The Lakes Region bus will stop in Bridgton on Monday for the first time.

Lakes Region voters collectively in June approved $43,000 in funding for the bus, allowing the 18-month-old Naples-to-Portland daily shuttle service to continue through July 1, 2016, and also extend north – a long-sought demand of public transportation advocates in Bridgton.

Regional Transportation Program (RTP), which operates the bus, has seen its overall revenues decline by more than 50 percent in recent years, primarily due to an overhaul of the MaineCare transportation provider system in Cumberland County. In recent months, Jack DeBeradinis, the transportation program executive director, sought to raise $48,000 from the five towns along the Lakes Region route in order to continue operating the shuttle, which costs nearly $100,000 a year.

Despite the $5,000 shortfall, on Aug. 17, at 6 a.m., the bus, which has changed its name from the Lakes Region Shuttle to the Lakes Region Explorer, will make its first stop of the day at the Bridgton Community Center.

“I tell you, I feel great,” DeBeradinis said. “It’s been a big effort, it’s been an exciting effort, and, personally, I’m extremely pleased with the total cooperation with all concerned.”

Although the new shuttle schedule will still consist of four round-trips between the Lakes Region and Portland, a number of other adjustments will become effective on Aug. 17. Pick-up times will be moved back at the existing stops, with the bus making its first stop of the day in Bridgton, instead of Naples. The Explorer will run back and forth on Route 302 between Bridgton and Portland every weekday, starting in Bridgton at 6 a.m., and ending in Portland at 10:15 p.m. There will be stops in Bridgton, Naples, Casco, Raymond, Windham, Westbrook and Portland.

Other changes will occur, as well. The Casco stop will move from Norm’s O Scale Trains on 41 Roosevelt Trail to the South Casco Fire Station at 20 Brown Ave. Four new request-only stops will be added, where riders can wave down the bus. Request-only stops will be placed at Lake Region High School, the Naples Village Library, Time4Printing at Brookhaven Drive in Windham, and the University of Southern Maine on Forest Avenue in Portland.

According to Rick Harbison, a planner with the Greater Portland Council of Governments, an informal system will govern the request-only stops.

“The request-only stops are similar to what the Metro has or the South Portland bus has, where people are waiting at the stop,” Harbison said. “They just wave at the bus driver and he’ll pull over. Or if you’re on the bus you tell the bus driver you’re going to get off.”

Harbison said that bus riders had requested more stops on surveys.

“One of the suggestions that we had from the surveys is that the stops were inconvenient for people because we only had five stops on the route,” he said. “It’s out of the way for a lot of people to drive 10 minutes to the stop and take the bus, or if they don’t have a car, they have to walk or bike that far to the stop.”

In the spring, DeBeradinis requested $9,656 from each town to help operate the service. Voters in Bridgton, Naples, Casco and Windham approved the funding. Raymond voters passed an article that only included $5,000 for the Lakes Region bus. DeBeradinis plans to petition Raymond town officials for an additional $5,000.

In the future, DeBeradinis said, he hopes the municipalities will simply include funding for the bus in their budgets, instead of putting the funds up for referendum votes.

“I kind of hope that this is going to have its own momentum and we’re not going to have to redo the process,” DeBeradinis said. “I would hope that the towns would see this as an ongoing process. We certainly see it that way.”

George Bradt, the secretary of the Bridgton Transportation Authority, which successfully pushed for a 1-cent property tax increase to fund the extension to Bridgton, said the cooperative funding of the shuttle service could be a model for future regional initiatives.

“This could inspire further regional cooperation between the towns,” Bradt said. “The home-rule thing is way out of date. It would be so wonderful if we could all get together and provide services to the Lakes Region population at better prices. The spirit is we all chip in some money, we give up control, we work together, and we get something we want, which is way less expensive than if we had to go out and run our own bus.”