The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Airport service, system changes, fare charges…
by Mark Reaman
The Gunnison Valley Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) board of directors is digesting a pile of information related to its overall mission and future direction. After a spring retreat, RTA executive director Scott Truex was charged with gathering information on a number of topics and he presented that written information to the board at the June meeting. Given the amount of information, the board decided to hold a two-hour work session at the August meeting to discuss the information and contextualize for future direction.
“Given this encyclopedia of new data, we need time to absorb it and discuss it,” said board member Diego Plata. Board chair Matt Schwartz suggested it be broken into “digestible chunks.”
Almost a dozen topics were addressed by Truex: everything from defining core bus and air service to the idea of providing a Gunnison circulator bus, the cost of bringing the bus service in-house instead of contracting it out, to ramifications of charging a nominal fare for riders and possibly providing service to the airport. The board will break it all down this month.
Airport service
Information provided by Truex in a series of memos included his estimate that while there are options to provide regular service to the Gunnison Airport, as a public entity that accepts federal funding, the RTA is not allowed to provide charter service. This means that the RTA can’t provide door-to-door service like Alpine Express, Rocky Rides, Black Canyon Limo and Dolly’s Mountain Shuttle do.
“However, we could serve the airport with fixed route service from the North Valley using a more appropriate (smaller) vehicle than we use on the commuter bus route,” he wrote in his report. “A route could be designed to start at Mt. Crested Butte and stop in Crested Butte, CB South, Almont and a couple of places in Gunnison before going to the airport and then returning along the same route. The cost per hour of this service would be similar to the service we provide on our commuter bus. It would take approximately two hours and be about 65 miles round-trip. In this example, we could run six round trips per day and schedule them as best as possible to coincide with air service connections.”
His financial estimates indicate the operating cost for such a route would be approximately $640,575 annually. A 30-passenger bus would cost about $340,000 but he expected grants would significantly subsidize that cost.
Core bus and air services
On the bus side, Truex said the current level of service is reaching the minimum core service necessary to be effective and viable for the community. That breaks down to regular half hour service year-round and increasing the trips to every 15 minutes during peak times in the winter season. The RTA goal is to get to every 15-minute service all year. That should add consistency to the schedule, allow for more stable employment and decrease uncertainty for both RTA passengers and drivers.
In his report, Truex estimated that had they not run 15-minute routes in January of 2024, approximately 4,557 passengers would have been left behind. “There was not a single day where we would have been able to accommodate everyone who wanted to board the bus,” he wrote. “The numbers show that 15-minute service is imperative during peak times in the winter.
As for air service, Truex said the Gunnison Airport is currently operating at about 68,000 enplanements per year, well over the FAA requirement of 10,000 to be classified as a Primary Airport and receive FAA Airport Improvement Program entitlement funds.
Truex indicated the minimum core service necessary for the airport to be “vibrant and healthy and to serve the Gunnison Community” would be having United fly between GUC and Denver at least three times a day. That is currently in place about 40 weeks a year. “Another definition of core service levels could include adding seasonal service to other hubs to the year-round Denver service,” he said. “Seasonal service to the Texas hubs is also vital to our second homeowner and visitor travelers. While these services may never expand to year-round, these seasonal flights should be considered part of our core service requirements to make the airport viable.”
Charging a fare for the bus
Looking at whether to charge a “nominal fare” for people riding the bus in the valley, Truex said it makes sense to keep it free. In 2025 the cost per passenger on the RTA was $11.75, up from $10.91 in 2024.
Truex said charging a fare would add time to each route as the fares are collected. He predicted that additional time would add about 10% to the time it takes to run a route and that would result in additional operating costs. Accounting and administrative costs would also increase. Based on other transit research, adding a $2 fare would be expected to reduce ridership by 25%. He estimated the cost per passenger would climb to about $15.23.
Truex’s report said that “the concept of providing free bus service includes attempting to capture passengers who have options for travel beside using the bus. These are called ‘choice riders.’ If the option of riding the bus is not easy, predictable, safe and convenient, then choice riders will most often choose other options.”
Truex said that “while the annual program costs are reduced when charging fares, the resulting decrease in ridership is concerning and increases the cost per passenger. This lessens the efficiency of the system since there are less passengers on each bus.”
Running the system in-house
Some on the board have advocated for bringing the operations directly under the RTA instead of contracting it out. Currently Destination Systems runs the operation under a $3.6 million contract from the RTA.
Truex developed a simple organization chart and estimated salaries for the positions. He said the analysis shows the RTA would need approximately 31 full-time and 16 part-time personnel to operate the system. That accounted for about $4.2 million in wages and benefits.
“Beyond these expenses, there are additional costs that the current contractor takes on such as vehicle insurance, snowplowing, utilities and supplies,” Truex wrote. “If we were to bring the service in-house, these additional costs are estimated at ($310,000). There would also be an additional cost for office space…this would bring the total cost of the service to approximately $4,599,000 to run the service in-house.” Given those numbers, he said to run the bus system in-house would be approximately $670,000 more than the cost of contracting the service. He said there would also be a need for one-time capital costs for things like supervisor support vehicles and a mechanical response truck.
The board has scheduled the work session to delve into these and additional big picture topics at the August 14 meeting that will take place in Mt. Crested Butte.
