Officials looking at regional South Routt shuttle
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Steamboat Springs — Every day, South Routt Superintendent Kelly Reed watches hundreds of Stagecoach and Oak Creek residents climb solo into their cars clog Routt County Road 14 and Colorado Highway 131 with traffic for the trip to Steamboat Springs.
It's a problem with a potential solution, Reed said.
"During (my) tenure it has become apparent there is an immediate and growing need for public transportation in our area," he said.
On Tuesday, Reed spent about 10 minutes asking the Routt County Board of Commissioners to consider reinstating a regional South Routt public transportation system that would include stops in Oak Creek and Stagecoach and could possibly include service to Yampa and Phippsburg.
"Obviously, I approached it from the interest of the school district, but it goes far beyond that," Reed said. "I think there's a need there right now that would justify having a service like that in our community."
County Commissioner Nancy Stahoviak said the board was receptive to looking at Reed's request, but noted similar attempts at providing regional transportation had failed in the past.
"The ridership was not supporting that service," she said. "At the end of that service, we were lucky if we even had one rider."
Stahoviak said Routt County Manager Tom Sullivan is preparing a series of surveys designed to gauge interest from South Routt residents about implementing a regional transportation system. The surveys likely will be printed in the Oak Creek and Yampa town newsletters and presented at South Routt Economic Development and Stagecoach Property Owners Association meetings.
"We would be willing to see if there's an interest in the South Routt community to implement something like this with the growing population and the number of people that live in South Routt and commute to Steamboat," she said. "We need to see if there's a desire out there for this type of service."
Reed said he has heard people willing to support a regional transportation system similar to what Steamboat Springs Transit provides for Craig and Hayden.
"I'm coming from a fresh take that the growing population of Stagecoach and Oak Creek, especially, at least justify another look at implementing something like this," he said. "I don't know what to expect, but nothing tried, nothing gained."
Jonathan Flint, operations manager for SST, said it could be a challenge to provide a regional service to South Routt and North Routt because of ridership, scheduling and the amount of time it would take for riders to get to Steamboat.
"The difficulties we have in regional service is timing, because in Steamboat there's a variety of work here with people on a variety of schedules," he said. "Our regional service with Craig and Hayden works because there are enough people to support it and because people are not arriving any later than they would have in their own car."
However, Flint said providing such a service is not out of reach.
"It's still something we're looking at, especially as these areas continue to grow," he said. "It's a matter of watching the factors."
Stahoviak said South Routt residents interested in the transportation service should fill out the surveys and return them to county offices in Steamboat or call 879-0108 to express support.
"Once we get the information about how much support there is, we'll evaluate that and decide if we could implement something with our 2008-2009 budget," Stahoviak said.
Comments
OneFly 5 years, 11 months ago
I doubt it too. To make this work there would need to be more than one shuttle and riders have to be dropped off close to where they work and that is very difficult to achieve.
kingsride 5 years, 11 months ago
This seems like yet another great opportunity to bring in some outside consultants to ponder the issue at great expense to us taxpayers. I suspect the first thing they would find is that CR 14 to Stagecoach, with the many patch jobs really isnt suitable (or safe) for public transportation.
thecondoguy1 5 years, 11 months ago
this shuttle idea is terrific, provided of course it's a Hummer I can leave in my garage and the schedule is whenever I want to come and go, it has to stop at the OTP for sure..........
upstream 5 years, 11 months ago
Holy negativity and cynicism batman! You cats (the usual suspects) never cease to amaze with your Jerry Springer rhetoric.
Kudos to superintendent Reed for stepping forward to ask us all to consider an option to choking 131 with a wagon train of gas guzzlers everday. We clearly need an alternative to the current status quo (as has been so poignantly illustrated by Gary Trudeau and his courageous publication over the last 2 weeks of the name of each and every American who has had to die to keep our cars on the road and allow us to not make a single adjustment to our lifestyle of consumption). My suggestion is that we all challenge ourselves to make one positive suggestion as to what would need to happen to make this work. Because something has not happened before is no reason to believe it can't happen now. Change is hard- and we humans have survived an awfully long time because change is within our skill set. Again- thank you Mr. Reed for being the one among us who has taken actual steps to initiate a forward thinking conversation. I can see the Jerry Springer cynics fading away in the distance...once again they've missed the bus. Bye-Bye.
thecondoguy1 5 years, 11 months ago
upstream, how about we take the money, buy everybody a Sabaru, with a kerry/edwards bumper sticker, (for added efficiency), and let er go at that............
bluntman 5 years, 11 months ago
build it and they will come.
making Mr. Reed's proposal a component of a larger regional transportation plan is certainly the most logical step in making this great idea a reality. merely claiming that " it didn't work in the past, so it couldn't possibly work now or in the future" is the lamest, most convienient excuse to do nothing except sit on one's brains and continue driving... one person per vehicle, please.
like anything else worth doing (and doing well), this would take commitment, time and effort. being the heaviest object at the center of the known universe, Steamboat Springs would do well to spend a bit more time considering (and acting in a positive manner upon) its impact on the satellite communities as it pertains to attainable housing, living wages, labor, school funding and REGIONAL transportation issues, because waiting for endless studies and reports from overpriced consultants only makes the problems worse.
as our friend upstream so astutely (yet again) points out, we as Americans make daily choices that are profound, far reaching, and global in their impact. choosing how we show support for our troops in Iraq and elsewhere can easily be summarized by how we answer the following survey (choose one):
A.) keep 'r idling
B.) bring them home now
so, are you with us or are you against us?
JQPUBLIC 5 years, 11 months ago
New people have been and will continue to move into south routt, most jobs and amenities are still in stmbt; with the cost of gas, now would be a good time to try it again. They need to look at different times and stops and possibly making connections to continue on to craig. If they do not try to get rich off of this, it may take a little time but very easily could begin paying for itself. Running in the evenings would be a bonus.
WIN THE WAR!
aristocat 5 years, 11 months ago
will mr reed provide a shuttle to get the early learning center children back and forth to school. They have a 2 1/2 hour class in the morning and a 2 1/2 hour class in the afternoon. Their morning class begins after school starts and their afternoon class ends before school is out! They have not provided services in the past and did not let the preschool children ride the bus, even when children lived as far away as Bond! Will he provide a shuttle for them? There are about 20 - 30 children in each class and very few parents car pool! Until the new center is built, they will be attending classes in the middle school! This all should be very interesting!
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