Rural Buses a ‘Lifeline’ in Colorado

The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) is making an effort to support the rural bus routes that are seeing significant growth in ridership, signaling a need for public transit in more dispersed areas.

As Bruce Finley explains in The Denver Post, “In December, CDOT officials launched a Bustang Outrider route linking Sterling in northeastern Colorado with Denver International Airport. A state transit connections study in progress will identify additional intercity bus routes, including possible new daily service between Gunnison and Montrose in southwestern Colorado; Limon and Denver; Weld County and Denver; and Salida and Colorado Springs.”

Total ridership on the agency’s Bustang routes grew from 238,000 to 390,000 between 2019 and 2024, despite a steep decrease in ridership on urban routes. According to Cara Marcus, knowledge and resource manager for the National Rural Transit Assistance Program, public transit is a “lifeline” for rural residents. “In Colorado, bus ridership in rural areas hit 17 million in 2022, up from 16.7 million in 2017, Federal Transit Administration data shows.”