More busses, more flights as RTA looks to the future

Expanded summer flights, late-night bus service, favorable public image

It’s a time of growth for the Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority (RTA), which has recently expanded its roster of airline and bus transportation services. This winter, the RTA added early-morning and late-night service to its bus route between Mt. Crested Butte and Gunnison, and just last week it announced the return (and expansion) of a summer airline program between Houston, Tex. and the Gunnison Valley. RTA staff also proposed a new social media promotion to the Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association (TA) with an aim of increasing the number of passengers flying into the region in March.

All of these efforts fall in line with the RTA’s mission to provide and improve ground transportation within the valley, and airline service in and out of the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport on a year-round basis. That will no doubt be key as the RTA board of directors considers going to the voters for a funding increase within the next year or two—a decision potentially made easier by the results of a recent voter survey, which shows support for a modest tax increase for bus and air transportation.
At a recent meeting on Friday, December 12, the board and its valley-wide partners such as the TA and Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) reviewed the full spectrum of updates:

Summer flights
Next summer, Houstonites looking to escape the Texas heat will be able to choose from 38 direct flights to the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport. That’s more than double the number of flights offered last summer, when the RTA introduced the service.
The United Airlines service will run from June 20 through September 6, and at its height, there will be four round-trip flights per week. The flights will leave Houston on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday at 5:45 p.m. and arrive in Gunnison at 6:51 p.m. Departing flights will leave Gunnison the following days, on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday at 7:45 a.m.
According to RTA director Scott Truex, the success of last year’s season made it possible to increase the program for 2015. Last summer, there were 15 direct flights and 80 percent of seats sold—a significant accomplishment, Truex said, during the first year of a program. As a result, the RTA paid less than 15 percent of the revenue guarantee to the airlines. And what’s more, the service brought more than 1,500 additional passengers into the valley without making a dent in air service from Denver.
“The Denver flights did better than the year before and we had a whole new service from Houston, so that’s a success and that justifies our goal to expand it again,” Truex said.
The revenue guarantee to the airlines for the 2015 program came in at about $310,000, compared to $235,000 last summer—a reasonable increase, according to Truex, given that the service more than doubled. And if the program continues to be successful, the RTA may not be required to pay the full amount.

Late-night bus service
The new flights are just one way that the RTA has expanded its services in the Gunnison Valley. This winter, the RTA expanded bus service between Mt. Crested Butte and Gunnison, including a late-night bus that leaves Gunnison for Mt. Crested Butte at 10 p.m. and then heads back down valley at 11:15 p.m.
Riders are making use of the new service. After only five days of ridership, an average of eight people took the southbound trip, and surprisingly to the RTA, the northbound trip was also seeing eight to 15 people a night.
“We expected that trip to run empty,” said Stewart Johnson, president and general manager of Alpine Express, which operates the buses.
At the December 12 meeting, the board or directors asked Johnson to have the 11:15 p.m. southbound trip pull all the way into Crested Butte South instead of dropping late-night passengers off on Highway 135. He agreed, and that service began on Monday, December 15 for the late-night bus only.

Filling March flights
The Tuesday before the RTA board meeting, Truex and Mike Horn, editorial director for marketing agency Buttery, proposed a possible social media campaign to the TA to fill airline seats in March 2015. According to Truex, there are 500 more seats available in March compared to last year, and the number of seats actually sold was down by 381 as of December 8.
“There are two things going against us for March this year,” Truex said. “Mardi Gras is in February instead of March, and spring break in Texas and Oklahoma was spread out over three weeks last year. It’s compressed this year.”
Truex said he wanted to alert the TA of the deficit but didn’t want to do so without sharing possible solutions. By the time the RTA meeting rolled around, it looked like the TA was running with the idea. According to board member Ken Stone, the TA is working with Buttery and CBMR on a social media promotion called Lift Ticket to Fly. A targeted social media campaign would promote flights into the Gunnison Valley and come with special lift ticket prices. In addition, the TA hoped to sweeten the deal with some giveaways.
“The nice part about it is that with social media it’s very trackable,” Stone said. In addition to tracking lift ticket scans, he saw the potential to track incremental spending in the valley. The promotion would cost $45,000 and would likely be promoted after the holidays, with email marketing and traditional advertising layered in. When asked, Stone didn’t foresee any problems caused by recent changes to the TA board structure and staffing. He said partnering with outside agencies would likely be the wave of the future for the TA.
“This is the new paradigm we should be under, where we engage our partners, the RTA is involved, you understand the promotion and we have metrics in place and a goal,” Stone said.
In this case, Buttery is experienced with social media campaigns and knows the local culture well. Horn said targeted social medial campaigns have been very successful with other clients, including one ski area that doubled season pass sales during a weeklong sales window.
“The approach we would take is storytelling to engage these people and get them here,” Horn said. “We recognize the importance of the March window, but the other added value is engaging these people over the long term and trying to make them fall in love with the place virtually if they have never been here, or relighting the fire and bringing them back.”
The promotion will go back to the TA board one more time for final approval, but the proposal was a hit with the RTA, earning a whoop-whoop, and even a “raise the roof.”

Public perception of the RTA
Anticipating a possible bid for increased funding, the RTA had Magellan Strategies conduct voter research. The board wanted to know: What do local voters think of RTA services, and would they support a moderate tax increase to improve local bus services and airline programs?
David Flaherty, CEO of Magellan Strategies, presented the findings to the board at its December 12 meeting. A total of 219 Gunnison Valley residents participated in a phone survey, and so far, things look pretty good. “The overall majority would support a modest sales tax to fund regular bus service, senior bus service, and air service,” he said.
After education—learning how the RTA is funded, what services the RTA provides, and how that funding compares to other resort communities—67 percent of survey respondents said they would support a moderate tax increase for the RTA. (Before education, that figure was 57 percent.)
“We don’t want to take those results completely literally,” Flaherty cautioned. “We framed it as a modest sales tax increase, and once we have real numbers that’s going to go down a little bit. It always does.”
Yet overall, Flaherty sad, the numbers indicated that the RTA was in a pretty good starting place should the board decide to pursue a tax increase. Respondents generally felt the economy was good or fair and would improve in the future. They were generally satisfied with bus service—43 percent indicating they were very satisfied, and 44 percent saying they were somewhat satisfied—and satisfaction with air service was decent, too. Eleven percent were very satisfied and 49 percent were somewhat satisfied.
The numbers also indicated that people believed bus and air service are important to the local economy. And while more than half of respondents said that now is not the time to be raising taxes or fees, the overwhelming take-home message seemed to be that any ballot initiative asking for a tax increase needs to include funding for the general bus service, bus services for seniors and the air program.
When considered separately, 61 percent of respondents supported increasing funding for a senior bus service, 41 percent supported increasing funding for the general bus program and 46 percent supported increased funding for the air program. But considered together, support rose to 67 percent.
The board did ask for some additional information, like the regional breakdown of respondents across the valley, but overall the report was well received.
“This is great to see some hard information on things that for years we’ve bantered around ourselves,” said board member and county commissioner Jonathan Houck.
“We’re at a good starting point,” Flaherty said. “Now the outreach begins.”
Next up: The RTA roadshow. Board members will begin to meet with groups throughout the valley to educate them on the RTA’s accomplishments, the need for increased funding, and the research results.