Colorado Springs transit officials look for solutions to best protect drivers, passengers from coronavirus
Transit officials scrambled for answers this week after a decision to suspend fares during the coronavirus crisis led to crowds on some routes and heightened concerns about drivers’ and passengers’ safety.
Mountain Metro Transit on Tuesday weighed several options — including limiting passenger counts on certain routes — to keep buses running safely during the pandemic, which has turned even mundane trips into a calculated risk.
At issue is how to keep everyone safe while maintaining a critical part of the region’s safety net by ensuring people can still have transportation to get groceries or go to work. With food banks and community meals shuttered, just getting food has meant more people having to travel farther.
Many people have avoided bus travel under state orders to stay at home and travel only for essential services. Daily bus passenger counts remain a fraction of what they were before the virus arrived in Colorado, but that might not be enough to keep the remaining riders safe, Mountain Metro Transit director Craig Blewitt said.
Transit officials are examining several options to keep people farther apart on each bus ride — putting more buses in service or limiting passenger counts for some rides.
“It’s been very challenging — we’ve been running … awfully hard the last couple weeks, trying to figure out the best way to do this,” Blewitt said. “We ask for passengers’ and the community’s patience while we try some things.”
He added that imposing passenger limits on bus rides was “something we don’t want to do,” because it could leave people stranded along curbsides for hours, especially on weekends.
Mountain Metro Transit operates about 40 routes, from Colorado Springs’ northside south to Widefield and west to Manitou Springs, averaging 11,000 riders on weekdays, up to 7,000 on Saturdays and as many as 3,000 on Sundays. Ridership dropped 60% during the early weeks of the pandemic, when people started avoiding crowds.
Transit officials have made sweeping changes to services because of the coronavirus, which spreads rapidly when people are in close contact.
Fares were suspended Thursday and changes made to how people board each bus — from the rear doors, rather than the front. The move was meant to protect drivers from coming into close contact with passengers, who normally must pay using a vestibule in the front of the bus.
“We could not get a 6-foot social distance separation for the driver if we have passengers boarding on the front door, interacting with the driver while paying fare,” Blewitt said.
During the early weeks of the pandemic, five to 10 drivers a day called in sick amid concerns about working conditions, he said.
With upwards of 10% of Mountain Metro’s 90 drivers at home, transit officials cut a couple of routes and reduced pickup times for several others — particularly on weekends.
No drivers are known to have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but a “limited number” have self-quarantined after experiencing symptoms, Blewitt said.
Blewitt said his agency has worked to keep buses as clean as possible — especially drivers’ areas.
Each bus is wiped down and cleaned with hospital-grade disinfectants every evening, Blewitt said, and vehicles specifically for people with disabilities are cleaned each time a passenger gets off. Drivers also have disinfectant spray to clean their area as often as they would like.
But officials worry those efforts might be undone by modestly rising passenger counts.
After last week’s fare suspension, daily ridership figures rose by 800 to 900 people a day, compared to the previous week. That 20% to 40% jump came as drivers reported an increase in the number of trips that were more than half-full, Blewitt said.
On Saturday, a bus ride to the Citadel Mall transit station became standing room only — a drastic change from a couple of weeks of sparse crowds from the city’s Old North End to the mall, passenger Luke Baker said.
“There were no seats available — people coughing and hacking on this bus,” said Baker, 38. He walked home after work when he saw buses similarly crowded later that day, he said.
“It’s beyond a risk I’m willing to take at this point,” Baker said. “Honestly, even if it’s just for the sake of the drivers, it’s pretty insane to be putting them at risk, let alone passengers … there’s got to be a better way.”
Blewitt suggested the recent passenger uptick might be due to people breaking the governor’s “stay-at-home” order.
“We want to remind people that they should only be going out in public to make essential trips for essential purposes,” he said. “If we could get some cooperation from the community, I think that would be very helpful.”
But several downtown bus riders said crowding was rare.
Wearing a black bandana around her neck and occasionally using it as a face mask, Jessica Nelson, 30, said fears of crowded buses and catching the virus on a ride were overblown.
She praised the decision to waive fares, adding that otherwise she wouldn’t be able to afford the bus ride to see her therapist or doctor.
“I wouldn’t have made it to my appointments,” Nelson said.
She isn’t alone, said Kristy Milligan, CEO of Westside CARES.
“Resources are so diffuse and so scattered that there is no way for people to eat without getting on the bus,” Milligan said.
People on the streets have little or no access to food, running water, public bathrooms or places to charge their phones. That’s largely due to closures of the Penrose Library, coffee shops and several food banks.
Milligan hailed transit officials as “heroes” for keeping buses operating and suspending fares, but she doubted passengers were taking unnecessary rides.
“People are availing themselves of this community resource, precisely because at the municipal level, we are not doing enough to meet the needs of people in extreme poverty,” Milligan said.
Reach Olivia at olivia.prentzel@gazette.com. Twitter: @oliviaprentzel
Michael Marchese sprays sanitizer on the hand rails of a bus while he and a crew clean Tuesday night at the Mountain Metro Transit bus barn in Colorado Springs. The cleaning crew always uses sanitizer to clean the buses, but to combat the COVID-19 virus, the buses are first sprayed with a hospital-grade disinfectant.
Heidi Rutledge wears a mask and gloves as she looks for her next bus while transferring on the Mountain Metro Transit on Monday at the downtown Colorado Springs terminal.
Passengers exit the Route 11 bus of Mountain Metro Transit Monday, April 6, 2020, at the downtown Colorado Springs terminal. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)