The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
And there’s not a lot of extra lying around…
By Mark Reaman
Finances were the central issue at the May 22 Mountain Express board meeting. Whether it was the uncertainty of upcoming benefit costs such as health care; how to pay for things on the future wish list such as a possible car-share program, transitioning to electric buses; paying for drivers and personnel needed to track specific ridership and its impacts; or simply covering an expected $200,000 budget shortfall in the $3.6 million 2025 budget, finances were the core of most discussions.
Part of the discussion was looking at possible service reductions that could include little things like eliminating the “Elf Bus” to not running the 14 weeks of spring service and 10 weeks of fall schedules that are lightly used. Even with that, there was not much public discussion on eliminating or tweaking the relatively new FirstTracks program in Mt. Crested Butte or the Late Night Taxi service for the north end of the valley. The two issues were discussed more in-depth at a recent joint council meeting and it appeared there was a desire to gather more solid data on the programs before making decisions on the fate of either.
In regard to the spring and fall schedules, board member Valeda Scribner noted that with the new consistent 30-minute service from the RTA during those times, an agreement might be reached to have those buses fill the off-season gaps since they too run from the Four-Way Stop in Crested Butte to the Mt. Crested Butte Transit Center.
Board member Anna Fenerty said one reason to not drop those service schedules was to incentivize drivers to remain with Mountain Express as full-time employees. “We have always said how staffing is a primary concern,” she said.
“We don’t have the needed information to make a decision about service levels at this time,” said board chair Roman Kolodziej.
Without taking an official vote, most board members seemed comfortable eliminating decorating the Elf Bus, eliminating the Ambassador Program for the base area and eliminating the summer Express Service between the base area and Four-Way. Those moves would save approximately $58,000.
A long discussion over the evolving five-year service plan also touched on finances. Consultant Dan Crawley said that while Mountain Express was a “key asset of both Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte, it was often at capacity at peak times,” he said noting that the primary town shuttle route provides great bang for the buck as a people mover.
Mountain Express manager Jeremy Herzog provided sample data from President’s Weekend that included a busy visitation time along with powder days. He said mornings and late afternoons had many full buses.
The board asked Herzog to provide regular figures of how often buses were at capacity and leaving people behind. But again, finances came into play when Herzog said he couldn’t provide that data given his time constraints and the fact that he did not yet have full-time operations manager onboarded. “I don’t have the resources to collect that data,” he said. “There are operational limitations. I don’t have the personnel.”
“Staffing continues to be a primary challenge,” said board member Alex Gruzan.
“I don’t need detailed data but I want enough information to understand the trends,” said board member Ian Billick. “As a board member I don’t want to get into day-to-day procedures but that seems like it would be pretty easy to get. Keep it simple but let’s see how it is changing.”
There was discussion on how to tie in a potential park-and-ride at the Crested Butte Community School parking lot. The goal there is to move cars from where they are parked now near some business and residential neighborhoods to a spot on the southern edge of town. A potential car-sharing program was also discussed but Kolodziej said the discussion was basically a cost exercise at this point given the realities of the budget. That same conclusion was observed for expanding the route through the town of Crested Butte to be closer to more residents. As for transitioning to more sustainable vehicles, the board gave the thumbs up to continue developing a Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) transition plan with the future potential to obtain federal funds to make the transition.
The board will continue to drill down on details of how to best handle budget issues as the summer season approaches.
