AUBURN — Regional bus service is important to Western Maine, bus users and regional officials told the Maine Department of Transportation on Tuesday.

“Younger than my generation, they’ve never seen a bus north of Auburn,” said Mike Luciano of the Greater Franklin Development Corporation. “It’s a whole new thing for them. At the plant I have, we have 1,000 employees in Jay. And if you’ve ever been on Route 4 in the morning, it’s packed with thousands of cars coming through Livermore-Livermore Falls going to work.”

A group of about 30 local government officials, regional transit officials and residents met with state transportation officials in the Auburn Public Library community room to discuss transit issues. It was part of an ongoing state review of local transit, determining how it works now and what needs to be done to improve it.

Topics ranged from bus services in Lewiston-Auburn, rural Androscoggin County and Franklin and Oxford counties, local strategies and forecasts for the next 10 years. But there was a common theme: Users around Western Maine need to be connected. That means linking Lewiston-Auburn to Portland, Franklin and Oxford counties to Lewiston-Auburn and everyone to Brunswick, Bath and beyond.

For Luciano, it’s a matter of business.

“When we hire new, young engineers up there, they don’t necessarily want to settle in the Jay-Livermore Falls area. They need more nightlife and things going on, so they move down this way. It would be nice if some transportation existed.”

Auburn Mayor Jonathan LaBonte said the Twin Cities have moved in that direction, with construction of a downtown Auburn transportation center on Spring Street. LaBonte said that center will not only serve as a hub for Citylink bus traffic around Lewiston and Auburn but also a commuter stop for bus service between Lewiston-Auburn and Portland.

“We are looking at that facility as place where people could plug in or unplug,” LaBonte said. “They could hop on there and head up to Farmington — or to Sugarloaf for that matter. If we are making that connection from Portland to Auburn, it’s easier to go on up north.”

Sue Moreau of the Maine Department of Transportation said all that information will be included in a master plan due to be finished in mid 2015.

“If we know what the population says they want, how are we going to do it and how do we pay for it?” Moreau asked. “Then we come up with a blueprint, step-by-step plans to come up with a whole system that will improve transportation statewide.”

The Federal Transit Agency requires the state to review transit operations every few years. DOT staff had met with residents in seven other Maine regions before Tuesday’s meeting. Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties make up the state’s Region 7.

The meeting also discussed issues with the MaineCare funded transportation services. A Connecticut-based transportation broker hired by the state, Coordinated Transportation solutions, is under fire for leaving many people stranded. The Connecticut company took over Maine’s contract to provide van transit service to MaineCare recipients in August.

Brian Sullivan, manager of nonemergency transportation for the state’s office of MaineCare services, said the service is improving.

“Without question, it was far worse than anyone imagined in our worst-case scenarios,” Sullivan said. “Is it getting better? It has, and fewer rides are being missed today than were missed in August. But I recognize that’s cold comfort if you are one of the people still being missed.”

Sullivan said the state continues to work with the contractor and to try and solve the problems, but declined to say what the state was going to do about it.

“That would be going pretty far out on a limb to answer questions that my commissioner has not chosen to put into public, and I’m not comfortable doing that,” Sullivan said. “I will confirm that we have been working, and there are multiple Plan Bs.

staylor@sunjournal.com