ECO bus fares to decrease by 25%, residents raise concern for transit equity in Eagle

The Oct. 11 Eagle Valley Transportation Authority meeting received significantly more public comment than usual.

During the meeting, the transportation authority board approved a 25% reduction on regular ECO Transit fares for individual rides and bus passes, which will go into effect with the winter schedule on Nov. 26.

During its last meeting, the transportation authority voted to make the Vail-Beaver Creek Express line of the ECO bus, which stops in Beaver Creek Village, Avon, Lionshead and the Vail Transportation Center, fare-free beginning with the winter schedule in November, creating some controversy among members of the public.

“My attire matches the absurdity that has been happening with this authority so far,” said Tim McMahon, an Avon resident who arrived at the meeting dressed in the full-body chicken suit that has gained him notoriety throughout the local community.

“First of all, a noon meeting on a Wednesday is an awful time for people that actually use the bus to come and try to give their input,” McMahon said. Many residents who rely most on Eagle County’s public transportation services are working during this time, making it difficult for them to attend meetings and provide input, he explained.

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‘We are the heart’

The way the transportation authority has thus far addressed providing services to Eagle also proved contentious at the Wednesday meeting. Eagle lost its main benefit as outlined in the the ballot measure that established the authority, an Eagle-Gypsum circulator, when Gypsum did not vote to join the authority in November 2022. Members of the public, as well as Eagle’s representative on the authority, Nick Sunday, spoke about the need for the board to include Eagle in its future efforts.

“Seventy-two percent of Eagle’s employees travel upvalley for work. That means they’re coming up, supporting Vail, supporting Avon, supporting Beaver Creek, supporting Edwards. The way I look at it is, downvalley residents are creating more tax revenue than we get credit for,” Sunday said.

Kristen Hartel, an Eagle resident, spoke about the relevance of Eagle in addressing the transportation authority’s goal of meeting the climate needs of the Eagle Valley. According to modeling Hartel said she worked on for the town of Eagle, transportation accounts for 47% of Eagle’s greenhouse gas emissions. “Reducing VMTs, or vehicle miles traveled, in gasoline and diesel-fueled vehicles, is the number one strategy for reducing (greenhouse gas) emissions in Eagle,” Hartel said. The easiest way to do this, Hartel said, is to provide more opportunities for Eagle residents to use public transportation.

“Eagle is expected to capture almost a third of county-wide growth by 2040. It’s crucial to provide free, reliable, equitable bus transit and mass transit service from Eagle up valley to support this growing population,” Hartel said.

“We (Eagle residents) are the heart, we are the employees, we are the locals, we pay the tax year-round,” Sunday said.

Details on the fare reduction

The 25% across-the-board fare reduction on all regular routes will go into effect with the winter ECO Transit schedule on Nov. 26. With the decrease, a single ride on the ECO bus will drop from $4 to $3, a 24-hour pass will drop from $8 to $6, and a 30-day unlimited pass will drop from $85 to $63. Youth and senior discounted rates will remain the same.

Implementing a fare decrease, rather than immediately introducing the fare-free zone described in the ballot measure that established the transportation authority, is meant to prevent adding to the overcrowding passengers experienced on bus routes last winter due to existing shortages in equipment and drivers that have not yet been remedied.

According to modeling done by analysts at Fehr & Peers, a transportation consulting firm contracted by the transportation authority, the 25% decrease in fares is expected to cause a five-passenger increase on the Highway 6 route, which runs between Edwards and Vail, and a one-to-two passenger increase on the Valley route, which runs between Gypsum and Vail, at peak times.

“Were we to turn off fare boxes today with what we have provided, we’d wind up with buses on an area of our system that’s already overloaded, we’d end up with perhaps a 50% ridership increase on that, and that would really create system problems and make it harder for people to get where they’re going,” said Tanya Allen, executive director of the Eagle Valley Transportation Authority.

There will be an increased frequency of service on the Highway 6 bus line this winter, with 40 routes eastbound and 42 routes westbound, both up from 36 from last winter. This change, combined with the Vail-Beaver Creek Express going fare-free and therefore likely absorbing some of the riders coming from Avon, is expected to eliminate some of the overcrowding on the Highway 6 route. However, according to the modeling, both the Highway 6 and Valley routes are expected to see passenger numbers above the design maximum of the buses.

The experience of overcrowding on ECO Transit, especially on the Highway 6 route, is a familiar challenge to locals who frequent public transportation. “Last year, there were four different times I tried to ride the Highway 6 bus at 7:30 in the morning from Sunridge. All four times, if I wasn’t dressed like this (in the chicken suit), I wouldn’t have gotten on. Two of the times, there were three other people, and the bus driver didn’t let them on,” McMahon said.

Beyond assisting passengers by allowing them to spend less money on transit, the 25% fare reduction will be used to estimate the impact of the implementation of the full fare-free zone. “We wanted to look at how any reduction of fares for the winter season might impact to make sure we’re not just doing the same thing and causing a problem,” Allen said.

The fare-free service on the Vail-Beaver Creek Express will also serve as a small-scale model for what it will look like to implement the fare-free zone from Edwards to Vail that was specified in the ballot measure that established the transportation authority.

“The modeling that we did for the fare-free system as part of the ballot initiative showed us that were we to change frequencies and remove fares, we would be looking at that 50% increase (in ridership). We don’t know if that’s true,” Allen said. “(Going fare-free) on at least some part of our system does enable us to test it,” Allen said.

The Eagle Valley Transportation Authority board meets on the second Wednesday of every month, beginning at noon, in the Avon Town Council chambers. The meeting agenda and packet can be found on the organization’s website at EagleValleyRTA.org.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that the town of Eagle representative to the Eagle Valley Transportation Authority is Nick Sunday, not Dave Sunday.