Mayor Steve Bach will ask the City Council on Tuesday to discontinue FREX.

The commuter bus service between Colorado Springs and Denver, officially called the FrontRange Express, has been on the chopping block several times before – and survived.

Despite yet another last-ditch effort to save it, FREX appears to have run its course.

Bach informed the Regional Transportation District, El Paso County and Castle Rock on Friday that will ask council on Tuesday to terminate FREX.

“While The City of Colorado Springs recognizes that FREX has provided a valuable transportation service, our existing transit services are not financially sustainable and our region is shouldering too much of the cost for that service, given its benefit to the Denver Metro area and the State,” Bach wrote in each of the letters.

“Our Transit operating budget expenditures exceed revenues by $800,000 this year. With the current and projected costs of operation, we cannot afford to provide existing services into the future. We need to cut costs and our priority must be to support the sustainability of local transit services,” he wrote.

If council approves Bach’s request to terminate the so-called intergovernmental agreement with RTD, the county and Castle Rock, the last day of service for FREX would be Aug. 31.

At least one city councilman supports the mayor’s request.

“I’ve been told only 75 of 200 daily riders originate from Colorado Springs. We subsidize these riders at an annual subsidy of over $10,000 per year,” Councilman Tim Leigh wrote in his weekly newsletter.

“If those numbers are correct, continuing FREX doesn’t make much sense. If those numbers are correct, we can buy each rider a car and be money ahead,” he wrote.

In May, the city said it was exploring funding mechanisms to continue FREX for up to 18 months.

“The objective of the review (was) to explore “stop gap” funding mechanisms through Spring 2014, at which time (the Colorado Department of Transportation) could assume financial responsibility for the FREX service,” city documents state.

“While staff has explored financial options that could reduce the cost of FREX operations to some extent, we have learned that CDOT will not commit to assuming financial responsibility for FREX after the 18-month period. Based on that lack of commitment, staff recommends that local funding for FREX be discontinued,” documents state.