Interconnected regional transportation on the way?

Like an enormous game of musical chairs, weekday mornings in Northern Colorado signal the start of a commuter shuffle where workers leave their homes in one city for work in another.
This daily pattern of trading places, in the midst of growing traffic congestion and pollution worries, sets the stage for a regional transportation system.
Studies have documented the need, Northern Colorado transit officials say.
For example, 45 percent of work trips made each day in Loveland are to destinations outside the city. Roughly 35 percent of Greeley workers leave their town to go to work, while some 17 percent to 18 percent in Fort Collins go elsewhere to work.
Regional bus service could draw at least some of these drivers off the roads and out of their cars, easing pressure on area roadways and air quality. Already, at least one regional link exists: The public transit systems in Fort Collins and Loveland connect along U.S. Highway 287 via the FoxTrot bus route.
Tom Hofmann, president of Shamrock Airport Express, is looking to establish a second connection, this one between Greeley and Loveland. In mid-July, Hofmann applied to the Public Utilities Commission for authorization to connect existing bus systems in the two cities.
An answer to the request could come this month.
Details yet to be set
Hofmann said exact fares and schedules have not been established. He predicted that the service might run hourly seven days a week from early morning to 10 or 11 p.m. A one-way fare might be about $3, he said. Initially, he said, vehicles making the Greeley-to-Loveland route will probably have a 12- to 15-passenger capacity.
Shamrock doesn?t have a projection for ride numbers on the proposed regional route, Hofmann said, just a sense that the demand exists.
“What kind of got us going is that a lot of people, particularly in west Greeley, come over and access our service to the airport at our stop at I-25 and (U.S.) 34,” he said, noting that parking is scarce at the airport shuttle stop there and that customers call frequently to ask to be picked up at their homes.
“That’s what prompted our thinking,” Hofmann said. “We’ve always had calls over the years and discussions with the cities. … We had considered a service between Fort Collins and Greeley, but this seemed like a less-expensive way.”
Shamrock Airport Express primarily offers scheduled shuttle service from Cheyenne, Fort Collins, Loveland and Longmont to Denver International Airport. The company provides door-to-door service to the airport in Loveland and Fort Collins that feeds into the scheduled service.
Hofmann said one of the advantages to the proposed Loveland-Greeley route is that the stop is just steps away from where COLT buses ? the city of Loveland’s transit system ? stop at the Hampton Inn.
The stop on the Greeley end hasn’t been determined yet, he said. “It will be someplace where it could interface with The Bus system.”
In addition, Hofmann has Shamrock Yellow Cab. That business recently contracted with Transfort, the public-transit system in Fort Collins, to provide paratransit services to the elderly and disabled.

Planning organization interested
John Daggett, multimodal planning manager for the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization, said that entity will look into regional transportation systems in the coming year.
“We’re proposing to explore that concept in a long-range plan,” Daggett said.
Northern Colorado’s three largest cities ? Loveland, Greeley and Fort Collins ? all have fixed-route public-transit systems.
In Loveland, COLT (City of Loveland Transit) operates two fixed routes and paratransit service for seniors and the disabled six days a week between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Keith Reester, Loveland’s public works director, said the system provides 67,000 rides each year.
FoxTrot, which links Loveland to Fort Collins, is a joint project of Loveland, Fort Collins and Larimer County.
Loveland’s public-transit system may soon see another form of regionalization. City officials there are in discussions with Fort Collins transit officials over the possibility that Transfort would contract to operate the Loveland system.
The Transfort system runs 19 buses each day on its fixed routes. General Manager Tom Frazier said the system carries nearly 5,000 passengers each day. As with other public transit systems in Northern Colorado, students make up Transfort’s largest ridership group.
Greeley’s system, called The Bus, operates a fixed-route system with 10 buses and a paratransit system consisting of seven buses. The system extends service to Evans and Garden City, as well, said Gary Taylor, Greeley Transit Services manager.
Taylor, Frazier and Reester all said they endorse Hofmann’s proposal to expand regional bus service. Each of the three municipalities wrote letters of support for the proposal to the PUC.
Regional transportation is needed, Taylor said. “It has been a priority for a number of years. The No. 1 focus of most of the work we’ve done has been on the commuters.”

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