Setting up Eagle County’s new regional transit authority requires a lot more than handing over keys to buses

Changing the valley’s transit system from the Eagle County government-run ECO transit to the Eagle Valley Regional Transportation Authority — now Core Transit — involves more than just handing over the keys to more than 50 buses.

Just about everything, from control of bus stops to ownership of buses to who pays employee salaries and benefits has required contracts negotiated by lawyers for both the county and the authority. All of that work has been done on a timeline — the first major handover date is Aug. 4.

The Eagle County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a half-dozen agreements with the authority for leases, maintenance agreements and assumption of intergovernmental agreements. Another handful of similar agreements are coming to the commissioners next week and will include the transfer of a pair of Gypsum townhomes to the authority.

Dallman said county and transportation authority officials have been meeting weekly — and sometimes twice weekly — since late February.

Just one “deliverable” — the transfer of a bus, for instance — “has quite a few tentacles,” Dallman said. All those tentacles have to be closely tracked by both entities.

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The key, Dallman said, is that neither passengers nor staff feel the transition.

While the entire transition won’t be complete on Aug. 4, the buses have to roll, and employees have to continue to receive their pay and benefits.

While all of ECO Transit’s buses will transfer to Core Transit, Commissioner Kathy Chandler-Henry asked if ECO would remain any kind of entity.

County Chief Financial Officer Jill Klosterman said ECO will remain a part of the county government, and the half-cent sales tax collected for it will continue to go to the department’s trails operation and the Roaring Fork Transit Authority. A portion will also be transferred to Core Transit.

Core Transit Director Tanya Allen said that the agency will continue to provide transit throughout the county. That includes Gypsum, which didn’t vote for the transit authority sales tax in 2022. Transit to that area will continue to see funding equivalent to that provided by ECO, Allen said.

Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney, Eagle County’s representative to the transportation authority board, expressed her thanks to the county’s legal team, which is currently three attorneys short.

“It’s been a really heavy lift” for that office, McQueeney said. “This is a really big behind-the-scenes thing that needed to happen.”