A 51-seat black-and-blue Bustang Outrider bus, snaking for 191 miles through Colorado’s central mountains this week, carried an eclectic mix of travelers — a German Buddhist bound for six months of meditation above Crestone, a Tucson woman visiting her sister in Salida, an Asian tourist, a graphic artist coming home from a celebration of life. The bus is often full and driver Doug Allen laments the times he’s had to turn would-be riders away, up to 15 recently at a stop in Buena Vista. The demand along his Denver-to-Crested Butte route, with 17,277 passengers last year, up from 10,070 in 2021, has spurred the Colorado Department of Transportation to add a second daily run starting Feb. 1. It’s an expansion that reflects the robust public transit beyond Colorado’s Front Range cities even as ridership on metro Denver’s Regional Transportation District buses and trains has dropped. Federal Transit Administration records show that more people ride buses in rural Colorado than in rural parts of any other state. Colorado leaders plan to build on that this year by boosting more routes like the one between Denver and Crested Butte to connect the state’s multiple thriving local networks. In December, CDOT officials launched a Bustang Outrider route linking Sterling in northeastern Colorado with Denver International Airport. A state transit connections study in progress will identify additional intercity bus routes, including possible new daily service between Gunnison and Montrose in southwestern Colorado; Limon and Denver; Weld County and Denver; and Salida and Colorado Springs. “This is about growing transportation options as opposed to focusing on driving and how we can grow road networks,” said Paul DesRocher, director of CDOT’s transit and rail division. “Your ability to move is your ability to be free,” DesRocher said. Over the past six years, ridership on CDOT’s nine rural Bustang Outrider routes increased by 63% from 27,240 to 44,438, state records show. The overall annual ridership on the state’s broadening family of Bustangs — including high-volume dozen-a-day service along I-70 between Denver and Grand Junction and I-25 between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs, along with “Pegasus” and “Snowstang” minbuses — exceeds 390,000, up from 238,000 in 2019. CDOT planners project Bustang ridership in 2025 at 325,000. In contrast, urban RTD ridership decreased from 106 million in 2019 to around 65 million. “Rural bus service is a lifeline,” said Cara Marcus, knowledge and resource manager for the National Rural Transit Assistance Program. “If people don’t have it, they cannot go anywhere. And rural bus drivers are often best friends for their riders. They know their names, their families, where they need to go.” In Colorado, bus ridership in rural areas hit 17 million in 2022, up from 16.7 million in 2017, Federal Transit Administration data shows. That’s more than triple the ridership in the next closest states (4.7 million in Michigan and North Carolina; 4 million in California). Local bus companies provide service in 53 of the state’s 64 counties. Local bus companies range from La Junta Transit in southeastern Colorado to large systems serving the growing communities around Durango, Eagle, Grand Junction, Steamboat Springs, Silverthorne, and Telluride. The Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, which started in 1983, has expanded to provide more than 4.8 million rides a year to people around Aspen, Carbondale, and Glenwood Springs. Teal Garth loads her luggage at the departure gate for the Crested Butte-bound Bustang bus at Union Station in Denver on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post) The Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority runs 41 bus trips a day along a 33-mile route between Gunnison and Crested Butte. Ridership reached 393,000 passengers last year, 20% more than the 2023 record, agency director Scott Truex said. “The vast majority are residents of the valley. Each time we’ve been able to expand service, our ridership has increased.  Ultimately, it would be fantastic to have a bus scheduled to arrive every fifteen minutes.” A no-fare Mountain Express system between Crested Butte and the Mount Crested Butte resort carries another 750,000 riders. In Salida, a neighbors-helping-neighbors ride service that began 26 years ago has grown into the Mountain Valley Transit company, which runs 14-seater buses across a seven-county area. Ridership has been increasing at annual rates of 23% to 39% and about a third of the passengers are seniors or people with disabilities, MVT board chair Kate Garwood said. The drivers loaded 1,392 wheelchairs in 2024, and the mobility helps stabilize communities, Garwood said. “If people can’t get to their jobs or medical appointments, everything deteriorates.” Riders lining up this week at Denver Union Station noted Bustang comforts — big clean windows, Wi-Fi service, phone charging portals, a toilet — with a one-way price of $45 for the 5.5-hour trip to Crested Butte. Bus ridership is growing “because people don’t want to park. It costs too much to park,” Allen said, after welcoming all aboard. “This is the most efficient way to go.” Gayle Anne Dudley takes her seat on the Crested Butte-bound Bustang bus at Union Station in Denver on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post) His riders typically sit silently, transfixed by mountains along a route that rises to elevations as high as 11,312 feet above sea level atop Monarch Pass. Sometimes they talk politics. Once they demanded that Allen stop the bus to warn a roadside dog walker about a bear they spotted nearby. “I am going to sit and read a book on my Kindle and arrive relaxed,” Salida-bound Karen Jettenberg said.