The City tour group which traveled to Jackson Hole last week heard about some of that town's transit solutions--including a long-range transit shuttle, and a bike-share system.
Many of Jackson's employees travel a long distance to work. Transit director Darren Brugman said to cut down on commuter traffic, the city responded with a bus service that picks up workers as much as 50 miles south of town, in the locale of Etna.
There are some workers driving to that depot, from 20 miles further south, in Afton, Wyoming.
The city also provides bus service to the west, to Driggs, Idaho. That service commuting daily back and the forth, climbs a steep highway over Teton Pass.
The shuttles have been running since the early 2000's but Brugman said some workers still resist mass transit.
"We clearly still have a lot of people that drive their own cars, single occupancy. That's mainly because we really don't have that much frequency we only have three routes. We essentially cater to the nine-to-five crowd. There's definitely a greater need for us to have more service and if we did we'd get more of those single-occupancy vehicles off the road."
He said they're trying to provide more service on those routes.
"That means more frequency. It means purchasing a bus, more busses and adding more runs. Right now, we only have three runs, like I said we only cover the nine-to-five crowd. We have shifts at the hospital that work 12-hour shifts, police officers, others that are wanting us to expand the hours of our operation on our commuter."
Brugman said they've also launched a bike share program.
"This was our first full summer of operating bike share. We have about 55 bikes stationed throughout the town. It's another alternative for people to use an alternative form of transportation other than jumping in their car. We encourage workers, tourists, the like to jump on a bike. If they're going to lunch or making that quick trip instead of jumping in their car and clogging up more traffic we're encouraging them to get on a bike."
However, he said these bikes are not electric.
"These are manual bikes, the solar panels you see are just to operate. Each of the bikes is its own individual dock, that means you don't have to take a bike back to a specific dock. You're able to lock it at any location. Each bike is its own individual dock which requires some software in the bike in the handlebars that you'll see. So, to access that by your smartphone or any RFID card when you sign up or anything along that line, there still needs power to the bikes."
