The Snowstang Bus

Do you love skiing but hate I-70 ski traffic? RTD’s Snowstang bus is the solution. It runs from Denver’s Union Station and Lakewood’s Federal Center Park and Ride (11601 W 2nd Pl, Lakewood, CO 80401) to four ski areas: Copper Mountain, Loveland, Arapahoe Basin, and Steamboat. It only costs $25 round trip to each mountain, except Steamboat, which costs $40. The schedule and tickets are available here: https://ridebustang.com/snowstang/

Last winter I rode to Copper Mountain and Arapahoe Basin and was impressed with the experience both times. The bus has storage for skis and gear underneath, free (albeit slow) wifi, and a little bathroom in the back. You can leave your stuff safely on the bus during your ski day because the same one goes back at the end of the day. Everything was comfortable and modern.

Above all, it was refreshing not to have to worry about driving, and it freed up time and mental energy for other things. I slept and read on the way up. My friends and I had a drink on the mountain without worrying about who was driving home. Other riders used their time to watch movies, work, sleep, or chat. I recommend my Colorado friends give it a try.

Bigger Picture

In the bigger picture, the Snowstang offers partial solutions to reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions because buses are more efficient at moving a lot of people than private automobiles. The photo below illustrates that a bus requires drastically less road space than private automobiles to transport a given number of people. I calculated that the Snowstang reduces greenhouse gas emissions as soon as it is at least one-third full, and reduces congestion if it is at least one-tenth full (I can share these calculations in a separate post if there is interest). Our bus to Copper Mountain was approximately 90% full, so our pleasant ride also made a big impact in terms of limiting emissions and congestion. 

The bus is also typically the best option financially, both for individuals and taxpayers. Two people can ride the Snowstang for $50 round trip (or $25 with the BOGO deal that they offered last winter), whereas according to the IRS mileage rate of 62.5 cents per mile, it costs nearly $100 to make the drive to Copper and back. For taxpayers, buses are a cost-effective way to transport people and reduce congestion, especially when compared to an alternative such as adding lanes to I-70, which could easily cost billions without solving congestion thanks to induced demand and the Downs-Thompson Paradox.

Figure: Illustration of the amount of street space required to move people by bus, bike, and car. Cars are the least spatially-efficient way to move people.

Recommendations 

In the near term, it would be great to see RTD drastically expand their Snowstang bus service (along with their similar year-round Bustang service). There has been some work in this direction; the Pegasus buses started running up I-70 this Memorial Day. RTD should expand the service frequency and the number of pickup and drop off locations so that multiple Denver suburbs have buses running to and from the mountains each weekend. There ought to be more buy-in from the mountain resorts too, from Vail Resorts in particular, which have the most visitors in Colorado, but do not currently participate in the Snowstang.

One downside of the Snowstang is that it still gets stuck in car traffic. As a rider, the bus is more comfortable than white-knuckling in the car, but it still sucks if it takes 4 hours to get home. Therefore, in the medium term, it would be effective to implement some combination of congestion pricing and dedicated bus/toll/HOV lanes on weekends. This would give the bus one of the key benefits of a light rail or a train - its own right of way so that it does not get caught in car traffic - without the relatively high cost of a train. A dedicated bus lane benefits both riders and motorists, as it makes the lane 2 to 13 times as efficient at moving people as a private motor vehicle (NACTO), thereby reducing congestion across the whole road, including for private automobiles. Under this medium-term plan, hundreds to thousands of buses would be running each weekend. In the long term, as Colorado’s population continues to grow and densify, a train may be warranted, but a train is not currently a cost-effective solution.