Transfort rides still free as study continues

FORT COLLINS — It’s about 48 miles between Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. And at least until the end of the year, you can make the trip for free.

Fares on all buses operated by Fort Collins’ Transfort system were dropped in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold but have yet to be reinstated, and officials are conducting a feasibility study to determine whether the buses should be reinstated or remain free to ride.

“We’re doing a funding study and looking at all our sources of revenue,” said Anna Russo, Transfort’s community engagement specialist. “We’re looking at everything including the possibility of going fare free permanently.”

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The results of that study should be completed by the end of the year, and a decision about what, if anything, riders will pay will soon follow, she said.

Not that the fares were exorbitant to begin with. The full fare on Transfort’s entire system — including 20 city routes within Fort Collins, the “Around the Horn” and Foothills lines that served the CSU campuses, the MAX fixed-guideway service between the South and Downtown transit centers, and the FLEX regional routes connecting Fort Collins to Loveland, Berthoud, Longmont and the CU campus in Boulder — was just $1.25, with discount fares of 60 cents for children, seniors and disabled riders.

“A lot of people also used annual passes and RAM cards,” Russo said.

Transfort buses also serve as connectors to other transit systems. Fort Collins riders can take FLEX to Longmont or Boulder to transfer to the three COLT bus routes in Loveland and Regional Transportation District local and regional lines in metro Denver, or take city route 16 along Harmony Road to meet the Colorado Department of Transportation’s statewide Bustang service, which extends through Denver’s Union Station to Colorado Springs and a growing list of mountain communities.

Funding for Transfort totaled $25,857,807 in 2021, with the city supplying 39% of the total, or nearly $10 million — a 5% cut from 2020. The federal government chipped in nearly as much, and Transfort budgeted more than $800,000, or 3% of the total, for advertising. The city restored some Transfort funding in its 2022 budget.

Part of the reason for ending fare collection when the pandemic took hold had to do with social distancing, Russo said. “We covered fare boxes and let people enter and exit through the middle doors so they wouldn’t create bottlenecks.”

As with most public transit systems around the country, she said, ridership has yet to return to pre-COVID numbers, and service on two of the routes least used have been suspended indefinitely. 

Meanwhile, the study, led by an outside consulting firm, continues, Russo said, and “we should know more when we’ve completed it.” She said officials from Transfort and elected city leadership would be involved in the final decision about fares, but added that she wasn’t sure whether public involvement would be solicited.