Have you taken the free ride yet?
Since September 14, a van has been running on-demand through the eastern side of Scarborough, and it's still mostly flying under the radar while everyone waits for "the bus" to arrive in October. That's backwards. The bus, officially Metro's Route 25, doesn't start until October 4. The van already works, it's currently free, and if you live in the right stretch of town, you can book one from your phone right now.
What's Actually Running Right Now
Greater Portland Metro's on-demand microtransit service launched in Scarborough on September 14, ahead of the fixed-route bus it's designed to feed. Two vans operate at a time, each able to carry up to nine passengers plus a wheelchair. You book a trip through Metro's app, its website, or by calling in, and a van meets you at the nearest cross street to take you anywhere else inside the service zone, or connect you to the Route 25 corridor once that launches.
Metro's director of transit development, Mike Tremblay, described it plainly at a public meeting in Scarborough: it's essentially transit running its own version of a rideshare service. No surge pricing, no driver rating system, just a curb-to-curb van that shows up when you request it.
The rides have been free since launch and will stay that way for a few weeks, per Metro. After that, the base fare is $2.25, with a $1.10 reduced fare for seniors, veterans, Medicare cardholders, people with disabilities, SSI/SSDI/VA benefit recipients, and youth ages 6 to 18. If you've been meaning to try it, the free window is still open as of this month, but it won't be indefinitely.
The Zone Is Smaller Than "Scarborough"
This is the part that trips people up. The van doesn't cover the whole town. It's built around a roughly two-mile radius on either side of the coming bus corridor, and the initial boundary runs east of the Maine Turnpike, between the Scarborough-South Portland town line and Dunstan Crossing. That includes parts of two roads a lot of residents will recognize:
- Pine Point Road
- Black Point Road
Metro says the current zone captures most of the town's major employment centers along with roughly half of Scarborough's population, which is the practical reason the boundary sits where it does rather than stretching further west or south. Tremblay has also said the radius could expand later if ridership supports it, but for now, if your address falls outside that eastern strip, this particular service isn't available to you yet.
It's worth sitting with why Scarborough got this at all. In 2020, the town was Maine's seventh most populated municipality, and Tremblay has pointed to it as a place that's long been underserved by transit relative to its size. A 2025 resident survey drew 300 responses and put traffic and transit at the top of the list of local concerns, which is part of what pushed the town, the Maine Turnpike Authority, and Metro to fund this together.
How to Actually Book One
The booking process is closer to hailing a rideshare than waiting at a scheduled stop. Open Metro's app or website, enter where you are and where you're headed within the zone, and a van comes to the nearest cross street. Phone booking works the same way if you'd rather call than use an app. There's no fixed timetable to memorize because the whole point is that it runs when you need it, within the hours Metro has set for the corridor: roughly 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays.
That schedule will carry over once Route 25 starts, since the van is meant to run on approximately the same hours as the bus it feeds.
What Changes on October 4
Route 25 is the fixed-route half of this expansion, and it's the piece most residents have heard about, since it's been in planning discussions with the town since a Maine Turnpike Authority funding vote in October 2025. When it launches, the bus will run primarily along Route 1, crossing over to a stop at the Cabela's parking lot, with buses coming every 45 minutes.
Metro's executive director, Glenn Fenton, has said the route was designed to serve several groups at once. It offers a direct connection to downtown Portland for commuters, and it also serves Scarborough's MaineHealth campus and the VA's outpatient clinic in Portland, which matters for residents who don't drive or who'd rather not deal with parking near a medical appointment. From Portland's transit hub, riders can also continue on to Westbrook, Gorham, Falmouth, Freeport, and Brunswick. Where Route 25 meets Route 1 stops, it will also link up with Biddeford Saco Old Orchard Beach Transit, which effectively creates a continuous bus corridor from Brunswick down to Biddeford for the first time.
None of that changes what the van does today. The two services are meant to work together once Route 25 starts, with the on-demand van filling in the gaps where walking to a fixed stop isn't practical, particularly on roads like Black Point Road where sidewalks and stop spacing don't line up with a quarter-mile walk.
Why Falmouth Is the Test Case
Scarborough isn't the first town to get this kind of service from Metro. Falmouth has had an on-demand shuttle, run under Metro's CONNECT program, for more than a year. Metro has pointed to that Falmouth service as the model for how the Scarborough zone was designed, and it's also the reason officials are comfortable calling this a proven format rather than a pilot. After Scarborough's service is underway for a while, Metro plans to track on-time performance and ridership and use that to decide whether the zone should grow, similar to how usage data has already shaped adjustments in Falmouth.
The funding behind this is a three-way split. The Maine Turnpike Authority committed $3.5 million over five years, largely because of the potential to ease congestion on the stretch of turnpike between Scarborough and Portland. Metro separately secured $1.3 million in federal funding through the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System, and the town of Scarborough put in $65,000 of its own toward the combined project. A formal launch event for both services is expected in early October, timed around the Route 25 start date.
For now, the useful move if you live east of the turnpike between the South Portland line and Dunstan Crossing is to open Metro's app and see if a van can already get you where you're going. That option existed before most of the town noticed, and the free window on it won't last much longer.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this offers day to day, from getting around without always reaching for the car keys to the kind of local investment happening right now, Real Maine Living is a good place to start that conversation.
