The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Is there a way to trim costs and serve the late-night crowd?
By Mark Reaman
It isn’t cheap to provide the Late Night Taxi at the north end of the valley. Last year about 4,000 rides were provided and while each ride cost the customer $10, another $50 is subsidized through local government entities. The taxi is overseen by Mountain Express and contracted to Alpine Express to run the service. The Mountain Express board has started the process to see if it can be run more cheaply and efficiently once the Alpine contract expires on December 31 of this year.
Mountain Express managing director Jeremy Herzog said he has been tasked with looking at alternatives and reporting back to the board at the August 15 meeting.
“This is a very expensive program to run, and understandably, there are lots of important needs these days,” he said. “The towns (both Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte) and the RTA currently fund this service above and beyond the tax allocation given to us to provide a transportation system, so I understand it is a situation where we want to make sure we are providing the absolute best service for the money. There are two current alternatives we have been discussing at a high level and will dive into deeper in upcoming discussions.”
Herzog said that due to some challenges Alpine is having both in reliability and actioning improvement plans that Mountain Express staff and its board have requested, they have been discussing the possibility of transferring service to Downtowner (provider of FirstTracks) in its current on-demand format. He said the board also wants some perspective on possible cost and efficiencies that could come by using a fixed route bus system that services Mt. CB until about 2:30 a.m., in the hopes this might be a less expensive alternative than an on-demand model.
“There will be a lot of factors we will think about when making a recommendation to the board, such as costs, safety, ridership experience, a reasonable staffing model, etc.,” he said. “We will come back in the next board meeting with a recommendation of what is feasible, what it could look like, how much it would cost and what some of the challenges might be to implement it. I am particularly concerned about the safety of our staff and patrons, and we are talking through those concerns.”
Mountain Express took over the Late Night Taxi three years ago when the local Bartender’s Association dissolved. Funding is primarily from the two municipalities with a contribution from the RTA. It takes about $190,000 in contributions to run and Alpine Express collects about $40,000 in fares. Herzog said Mountain Express leadership also oversees the service by monitoring weekly ridership data, being a customer advocate when an issue arises, providing marketing materials and reporting monthly performance metrics to the board.
“I personally think this is an important service to maintain. But I don’t think of it as public transportation, as I would have a hard time recommending a service that costs roughly $60/passenger. I think this service is more about public safety, as well as an amenity any resort town should have, for both locals and visitors alike,” Herzog said. “I appreciate the support to date of the service by the Mountain Express board, the town councils and the CB/Mt. CB/RTA staff.”
He and his staff will gather the requested data and present it to the transit board in mid-August.
