Five years ago, the city ran its transit operations out of the Albertsons parking lot. Today, operations are more efficient and ridership is up, thanks mostly to the opening of the Durango Intermodal Transit Center in 2009.

The money to build the center came from a $5.1 million state grant, and the city donated the $800,000 in land as the local match. It houses a comprehensive network of transit services. At the center, residents can take advantage of several services, including buying bus tickets, parking passes and paying parking tickets. Transit options within the city includes the Main Avenue Trolley, the loop bus service and the Opportunity Bus.

While there’s a perception among some residents that the Transit Center is mostly unused, Blake said workers are constantly busy helping the public.

“For the center itself, the ticket window, the cashier, is definitely busy,” said Amber Blake, the city’s multi-modal administrator. “There’s a ton of people that come to the Transit Center ticket window just to ask questions.”

Evidence of the center’s success shows in increased ridership numbers for Durango Transit, the city’s bus system, she said. Ridership, or the number of times a person took one trip, was 365,050 in 2008 and 613,631 in 2013. Those numbers include the trolley.

The trolley, which is free, runs Monday through Saturday from the center of the downtown historic district to the Iron Horse Inn on the north end of town. In the summer, it runs Sundays, too.

The fixed bus system, which is $1 per trip, has six routes, and it also has evening and Saturday service. The Opportunity Bus is a door-to-door service for the elderly and disabled.

Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort also runs a skier and employee shuttle through the center.

“It’s been successful,” Blake said. “The awareness that Durango has a public-transit system, including the Main Avenue Trolley as well as the neighborhood loop buses is clear in our ridership numbers and the information and feedback we’ve received from riders.”

The Transit Center was partly built to establish Durango as a regional hub, a goal that Road Runner Transit is helping to accomplish. Intercity bus service to Grand Junction is expected to resume this summer, operated out of the center by Road Runner Transit, a division of Southern Ute Community Action Programs Inc. SUCAP is a nonprofit organization based in Ignacio.

Road Runner currently operates out of the Transit Center for its deviated fixed-route bus service to Bayfield and Ignacio. A deviated fixed-route system picks up people slightly off the bus route.

“We’ve been using the Transit Center ever since it opened,” said Peter Tregillus, SUCAP program developer. “The city allows us to use the Transit Center for free for our Ignacio and Bayfield runs.”

A gap in regional bus service was created in 2011 when Greyhound Lines ceased operating its Salt Lake City to Albuquerque route, which went through Grand Junction and Durango, he said.

“The federal government has a program to support intercity travel in those cases when it’s deemed: ‘Hey, this is necessary; we need to have the links,’” Tregillus said.

SUCAP Division Director Clayton Richter said he hopes to start the Grand Junction route soon.

“We’re getting closer,” Tregillus said.

The route will operate under the name Road Runner Stage Lines, and there will be one round trip seven days a week. The bus is scheduled to leave Durango around 7 a.m., arriving in Grand Junction by 12:43 p.m. so riders can catch connections with Greyhound and Amtrak. It is scheduled to leave Grand Junction at 1:45 p.m. and arrive back in Durango at 7:44 p.m.

The route will go through Mancos, Cortez, Telluride, Delores, Rico, Telluride, Placerville, Ridgway, Montrose, Delta and Grand Junction. The fare from Durango to Grand Junction will be $40 one way, Tregillus said. Student and elderly discounts will be available.

“It will not go over Red Mountain Pass,” he said.

Once the intercity service starts, SUCAP will pay for a ticket agent to be at the Transit Center.

The center also has parking available for more than 100 cars and for about 100 bicycles. The vacancy rate of the parking lot is an average of 40 percent to 45 percent. There’s also covered longer-term bicycle parking. The bicycle permits are free so long as the bike is registered.

smueller@durangoherald.com