The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Dealing with employee retention and services
[ by Mark Reaman and Kendra Walker ]Like most local agencies that depend on some federal funding assistance, the Mountain Express is facing some uncertainty with finances in the future and that could eventually impact some of its services. Mountain Express managing director Jeremy Herzog gave an update to the Crested Butte town council on March 17 and the Mt. CB town council on April 1 and touched on items like the Whetstone bus facility, the Late Night Taxi (LNT), FirstTracks and spring bus routes.
Herzog reported that while Mountain Express still hasn’t reached pre-pandemic numbers, ridership was up about 8% in 2024 over the previous year carrying 659,050 human passengers and 1,331 dogs. The cost per passenger was calculated at $4.54, which he said was good compared to similar mountain resorts like Breckenridge ($7.77) and Durango ($6.81). As expected, most of the riders took Mountain Express in the winter ski season when 518,829 people rode the bus. He also said that the Saturday of President’s Weekend this year was the second busiest Mountain Express day in a decade with close to 9,900 riders. “It was a pretty epic day,” he said.
“We are trying to modernize and improve Mountain Express,” Herzog said, citing the five primary objectives for 2025. Those include improving collective decision making between the agency and the Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte town councils; maintaining current service levels; running a balanced budget while raising wages as much as possible to better compete for employees; continuing the FirstTracks on-demand service in Mt. CB while also absorbing the Late Night Taxi service; and having a little fun and doing the small things that are important to the community.
“The elf bus, having the dogs ride the bus, having ambassadors are fun examples that speak to community members,” Herzog said.
He said he was looking for better integrated decision making with both town councils and he hopes to have two joint town council meetings focused on the Mountain Express in 2025. He said the agency hopes to better reach out to its riders through public notices and surveys and also to better compete for new employees, in part through more competitive wages.
Herzog said the current budget has a $100,000 deficit and while operating reserves stand at more than $1 million, “that is not sustainable. The system costs $165/hour to run with $102 of that being labor. We have some fairly substantial reserves but we do have to make some tough decisions together.”
Mountain Express is basically funded through sales tax from both Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte. Herzog said he has applied for a Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) grant that could close the budget deficit. He said he’s received positive feedback on the grant that helps fund transit expansions like FirstTracks.
Crested Butte mayor Ian Billick sits on the Mountain Express board and he highlighted a few similar things in the report that foreshadowed some financial tensions. “We need to keep an eye on and eliminate the deficit spending and we are trying to get coordinated decision making between the two towns on items such as the Late Night Taxi and FirstTracks,” he said. “We are also looking at capacity issues. For example, on big snow days the RTA (Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority) buses can’t get up the hill between the towns, so Mountain Express fills up quickly. We’ve asked Jeremy to analyze capacity issues and capital costs as more subdivisions come online in the valley. We are looking for buy-in costs through possible impact fees for example.”
Councilmember Anna Fenerty also sits on the Mountain Express board and she told the council that the Mountain Express board had a discussion about the need for the Late Night Taxi since so many permanent residents and workers no longer live in the two towns and instead live in outlying areas like Riverbend and CB South. “How will that play out and be paid for?” she asked.
Currently the two towns along with the RTA contribute money to the Late Night Taxi. Run by Downtowner that also runs the Mt. CB FirstTracks program, the company charges riders for the service and Herzog said Downtowner has been much more consistent than previous operators. “It is going much better this year,” he said. “They haven’t missed any night so reliability is improved and ridership has gone up slightly, so the price increase has not been a factor. A Late Night Taxi run costs between $15 and $25 per ride depending on the destination. Downtowner is doing a good job.”
Herzog said that as Mountain Express works on its five-year transit planning, they are looking at opportunities to possibly expand FirstTracks, such as utilizing on-demand services in the Buckhorn, CB South and Meridian Lake communities where there is not enough volume to warrant bus service. Another idea would be to look into stopping bus routes at certain times when there is lower ridership volume and use on-demand instead, such as on the Crystal/Castle bus later in the evening after the dinner crowds subside.
When asked whether Mountain Express was considering bringing the FirstTracks service in-house in the future, Herzog said the board has determined for now to continue with Downtowner in the short-term.
The proposed Whetstone bus facility has been in the works since 2018. Mountain Express along with the RTA purchased land in the industrial subdivision near Riverland but Mountain Express has been unsuccessful in obtaining grants to pay for the facility. Herzog said the estimated cost of a bus barn has increased from $7 million in 2018 to approximately $18 million in 2025.
“Whetstone is important to us,” he said, noting that the current facilities in the Crested Butte public works yard are too small. “Whetstone would be a bigger, warmer facility and provide opportunities to do more things we want to do.”
When asked how he would respond to a possible need to reduce service, Herzog said the focus should be “on what is working and working well and perhaps increase efficiency and productivity. We also need to focus on employee retention, so we have to be careful with some reductions. It looks like it might make sense to lose the spring bus routes since they are the least used but that could impact our year-round employees who wouldn’t have work and they would go somewhere else.”
“Mountain Express is an incredible service,” said councilmember John O’Neal. “It works and is part of the Crested Butte experience for locals and visitors.”
“I agree. With all the changes in the valley, Mountain Express is still one of the places we gather together on equal footing,” noted Herzog.
