The path between Jo Pfaff and her mother seems even longer than the 209 road miles that separate Granby from Flagler. It’s a route Pfaff, who is legally blind, must travel every few weeks.
It’s imperative that they connect, because Pfaff’s mother is terminally ill. So Pfaff relies on the state of Colorado’s distinctive purple Bustang to get her from the small town on U.S. 40, up and over Berthoud Pass to Interstate 70 and on to Union Station, where she hires a driver to take her the additional 125 miles to her destination.
Pfaff loves taking Bustang to Union Station because it’s $15 one way, while the same route on Amtrak is around $75. Bustang always leaves on time, at a convenient 9:40 a.m. — except once, when it was 6 hours late because of a snowstorm — while Amtrak is frequently delayed and doesn’t leave until 2:45 p.m. she says.
And Pfaff says she’s never felt unsafe on Bustang, even cruising over the pass in her plush blue seat during a blizzard, when she’s had “those drivers who aren’t scared to drive when it’s horrible conditions and still get you there safe and timely.”
“I absolutely love Bustang,” she says. “And I know public transportation, believe me. I’ve been taking it since I was 15 and I know when a good thing is happening. The only downside is people are definitely catching on. There’ve been times when I’ve taken the last seat in Granby,” on a route that starts in Craig, 120 miles to the west.
By the standards of public transit agencies and advocates, Bustang and its sister services throughout the state have been a success.
The bus routes launched in 2015 along the Front Range, then in 2018 began adding eight Outrider paths to far-flung communities. Snowstang ski resort routes came online in 2019, and Pegasus commuter vans that could exploit express lanes too small for buses were added in 2022.
In its first full year, Bustang carried 103,800 passengers, multiplying to 353,400 across all its services in fiscal year 2025. Ridership jumped 21% from 2024 to 2025.
But in public transit, more trips and routes in search of more riders often means losing more dollars. Running Bustang’s services costs more than 10 times what they earn in tickets.
The state’s cost for the privately contracted services have risen at the same rate as the number of passengers. Colorado will spend $47.8 million on the Bustang system in the 2027 fiscal year that starts July 1. Yet it projects to take in only $4.4 million in fares.
State officials point out that’s a higher return from fares than some public transit efforts around the nation. Still, the one-time funding bonuses Colorado has relied on to make up each year’s gap are coming to an end.
A state law in 2022 gave CDOT $30 million over three years to expand Bustang routes and frequency. The federal American Rescue Plan Act provided another $35.1 million for Bustang starting in 2023. Those subsidies come to an end in fiscal year 2027.
The projected Bustang deficit for 2027 is $25.3 million, rising to $34.6 million in 2030, if current route and schedule levels stay the same, according to CDOT presentations to state transportation commission workshops. CDOT staff are looking for alternative sources of revenue to recommend to the commission and the legislature. But with a $1.5 billion statewide budget shortfall looming, lawmakers are primarily hunting for places to cut, not for allocating unspent money to transportation.
Bustang supporters have proposed using toll revenues and other income streams sent to the Colorado Transportation Investment Office. So far, much of that money has been spent building express toll lanes and mobility hubs on the interstates. Passenger rail advocates are eyeing the funding as well. CDOT has said it is consulting with the Attorney General’s Office on whether laws need to be amended to clarify whether toll money can be used for Bustang support.
CDOT declined to offer a Bustang expert for an interview.
Who was it made for?
Making the case for more transit subsidies could be a steep challenge when legislative committees are facing drastic Medicaid cuts for people with severe disabilities, lower payments for doctors and nurses, higher university tuition and other wrenching choices.
“I don’t know where they’re going to find the money,” said Sen. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, a member of the Senate transportation committee. “Is it growing fast enough to justify the new investment that the state continues to make?”
“I think there are cases for public transportation. I don’t think it’s the be all, end all. We’re a big state,” Catlin added. “What’s the state’s responsibility, what’s the rider’s responsibility, you know? Trying to remake the Greyhound bus is what we’re doing, yes, and they couldn’t make it. So we’re probably at one of those philosophical divide points where we decide what we want to do, and how we want to do it.”
Most U.S. public transit systems, like Bustang, make only a small percentage of their overall costs back in fares. RTD in the Denver metro area, for example, has a budget of about $1.5 billion a year to operate its intricate bus and train system, and just under 70% of that is paid for by a 1 cent sales tax throughout the region.
But by its nature, public transit is not a pure fee-for-service proposition, said University of Colorado economics professor Jonathan Hughes, a specialist in transportation, environmental and industrial economics. Local governments set up transportation systems to help solve a number of policy goals: taking polluting cars off the road; providing essential work, school and service trips to people who can’t afford cars; and, creating livable communities not built purely for automobile convenience.
Public transit couldn’t charge enough to break even when times were good, analysts note, and then COVID came along in 2020 and wiped out the commuting patterns and transit habits of millions of Americans. Agencies like RTD lost millions of passenger trips and still haven’t recovered. Older system designs of sending buses and trains along spokes to downtown hubs for office workers may never be fully workable again.
At the same time, smaller towns were frustrated at the loss of cheap intercity services like Greyhound. Recreation trips soared, increasing interest in services like Snowstang’s comfortable buses. I-70 remained crowded, opening the way for the nimble Pegasus vans.
“We really need to understand for all public transit, it’s changing now, so who’s using transit? What’s the mobility value that it provides to those people?” Hughes said. Studies of who kept using public transit during Covid, he said, got to the heart of the service’s value.
“These are folks in essential jobs and industries,” Hughes said. “They tended to be lower income, and they still needed to go to work, and transit was the way that they got to work. And so transit is providing an essential service for those folks.”
With Bustang, Hughes said, Colorado might need to understand more about who those hundreds of thousands of passengers are, and whether they have any other options for what they need or want to do.
Pitkin County Commissioner Greg Poschman said safety is a main driver for his constituents, who can take a Roaring Fork Transportation Authority bus to Glenwood and then Bustang on to Denver.
“Driving is honestly becoming more risky and scary and even more expensive as fuel prices are rising. The Bustang has been an incredible alternative — and would be of great value at even a higher fare,” Poschman said. “I think the fares are superficially low, and maybe that was intentional as they were getting started. But, boy, I’d certainly like to try to make it sustainable and see it improve and grow, because it really is an essential service for so many people.”