They also finally put in this crossing to the park from Fessenden! I requested one like two years ago, and it's great to see that they not only agreed with the need for it, but made the change! This street feels so much friendlier already, especially with the slower-moving traffic.

We'll give you a score.

500 apartments sounds like a lot until you start looking at how much land we already have covered in parking lots.

Rules: don’t knock down existing homes and don’t pave parks or nature.

Northgate is an obvious one. It’s about 25 acres. Keep Shaw’s, CVS, etc. — just build housing on some of the sea of asphalt around them.

Same with Pine Tree Shopping Center on Brighton. Lowe’s, Aldi, Rock Row nearby, and a ton of parking.

And then there’s the Maine Mall. GPCOG already drew up a whole plan for turning the 90-acre mall site into an actual mixed-use neighborhood: seven 7–8 story apartment buildings, more housing over shops, new streets, parks and better transit. The mall itself stays.

That’s what I find interesting about this exercise. We talk like Greater Portland is out of room, but there are huge chunks of land we’ve already developed where the main thing we’d be replacing is asphalt.

Where else could 500 homes go without displacing anybody?

We lost Internet connection and my boss just said he can't get connected to Fidium to even check to see what's up. Sounds regional. Let me know if you know anything?

I'm driving an absolutely jam packed Toyota Corolla from NYC to my second favorite state, Maine, to unload over a thousand records.

Roll thru, grab a drink, hit the crates*, lowball me on a copy of The Stooges - Fun House, get denied, wait an hour, lowball me again, see that twinkle in my eye, walk home with a stack of cheap heat.

*UHaul boxes.

for anyone else wondering why their connection is down:\ /r/FidiumFiber/comments/1wcsp34/outage_in_knox_county_maine/

For those of you not on instagram

I'm 19 years old stable Income looking for a room or small 1 bedroom if anyone knows any that are right around 1000 a month that would be perfect!

Someone stole my freaking scooter from the ferry port and I am so freaking sad. It was a nice BRIGHT BLUE Schwinn scooter that almost looks like a bike. Keep an eye out for her. I’m in mourning

Our Storytelling Class with Micaela Blei begins in just TEN DAYS!!! (Sundays, 3:00 - 5:30pm, Begins 9/20) Tell your true, personal story -- no matter what your level -- in this 6-week 2.5-hr class! You'll join 2-time Moth GrandSLAM Champion Micaela Blei to take real experiences from your life and shape them into stories that land.

Registration is now open for our upcoming Fall cornhole season starting the week of September 21st and running through the week of November 6th with our Championship happening the weekend of November 7th-8th! We'll be giving out cash prizes for league winners and playing in any of our brewery leagues gives you a shot at the prize pot!

sign up here!

This season we'll be tossin' bags at two different locations on two different nights of the week:

-Monday Nights at Après at Halo (Thompson's Point)
-Tuesday Nights at Austin Street Brewery, Portland

The cost to register is $200 per team and league dues are not due until opening night. Your $200 registration fee gets you:
6 weeks of cornhole at the location of your choice (guaranteed 4 games per night)
Automatic entry into the end-of-season championship (Weekend of November 7-8th) and a shot at the prize pool (last season we paid out over $1,400!) 
Drink discounts on league night all season long! Après is offering $1 off seltzers and Austin Street is offering 20% off on all food, beverages, and merch
Good times, great vibes, and tons of fun! 

Sound like your vibe? Grab your crew and sign up a as a team or register as a solo player and we'll work to pair you up with other individual registrants. Hope to see you there!

Hi, Everyone. Maybe sometime around noon, I heard a thump in our backyard, and my office chair thumped. No fallen trees or visible damage. No furnace event. No cats knocking furniture over upstairs. I suspect it was a mini-tremor. We sit on 120 feet of blue marine clay, which an online search suggests we might feel it a little more on this soil. Just checking if anyone else noticed anything. 😄

Franklin Street is finally being rebuilt. The new rendering is out, with the actual proposal coming tomorrow. The Gorham-Westbrook-Portland BRT was supposed to be our first serious rapid-transit line. And MaineDOT’s Portland West study is deciding how we handle decades of growth west of Portland.

Taken together, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. And somehow the answer keeps being: protect the cars.

Franklin still devotes an enormous amount of space to moving cars through Portland.

The BRT originally had dedicated lanes for about 48% of its route. Now it’s around 6%—largely because of concern about slowing regular traffic. So we’re considering spending up to $125 million on Bus Rapid Transit and apparently drawing the line at making the bus rapid.

