The Blaine County Commission agreed Tuesday to look closely at their budget for $20,000 to put toward the purchase of a larger bus for Mountain Rides.
With a dramatic 108 percent increase in ridership on the Wood River Valley-based bus system in the past year alone, the commissioners agreed the county needs to support the increasingly popular bus service.
The valley's workforce has become increasingly reliant on the bus service to get to and from work as the price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has risen above $4, said Blaine County Commissioner Sarah Michael. She scheduled the discussion about Mountain Rides funding for Tuesday's County Commission meeting, the last meeting she will attend before officially stepping down later this week.
The 62-year-old longtime resident of Blaine County helped launch the Peak Bus service, which was later folded into the larger Mountain Rides bus system.
"It's something that I would seriously like us to look at," she said of the Mountain Rides funding request. "I don't think we can wait two years to get our people to work."
Jason Miller, executive director for the bus system, told the commissioners that Mountain Rides buses are over capacity on most morning and evening runs between Bellevue, Hailey and the north valley communities of Ketchum and Sun Valley. He said Mountain Rides recently increased its bus fares, including a jump for a one-way adult pass from $2.25 to $3.
Miller said this increase—the first in about two years—is being used to help the bus service deal with increasing costly operational costs.
"It was overdue," he said.
But that fare increase will not alone help solve the bus service's funding issues. Miller told the commissioners that until Mountain Rides could purchase two used buses and add new route times, they might be forced to turn riders away at some point in the future.
Today, many of their buses are standing-room only, he said, adding that the Mountain Rides board would prefer to not have people standing while the buses are traveling along state Highway 75.
"That's our big challenge right now," he said.
Miller said the immediate goal of Mountain Rides is to purchase two used buses that can accommodate up to 40 riders, up from the 32-seat buses they currently operate. He said the bus service is hoping that Blaine County will be able to fund a third of the cost of one of those buses, which will likely cost about $60,000.
He said the rest would hopefully be funded through various other partners of the Mountain Rides bus service—possibly the city of Ketchum as well as Sun Valley Co.
Another problem facing Mountain Rides is the increasing age of many of their buses, Miller said. He said the oldest bus in the fleet entered service back in 1979.
"The equipment is very tired," he said. "We're at the point that we're growing ahead of ourselves."
Miller predicted that the only way ridership levels would ever go down again is if fuel prices drop.
"Which isn't anticipated," he said.
After hearing from Miller, the commissioners indicated a strong willingness to make sure Mountain Rides is able to keep up with rising the demands escalating fuel prices.
"I think the board (of Blaine County Commissioners) needs to continue to plan for success," Commissioner Tom Bowman said.
At the end of the discussion, the commissioners said they will have the county's budget team look for ways to come up with the requested funding in the current fiscal year budget.
