RV at the new camp for seasonal employees and volunteers at Acadia National Park.

Continue reading →