As Acadia National Park pursues a variety of behind-the-scenes construction projects, one immediate benefit for the public might be better parking options at Eagle Lake.
The section of Route 233, also known as Eagle Lake Road, that passes the northern end of the lake has long been a congestion hotspot in the park. It serves as the primary connection point between downtown Bar Harbor, which is relatively close by, and the rest of Mount Desert Island. It also provides an access point for summertime cyclists who want to pedal around the park’s extensive carriage road system.
But there are relatively few offroad parking sites in the area, causing many visitors to park and get in and out of their vehicles directly on the shoulder of the busy road. It is one of the areas specifically mentioned by the park on a page on its website with the heading “Avoiding Crowds at Peak Season.”
Acadia officials are considering the possibility of adding more parking in the area at Liscomb Pit, a park-owned gravel pit on the eastern side of the lake that is accessible by car from Eagle Lake Road.
The park is building a new maintenance building on its headquarters campus on the west side of Eagle Lake, a little over a mile away from the gravel pit, and will demolish the old maintenance building when the new one is completed sometime this fall, according to Kevin Schneider, Acadia’s superintendent. The park is leaning toward moving the gravel pit operations at Liscomb Pit to the old maintenance building site at the park’s headquarters campus, which would allow the Liscomb Pit site to be repurposed into parking, Schneider said.
The cleared pit site, about one-third of a mile from Route 233, is located less than 100 yards from the gravel carriage road that runs all the way around Eagle Lake.
Acadia has not yet come up with a specific plan or proposal for redeveloping the gravel pit site into more parking, however. Aside from building seasonal housing at its Harden Farm property, the park’s construction focus is on completing the new $27 million maintenance building at its headquarters, which was funded through the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020.
Schneider said the new maintenance building, which will include sorely needed meeting rooms as well as offices, garages and storage, is expected to be completed by the end of October.