Photo: Outgoing Archuleta County Transportation Coordinator Kevin Bruce (center, dark gray shirt) and new coordinator Andrew Mylroy (white striped white), presenting to the Board of County Commissioners, May 14, 2024.
As noted in Part One yesterday, not all communities are created equal, in terms of geology, culture, economy, ambition. When the Colorado legislature agreed to extend last year’s Zero Fares for Cleaner Air program, they no doubt had in mind Front Range cities like Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs — the places most impacted by Not-Cleaner-Air. The Colorado government has a goal of greatly reducing the amount of CO2 (and by implication, other air pollutants) by the year 2030, and they hope to do that partly by reducing the number of cars and trucks on the road, given that “the transportation sector is the single largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in Colorado”… according to Senate Bill 24-032, signed into law by Governor Jared Polis on May 16.
That law creates a new bureaucracy, the “Statewide Transit Pass Exploratory Committee”, to study and make recommendations about the creation of a ‘transit pass’ that would be valid all across the state. Meanwhile, the second half of SB24-032 specifies funding the Zero Fare for Cleaner Air program for summer, 2024.
Pagosa Springs may not have featured prominently on the legislative radar, even though Archuleta County had received Zero Fare funding last summer. That funding not only provided cost-free bus rides to locals and tourists, it also allowed Mountain Express Transit (MET) buses to make occasional runs to Arboles and Aspen Springs.
Listening to outgoing Transportation Coordinator Kevin Bruce at the May 14 BOCC meeting, I thought I heard him say that Archuleta County had not been funded for the Zero Fare program this summer… but listening back to my recording of the meeting, he actually said:
“The Zero Fare program was sponsored by the Colorado Energy Office last summer. They did not fund June, this year. Senate Bill 24-095 hasn’t been passed yet; that would fund July and August… and typically what the MET needs in the summer months is [about] $2,000 to support that Zero Fare program…”
In fact, SB24-095 had already died a legislative death by May 14, when Mr. Bruce was delivering his report, but an alternate bill, SB24-032, had been passed and was awaiting the Governor’s signature, which arrived (during a train ride) on May 16.
As mentioned, SB24-032 does indeed fund the Zero Fare program, but only for July and August. From the Colorado Association of Transit Agencies:
During the months of July-August 2024, public transit agencies around the state of Colorado who apply for an Ozone Season Transit Grant will join together to take part in the collaborative, statewide initiative made possible by Colorado Senate Bill 24-032 in partnership with the Colorado Energy Office. The Ozone Season Transit Grant program is designed to reduce ground level ozone by increasing use of public transit. Transit riders will benefit from the program as many transit agencies allow riders to take transit this summer, during Colorado’s high ozone season.
The grant applications were not yet available, as of yesterday evening.
Another portion of the May 14 BOCC discussion I found interesting concerned a new local committee that’s been discussing “satellite parking lots” that could kick into gear in 2025, when the Colorado Department of Transportation hires a contractor to tear up Highway 160 through seven blocks of downtown Pagosa. That project will eliminate up to 280 parking spaces in our main tourism shopping district, for up to two years, and the committee has been plotting ways to have MET buses provide shuttle rides through downtown, to provide shopping access from the satellite parking lots.
One lot might be the vacant lot just uphill from, and adjacent to, the Ruby Sisson Library. That parcel belongs to the library.
Mr. Bruce:
“If they use the library for additional parking, we already have a MET stop there. So I have a note here, to work with advertising and stakeholders, if this is allowable parking next year… ‘Hey, you can get on the MET, and ride downtown, do your shopping and then jump back on the MET and get back to the library…’ It’s not necessarily a place that you have to walk to and from. That library parking would fit into how we already operate…”
Unfortunately, it might not fit into how people operate. The MET currently stops at the library once per hour, headed for downtown via a tour, first, of South Pagosa.
My experience with shuttle buses, in other situations: you rarely have to wait more than five minutes for the next shuttle. If I’m parking at a satellite parking lot, and I find out the next bus will come in 55 minutes, and will head south instead of east… I am not likely to wait around for a ride when it’s only three blocks into the downtown core. Probably, I’m going to choose to walk.
Nor does the MET stop at the library when headed back uptown. (You can download the 2024 MET bus schedule here.)
Mr. Bruce also mentioned the possibility of a new parking lot using about 1/3 of the athletic field in Town Park; some on-street parking along Hot Springs Boulevard; and other locations.
The Town Planning Commission had a long debate about this same issue, later that same day, and rejected the idea of converting part of Town Park into a parking lot. They also rejected the idea of allowing parking along Hot Springs Boulevard. Of course, those are merely recommendations coming from the Planning Commission; the Town Council has the final say regarding the use of Town property, and Town revenues.
I mentioned in Part One of this editorial series, that the Regional Transportation District serving Denver-Boulder-Aurora provides about 65 million bus and rail rides per year.
Last summer, when the MET offered Zero Fare rides here in Pagosa during June, July and August, they provided about 2,534 rides over those three months.
An average of 38 rides per weekday (MET does not run on Saturday or Sunday).
Four customers per hour.
We’re not a community built for an efficient transit system. We’re too sparsely populated; we have too few people living in the urban core, along the bus route; the bus runs only once per hour, and only during the daytime. No weekend service.
But we’re doing the best we can.