GORHAM – Public bus service connecting Gorham to destinations like the Maine Mall, airport and downtown Westbrook and Portland will be the talk next week in a Gorham Town Council workshop.

“I think it’s a worthwhile venture to look into,” Gorham Town Councilor Philip Gagnon said Tuesday.

Representatives from both Greater Portland Metro and the University of Southern Maine will attend the bus brainstorming session with the council at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 16, in Gorham Municipal Center, 75 South St.

Town Councilor John Pressey said Tuesday Steve Linnell, senior transportation planner at Greater Portland Council of Governments, and John Duncan, director of the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Systems, are both expected to be on hand as Gorham weighs possible bus service for its citizens.

“We’re trying to find the best options to make it a win-win situation for all stakeholders and the community,” Pressey said.

Craig Hutchinson, chief student affairs officer at the University of Southern Maine, will represent the university in the discussion. Hutchinson wants to learn whether extending the Metro bus service to Gorham would be an advantage to university students living on the Gorham campus.

“My sense is it probably would be,” Hutchinson said Tuesday.

But, Hutchinson doesn’t envision that Metro service to Gorham would replace the present university’s service that shuttles students to classes between campuses in Portland and Gorham.

“It’s about getting students to classes,” said Hutchinson, who said an additional bus service would supplement the university’s existing buses.

The university has about 1,400 beds in dorms on its Gorham campus.

Recommendations of Phase 1 of the Gorham East-West Corridor Study that ended earlier this year included increased bus service in the area to help ease traffic congestion. Metro serves Westbrook now. Gagnon said one potential bus route to Gorham could be along Route 25 from Westbrook.

Information Tuesday is expected to include possible bus routes, ridership studies and costs of providing services.

“It’s going to be an eye-opener for a lot of people,” Town Councilor Noah Miner said Tuesday.

An attempt to provide bus service to Gorham four years ago was unsuccessful. Under that proposal, Gorham citizens would have ridden aboard buses shuttling students between the two university campuses. The plan outlined in 2007 sought $250,000 from Legislature to cover start-up costs of providing extra buses, but the proposal wasn’t funded by the state.

“We were looking at it, if the state had money to turn it into a real bus,” Judie O’Malley, a university spokeswoman, said Tuesday.

O’Malley said the university doesn’t subsidize the present student bus service.

“Our students pay for those buses,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley said the bus schedule is built around class schedules and scheduling of the present buses couldn’t allow for extra stops. She said the buses are also sometimes filled and she also added that there wouldn’t be parking space available on the Gorham campus for Gorham residents riding buses.

If Gorham were to institute public bus service, both Miner and Gagnon thought the town would have to start small.

“It definitely connects Gorham to the transportation grid,” Gagnon said.

Tuesday’s workshop is scheduled for a three-hour meeting and Pressey, who encouraged residents to attend, said the public would be able to ask questions.