New Avon bus stops boost riders

AVON ” Graham Stephenson lived in Buffalo Ridge for a couple months in 2005. Then his girlfriend got tired of giving him rides.

“I’m from New York, never had a car, ride my bike everywhere,” Stephenson said. “It’s tough in the winter though. I jacked up Jenna’s gas bill. She ever so nicely suggested that I move someplace near a bus stop.”

Avon added the affordable housing complex above Interstate 70 to its town bus route in May. Corum Real Estate District Manager Ralph Parks, who oversees the complex, said he sees more people boarding the bus everyday.

“It’s obviously something they want, need and use,” Parks said.

The number of Avon bus riders has significantly increased since stops in Buffalo Ridge and Wal-Mart were added to the bus schedule. Bob Reed, head of Avon’s transportation department, also attributes the overall growth in ridership in the past few years to skier numbers.

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When the Wal-Mart stop was added, it quickly became the busiest stop in Avon, with about 20 percent of passengers boarding there. Buffalo Ridge offers a limited pool of new riders, but Reed said a good number of those residents use the bus. Many of them had called and written to Reed asking for a stop.

“The people that ride the buses most are in affordable housing units,” Reed said. “The trailer court is the single biggest stop for one route, and Sunridge is another big one. That’s where our riders are, and many are shopping at Wal-Mart.”

Mikey Clancy, operations supervisor for the buses, said many Buffalo Ridge residents have come to depend on the new stop.

“Anytime there’s a good snowstorm, and we might be running late, I get calls from Buffalo Ridge to make sure we’re still running, so they can get to work,” Clancy said.

The added stops are still a point of debate between Avon and Traer Creek Metropolitan District, the entity responsible for providing pubic infrastructure and basic services such as snow plowing and police and fire protection for the Village at Avon, which includes Buffalo Ridge.

Avon wanted the metro district to pay for bus service to those spots, but the metro district didn’t think bus service was necessary, at least not yet. The district agreed to consider a future need when more people move into the area and when more businesses are paying taxes. The Avon Town Council decided to go ahead and pay the bill.

For now, odds are the stops will stay, as long as they keep attracting riders.

“The only time we’ve ever considered dropping a route is if almost nobody rides it,” Councilman Brian Sipes said. “There used to be a bus to Wildridge, and nobody rode it. The stop didn’t last.”

Councilwoman Tamra Nottingham-Underwood said the ridership at Wal-Mart is impressive, but the ridership at Buffalo Ridge hasn’t blown her away. Still, she believes the stop is justified.

“There’s obviously a need to connect those apartments to the town, but at the same time I have a hard time funding service to the Village of Avon if it’s not paying its own way,” Nottingham-Underwood said. “It’s hard to say how we’ll settle this. Those stops are in the operating budget for 2007, but we’re also expecting payment from Traer Creek.”

Traer Creek Metropolitan District President Dan Leary was unavailable for comment.

Reed said it would be a mistake to change the current service and hopes the town council will stay on board with that philosophy.

“You have to keep these things consistent,” Reed said. “If you change the times and routes on them, it affects them, and it will take a while for those numbers to get back up if you make a change.”