GETTING THERE: $4 bus trips from Springs to Woodland Park this fall

Express bus service between Colorado Springs and Woodland Park will begin Nov. 10, after the Colorado Springs City Council this week gave its consent - on a 5-4 vote - to $4 one-way fares between the cities.

The service will be provided by Colorado's Springs' Mountain Metropolitan Transit. The 15 round trips a day at peak travel times and a few mid-day trips will be funded for two years by a $1.39 million air quality grant from the federal government and $348,000 from the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority.

The new service didn't sit well with a minority of council members, who said Woodland Park residents do not pay the one-cent RTA sales tax to fund road and transit projects. They also questioned who would pick up the cost of the service when the federal grant ends.

Councilwoman Margaret Radford, a supporter of the new service, said late this week Woodland Park and Teller County were never invited to join the RTA when the sales tax was approved by El Paso County voters in 2004. She suggested Teller County residents may well be asked to join the RTA when it comes up for voter renewal in 2014, or possibly in 2012.

Besides, she and other proponents say the cost of providing bus service from the El Paso County line to Woodland Park - a distance of 3.5 miles - is expected to be covered by fares paid by Woodland Park riders. (The service also will run to Manitou Springs and Green Mountain Falls, whose residents pay the RTA sales tax.)

Radford said with the widening of Highway 24 west now unlikely until at least 2020, anything that relieves congestion in the Ute Pass area is a good thing.

"Here's the dilemma - and it was the same dilemma with FREX (which also runs outside the border of the RTA) - do you use a federal air quality grant to launch a pilot program to see if takes single-occupant vehicles off road?" she asked. "Or do you sit around and complain about it?"

HOLD THE PHONE

Work to reconstruct the intersection of Constitution Avenue and Circle Drive will grind to a halt next week while the city and the project's contractor wait for Qwest to relocate phone lines.

Andy Garton, project manager for the city, is diplomatic about the stoppage. But he acknowledged this week the phone company was given advance copies of the construction plan and schedule. He said he doesn't know why Qwest could not relocate its lines in time to prevent a delay in the project. He said the city is now talking with contractor Blue Ridge Construction to quantify the cost of the delay and is speaking with Qwest about paying that expense.

Garton said the contractor has been able to relocate a major water line at the intersection, complete 90 percent of the work of moving a sewage line, has done some work on moving a storm water pipe, made improvements to the nearby Rock Island Trail and completed some grading at the intersection.

He hopes the contractor will restart work Oct. 1 and finish before winter. If the city is hit with early cold and wet weather, it's possible the project will be delayed until spring.
Work still to be done: install a tunnel under Circle Drive for trail users; raise the intersection to get rid of the bad dip where the streets bisect; repave the intersection; and install new curbs, gutters and sidewalks in the area.

Garton said the project still is expected to cost $1.4 million .

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Tell me your commuter tales. 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com