JACKSON, Wyo. — START Bus will roll out a new four-month airport shuttle pilot program beginning Dec. 16, following approval by the Jackson Town Council and Board of County Commissioners, Monday.
The pilot program will add service between Jackson Hole Airport and the “commercial core of Jackson” between 5 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. daily, with a goal of transporting at least 10 to 12 passengers per hour for a total of about 175 people per day. The shuttles will be coach buses with a 53-person capacity and luggage space.
The first bus from Jackson will leave from Miller Park at 5 a.m. and the last bus will leave the airport at 10 p.m. The bus will stop at Antler Inn, Deloney Parking Lot and Home Ranch.
START Transit Director Bruce Abel presented the item during the joint meeting and fielded questions from the electeds about a number of flaws they perceived in the plan, including the fact that the bus would not run to Teton Village.
Commissioner Greg Epstein pointed out that if the program is geared toward visitors and locals, having four stops — only one being lodging — and no route to Teton Village may limit a lot of folks from using the bus.
“If we are looking for success in a pilot program, don’t we want people to get to their end destination?” Epstein asked.
“Our desire for the pilot period is to implement something small, something manageable,” Abel said. He explained that the plan also includes surveys of users and non-users to gauge how the service was received. “We really are using this as a learning lesson,” he said.
The approval of the program also came with the approval of a fare structure and a budget amendment of $107,808 to both expenses and revenues.
One-way fares are $10 for adults, $5 for kids 12 and under, $5 for seniors and people with disabilities and free for kids under 8.
“When we were looking at proposing this fare, we were looking at a fare that was high enough, but low enough,” Abel said. “People have said it’s too high, people have said it’s too low, so maybe that is the sweet spot.”
The pilot program will cost $173,711. START’s FY24 budget already has $65,903 in expenses and revenues set aside for an airport pilot program so the board and council approved the budget amendment for the difference — $107,808.
To ensure the program at least breaks even, the airport will fund the remaining revenue.
“The difference between whatever the actual revenue is and the expense would be backstopped by the airport,” Abel said. “Our estimate at this time is $50,000 in revenue.”
If successful, future funding remains uncertain. The airport had to get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use airport-generated funds for the pilot.
“It has been communicated to us by Airport staff that the FAA has said that they will fund this pilot but they were not interested in getting involved and engaged in long-term funding of an airport shuttle service,” Abel said.
Abel did suggest that other avenues of funding could be explored, such as the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board.
“I would fully anticipate some hiatus as we morph and seek funding alternatives,” Abel said.
This will be the second attempt at providing a shuttle service to and from Jackson and the airport. In 2018 the Ride2Fly program was defunded after five years. The program was replaced by Taxi2Fly which was also canceled in 2020.
