Daily commuter bus service between Colorado Springs and Denver will continue through this year after the FrontRange Express, or FREX, sold off nine buses Monday.
The sale raised $1.4 million to continue the work-day tripsThe sale averted a shutdown of the service. Last month, Colorado Springs officials said they would stop the bus line on Feb. 15, citing “unprecedented shortfalls” in subsidies from the city of Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority.
The Colorado Department of Transportation, which owns 80 percent of the service, and the city of Colorado Springs, which owns the rest, on Tuesday pledged the proceeds of the sale to service’s operating budget.
Beyond that, FREX will have to find a “sustainable” source of funding, the city stated today.
Rides between Colorado Springs and Denver are $11 each way.
FREX had about 600 riders a day last year, after a peak of about 900 daily commuters in 2008, when gas prices soared.
As of Jan. 1, the transit service discontinued evening and weekend services, as well as routes to Fort Carson and Fountain. Castle Rock also has withdrawn from the bus service.
The nine buses sold Monday were surplus and went for about $160,000 each to the York County Transportation Authority in Pennsylvania on Monday, according to the city,
In 2006, the state Strategic Transit Task Force provided $8 million in federal money to indefinitely extend the two-year pilot program.
The service began in 2004 to provide a commuter line between the Front Range’s largest employment centers, as well as to reduce pollution and traffic congestion on Interstate 25.
