This is the third part of Bikes, Buses, and Automobiles, a three-part series about commuting, congestion, and transportation in the Roaring Fork Valley.
Pueden encontrar la versión en español aquí.
The Roaring Fork Valley is unique for a rural community in a lot of ways. For one, its extensive transit network makes it so it’s actually possible for people to live here without a car.
But RFTA is looking to improve its service even further to connect an increasingly spread out community: getting downvalley residents to jobs upvalley and back home again.
For the five years Jeanne Souldern has lived in the Roaring Fork Valley, she hasn’t owned a car. She got around by walking, and by taking RFTA buses.
“My thing is always just don't fall asleep, don't fall asleep, you might end up in Rifle,” she said, laughing, while talking about taking the bus. “Yeah, it's convenient, at least I think so.”
Souldern is a reporter, and is proof that you can live without a car, even here in the valley.
She says in the long run, it was an economic decision, especially with how high the cost of living is here.
“Because it's not just owning a car, you know,” she said. “You have to factor in gas, monthly maintenance, oil changes, repairs, insurance… all those extra expenses that go above and beyond just owning a car.”
Though many people aren’t completely car-free, the way Souldern was, they still rely heavily on RFTA to get where they need to go.
Mac Benning lives in New Castle, and works as a Zoning Officer for Pitkin County. He comes into the office twice a week, and takes the bus to get there.
“It's convenient and it's free from Pitkin County,” he said, referencing the county’s policy of giving employees free bus passes. “So it is cheaper and safer, and, yeah, I can sleep or read or do whatever work.”
The convenience isn’t Benning’s only motivation.
“82 is notoriously dangerous,” he said. “I had a friend die… in a motorcycle accident on (Highway) 82. Every other week I'm up to an hour late for work, even if I get on the bus at 7 a.m., because of some near lethal car crash or something, like some sort of accident.”
In 2023, CDOT recorded 306 crashes on Highway 82 — about a 50% increase from 10 years ago. As of June, CDOT has already recorded 267 crashes.
Between the traffic, cost, and safety factors, it’s no wonder that hundreds of thousands of people ride RFTA buses each year. It’s the second largest transit agency in the state by ridership, and the largest rural transit agency in the country.
Jamie Tatsuno is RFTA’s communications manager. She said there’s a few contributing factors to RFTA’s place in transit leaderboards.
“A resort community, you know, people can't live in that resort,” she said. “So we're busing people up to that community, to work, and to play and live.”
And ridership increases in the winter, which indicates that it’s not just residents who rely on RFTA.
“We have the tourist factor where they come in and they use our services,” she said. “Especially if you fly into Aspen, you have free bus service to get to the mountains to ski in the winter.”
RFTA is set to receive a federal grant of nearly $33 million to help build a transit hub in West Glenwood. Tatsuno says they want it to be the “Rubey Park of Glenwood Springs.”
“We're going to make that kind of a bigger transit center, where people can connect up to Aspen and the communities up valley,” she said. “But also connect to the fast growing communities to the west. Also, you know, we have Bustang coming in there. So people can travel statewide.”
She says RFTA recognizes that as the cost of living has gone up, more people are moving downvalley to towns like New Castle, Silt, and Rifle, making expanding those routes a priority.
Right now, New Castle is the only town of those three that’s a member of RFTA.
In the early 2000s, voters in Silt, Rifle, and Garfield County rejected proposed sales tax increases that might have funded the agency, and last year, RFTA put together a committee to see if they might be interested in joining, or investing further in mass transit.
Jeanne Souldern has also noticed that more and more people are moving to these affordable towns downvalley, and would like to see more buses headed to those areas.
“Maybe they were in Basalt or Carbondale or Glenwood, but rising rents, especially renters, have been pushed further down valley.”
And there’s more money on the horizon for transit.
Legislation signed into law this year will increase oil and gas production fees starting in 2025. The new fees are expected to generate up to $175 million per year, and the money will go to transit authorities around the state, mainly to improve infrastructure and ridership.
And the more resources are invested in transit, the more options commuters have.
“But there's something about…being able to get by without a car that I really like,” she mused. “There's also a part of me that doesn't want, necessarily, (to) be a part of the car culture anymore.”