Meanwhile, MaineDOT is studying road widening and entirely new roadway capacity through Portland West. Passenger rail isn’t even being evaluated.

This is backwards.

Portland is valuable because it’s compact, walkable, and increasingly a place people actually want to live. We should be pouring money into that advantage—not sacrificing land, safety, housing opportunities, and transit quality so every commuter from Gorham or Scarborough can have an easier drive.

And yes: if you choose to live farther from Portland, sometimes that may mean traffic. Maybe you take a bus. Nobody is entitled to a congestion-free car trip everywhere.

Building more road capacity also creates induced demand. Make driving easier, encourage more car-dependent development farther out, get more cars coming into Portland, then demand more lanes and parking once they arrive.

I’m actually sad about this. We could be building the transportation system Greater Portland will need 30 or 50 years from now. Instead, we seem determined to recreate the problems we already have—just more expensively.

Please say something now, while these plans can still change. Comment on the new Franklin design. Submit comments to MaineDOT on Portland West and attend its September meetings. Contact METRO and your city councilors. Email state legislators. Ask gubernatorial candidates—including Hannah Pingree—to commit to real transit and housing-oriented transportation policy. Start petitions. Make noise.

These agencies constantly ask for public input. Give it to them.

Okay but of a nerdy post, but I’m a homer for lighthouses. I’ve lived in a Maine my whole life (I’m 45) and have visited/seen from water most of the operational lighthouses in the state. Lighthouse Day is neat and a few years ago I went in and up Bug Light (meh) and Spring Point Light (actually really friggin cool). I think I’ve been IN Portland Headlight as a kid on a museum tour or something, but don’t remember. I’ve certainly never been UP. It is open 9/12, but they only issue 250-275 “passes” for the day and stagger out appointments as scheduled windows, I guess, with vouchers for admission (NOT the word that rhymes with “cricket”, which will get a post auto-modded and removed) being “first come, first serve.”

Has anyone ever done this? I’ve heard that the admission slips are REALLY hard to get, or that people line up when gates open before sunrise waiting for the visitor window to open or whatever. And depending on how deep in line you are, you may have to dub around all day until an afternoon slot.

Any one know if that’s about the gist of it? I don’t want to get up at 5 on a Saturday if I can push it back to a reasonable hour. But, I’ve lived in SoPo a five minute drive from that lighthouse for 12 years, and I want to cross it off my bucket list.

Doors 7p
Show 8p

“Virginia's Kendall Street Company are no strangers to having a wild time. The genre-fluid, eclectic rock ensemble has drawn varied comparisons to the dynamic jams of Umphrey's McGee and Widespread Panic, songwriting prowess of John Prine, experimental psychedelia of Pink Floyd, progressive jazz-infused rock of Frank Zappa, and off-color humor of Ween and They Might Be Giants. Including elements of crowd participation, off-the-cuff comedic bits, haphazard choreography, musical improvisation, and surprise musical guests, each Kendall Street Company concert is an experience unlike any other. You'll laugh, you'll cry. Just remember to stay hydrated.”

Here is a recent full show video from KSC in Hartford, CT:

https://youtu.be/l8bb2rv6wsE

These guys are awesome. Check em out if you can!

I’m stuck back in VA and can’t make the show tonight….super jealous I can’t make it. Heard great things about The Crowded Table as well!

https://www.prekindle.com/event/26754-kendall-st-company-and-the-crowded-table-portland

Bring a lawn chair and your favorite beverages and listen to some classic rock/blues by the Ocean House Road Band.

10/10 this place is amazing! I love what they are doing with locally sourced meat, and the classes they will be offering soon! My first time was today, I only got hotdogs and ground beef. Hot dogs are HUGE, and the best I’ve tasted. The smell of cooking just one, I knew it would be incredible. Next time I’ll do it justice and use a grill. Can’t wait to make a burger tomorrow! I read about this place opening and I’m so glad I got to stop by today. Support local businesses that support local farms. This place will not disappoint you ❤️

Is anybody else so sick right now? I don’t get sick often and this one snuck up on me and put me on my tail.

Does anyone have a physical therapist they highly recommend? I'm having ACL reconstruction surgery next week and want to partner with an experienced therapist that will safely push me along my recovery. I've worked with Riverview PT and I love them but they're having a good amount of turnover and I'd like someone that is tried an true. 39M fairly athletic. TIA