Bustang

The skiers and snowboarders who took the inaugural trip on Colorado’s express bus service to the Arapahoe Basin ski area faced long delays. But Snowstang officials say such problems will be rare in the future.

Many agencies struggle to attract bus drivers, who are often paid too little to afford housing in the areas they serve. It's a vicious cycle.

Bustang officials celebrated a sharp rise in ridership that bucks a national trend — and the service’s fourth anniversary achievement was marked with a giant birthday card signed by officials from 107 Colorado cities and towns whose constituents are taking advantage of the expanding service.

With more than 188 open positions for bus and train operators at RTD & Bustang, we sat down with Bustang driver Krista Dolton to learn what the job is like. “It’s a career. It’s not a job,” she said. “You're transporting precious cargo. You're transporting somebody’s mom, somebody’s dad, somebody’s brother. And that cannot be replaced like a bag of groceries."

Transportation officials launched a statewide listening tour that will give Coloradans the chance to sound off on where limited state transportation dollars should be spent. But even in the heavily car-dependent Centennial State, officials at the state’s highway agency say they want to talk about walking, biking and transit.

In Denver and across Colorado, transit officials can’t hire enough people to drive buses and operate trains. Without drivers, some buses and trains never leave the station or service is cut.

When the Colorado Department of Transportation stops planning for cars and focuses on moving people via bus, it actually does a pretty good job.

Yesterday Streetsblog Denver published the first half of our interview with Shailen Bhatt, the head of Colorado’s Department of Transportation, in which he talked about CDOT’s changing role in a changing Denver. Bhatt isn’t your average DOT leader — or at least he doesn’t sound like one. He talks about complete streets a lot, and … Continued

If you have a minute, this video is good for a laugh. In it, Independence Institute President Jon Caldara says the Colorado Department of Transportation has been “infected by mission creep.” How? By investing money in transit and bicycle infrastructure. Caladra is referring to CDOT’s new regional bus service, Bustang, and Governor John Hickenlooper’s commitment to spend … Continued