Transit Project Highlights

GONDOLAGondola Transit System Serving Mountain Village and Telluride

CDOT Region 5
Original Project Cost: $16 million; completed 1996
FY 2010-2012 FASTER Project Award: $100,450 (for end-of-life equipment replacements)
FY 2015 FASTER Project Award: $176,741
Benefits: Supports a highly successful, unique transit program to reduce congestion and sustain goals of environmental stewardship.

The Telluride-Mountain Village Gondola Transit System is the first and only free public transportation gondola of its kind in the United States. It opened in December 1996 with the original purpose of improving air quality in the Telluride-Mountain Village resort areas. The gondola operates roughly 287 days each year and annually serves 2.25 million passengers. The trip between the two towns is eight miles by road and three miles by gondola. The gondola is not a “ski lift.”  Rather, the gondola’s purpose is to move employees and visitors between the two towns. FASTER grants are helping to fund a portion of “end-of-service-life” equipment replacements.

 

transitSilver Key Senior Services, Inc.,

CDOT Region 2
Project Budget: $273,000; completed 2012
FY 2012 FASTER Project Award: $273,840 (100% of project budget)
Benefits: Enhances communication and provides transit efficiencies.

FASTER funding was awarded for the purchase of a “One Call, One Click” scheduling system designed to handle specialized transit requests in the Pikes Peak region for a variety of nonprofit agencies serving the elderly and disabled.  With oversight by the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments, the purchase and implementation of a software module and related support equipment will allow agencies to operate more efficiently and collaboratively.

 

BusBus Refurbishment and Repairs

CDOT Regions 2 and 3
Project Budget: $202,862
FY 2010-2012 FASTER Project Award to Region 3: 
$144,000, Summit Stage (100% of project budget) 
$58,862, Town of Breckenridge (100% of project budget)
Benefits: Rehabilitates transit coaches in support of rural economic development efforts.

These projects received funds for bus rehabilitation, which also support a Colorado-based company under contract to make the repairs. Summit Stage and the Town of Breckenridge both received FASTER grants for the midlife rehabilitation of their transit coaches. This work was contracted with American Transit Works (ATW), Inc., a bus rehabilitation facility in Lamar. ATW is a newer firm working in a facility that once housed a bus manufacturer. It hired the former employees of the manufacturer after it closed its operations.