GETTING THERE: FREX service may fall on city chopping block in 2009
Is the FREX commuter bus service to Denver worth saving?
That's the question the Colorado Springs City Council likely will have to answer in the coming weeks, as it struggles to make cuts to cover an $8.7 million budget shortfall caused by plummeting sales tax revenue.
In prosperous times, the answer might be easy. The Front-Range Express, a bus service into downtown Denver with stops in Monument and Castle Rock, has been a success in attracting what transit types call "choice riders" - those who can afford to drive but choose not to. About 800 people ride the buses every day, and their fares cover 44 percent of the cost of the operation - far more that the 10 percent to 15 percent that fares contribute to operating a typical urban fixed-route bus service.
But these are not normal times. The city's Mountain Metropolitan Transit, which operates FREX, has already cut 25,000 hours of city bus service from this year's operations - about 10 percent of its total. How much more needs to be cut is uncertain, but it's likely transit will need to bleed more.
That has left council members grappling with thorny issues, including whether killing FREX would compromise the city's relationship with El Paso County. That's because 10 percent of revenue collected from a one-cent sales tax approved by city, county, Manitou Springs and Green Mountain Falls voters in 2004 goes to Mountain Metro, in exchange for it providing some regional transit service. Other than limited bus service to Security and Falcon, both of which could be imperiled by transit cuts, FREX is that regional transit service.
El Paso County Commissioner Wayne Williams said this week disbanding FREX would violate a promise to voters who approved the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority; jeopardize future state and federal funding for regional transit; and perhaps sour county voters on renewing the tax in a couple of years.
Councilman Jerry Heimlicher said budget woes have forced the council to think short-term: "I don't like to do this. But can we morally justify continuing this kind of service?"
He said FREX is essentially a way to deliver folks making an average of $80,000 a year to Denver jobs and shopping - not bring Mile High residents here for work and play.
"It's difficult to tell everyone in Colorado Springs that we can't serve you, but there's no problem if you're going to Denver," he said.
Williams, though, pointed out that folks in the Tri-Lakes area use FREX to commute to work in the Springs.
Springs Councilwoman Jan Martin thinks eliminating FREX would be a rash action the city and residents would surely regret when better times - and higher gas prices - return.
"We're going through these very, very difficult times, with cuts across the board," she said. "One of my goals, in this process, is that we don't dismantle things completely.
When the turnaround comes, the cost to reinstitute FREX to Denver would be cost prohibitive, and it would take years to recover."
The transit service says eliminating FREX would require the city to return 19 buses purchased by the Colorado Department of Transportation; pay $250,000 to buy out a lease of a FREX service lot; and reimburse CDOT $228,000 for 19 fare boxes. Transit also argues that because fares cover almost half the cost of FREX, cutting its 24,000 hours of bus service would in reality save only 9,100 hours of normal bus service.
The council won't make a decision until it consults Feb. 11 with the PPRTA board.
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Tell me your commuter tales. 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com
