YOUR AD HERE »

Fraser Valley officials consider year-round municipal bus service

Tonya Bina/Sky-Hi Daily News

A recent study has Fraser Valley officials eyeing the possibility of converting the existing private, winter-only transit system into a year-round municipal bus service.

However, residents shouldn’t expect the system to change overnight, because there is lot of work to be done, said Winter Park Town Manager Drew Nelson.

The draft Fraser Valley Public Transit System Analysis details how to develop a year-round public bus system that uses “heavy-duty” transit buses instead of the school buses used by the private transit system operated by Intrawest.



Intrawest employs First Transit, a private transportation management company, which supplies service during the ski season and to a limited extent during the rest of the year.

The towns of Winter Park and Fraser contribute funding for evening bus service in their communities during the ski season.



What the town of Winter Park and other stakeholders are examining, and what the $25,000 study prepared by LSC Transportation Consultants of Colorado Springs suggests, is transitioning from the current transit system into a public system, enabling the community to seek federal dollars in order to operate the service.

The study, paid for with grant money supplied by the Colorado Department of Transportation, notes limited local funding in Grand County prevents a public bus service from operating without state and federal help.

A difficult transition

Winter Park, which already supports transportation in the Fraser Valley to the tune of $500,000 a year, hopes to establish agreements with Intrawest and other stakeholders governing how operations and administration would work for such a change.

“Transitioning to public service is not an easy thing to do,” Nelson cautioned, explaining it involves layers of details and agreements, especially when federal funds are utilized.

Nevertheless, it’s considered the best means of steering the Valley in the direction of year-round reliable service for visitors and residents.

The capital improvement goal outlined in the study would entail replacing busses with more attractive ones, to “enhance the guest experience,” Nelson said.

One fast-track toward this initial goal was to obtain public transportation funding from the state of Colorado to purchase transit buses. The town of Winter Park agreed to put forward $200,000 while it sought $1 million from a dedicated state funding pool.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Steamboat and Routt County make the Steamboat Pilot & Today’s work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.