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Reporting from the St. George area focused on local government, public lands and the environment, indigenous issues and faith and spirituality.

Bound for Zion: here are the details on a new bus to connect St. George and Springdale

One of the new buses that will run on a transit route between St. George and Springdale near Zion National Park.
Courtesy of City of St. George
One of the new buses that will run on a transit route between St. George and Springdale near Zion National Park.

A public transit route connecting St. George and Zion National Park is about to become a reality.

The idea of connecting southwest Utah’s largest city and one of America’s most-visited national parks has been on the table for years. Now the city of St. George, which will operate the route, aims to start bus service by the end of July, said Public Works Director Cameron Cutler.

The last big hurdle is finding enough people to drive the buses, a problem that’s not unique to this area.

“We are really struggling hiring people. We thought we had the number of drivers that we needed … and then we had a couple of them bow out,” Cutler said.

The city plans to hire 11 operators total and has recently adjusted the wages for those job openings in an effort to get more applicants.

As Zion’s visitation numbers soar — welcoming more than 4.6 million visitors in 2023 — and Washington County’s population continues to grow, adding the route could potentially put a dent in the traffic that irks residents.

“Every rider that we get on this bus means less vehicles on the road,” Cutler said.

Visitors step off a shuttle at Zion National Park, Sept. 22, 2023. The new bus line from St. George will bring riders to Springdale, where they can connect with the park’s system of free shuttles.
David Condos
/
KUER
Visitors step off a shuttle at Zion National Park, Sept. 22, 2023. The new bus line from St. George will bring riders to Springdale, where they can connect with the park’s system of free shuttles.

Zion Transportation Manager Lisa White envisions helping two main groups with the route. First, it could benefit underserved residents in the St. George area who might have a disability or not have access to their own vehicle, opening the Zion experience to more visitors.

“I'm always shocked when I hear of people who live in St. George and who have not been to Zion National Park,” White said. “We have people coming from all over the world to visit this amazing place. Hopefully this public transit might provide opportunities for some of our locals to have that same opportunity.”

The other group is the workforce commuting into Zion and its gateway communities.

The nearest towns where park employees might live are quite small. Springdale is home to 514 residents and the next town, Rockville, has just 226. Even though Zion’s visitation boom has sparked plenty of new development, much of that is geared toward tourists.

“There are more hotel rooms than houses, for sure,” White said.

That makes the cost and availability of housing near the park out of reach for most employees, she said. For White, getting to work often means commuting more than 20 miles from the town of Hurricane on a winding, mostly two-lane road.

“This morning, I got stopped at construction for nine minutes. So even though it was 6:30 in the morning, and there wasn't a whole lot of traffic, it still took me 40 minutes to get to work,” she said.

Many park staff live a full hour away in the St. George area, which despite its own housing issues, offers more choices. Having to make that long drive every day can be stressful, exhausting and expensive, White said, so having the option to take public transit could be a big help — as long as it is affordable and convenient.

The preliminary schedule seems like it could meet some park employees’ needs, White said. Reducing the number of cars on the road to Zion also fits the park’s goals of reducing pollution and boosting environmental sustainability.

The biggest challenge will be making sure the bus line can get employees where they need to go, when they need to be there.

“It's unrealistic to expect the bus to drop you off at your office door. But people have limits to how far they're willing to walk and still make it efficient.”

For example, people taking this route who get off at the Springdale terminus can typically hop on the existing Springdale and Zion shuttles to get to various places within the park. But some employees start work before those shuttles get going at either 6 a.m. or 7 a.m., and the park’s shuttles shut down completely for much of the winter.

Another concern is confusion among tourists, many of whom come from outside the U.S. and might not speak English fluently. If there isn’t enough differentiation between the new bus and the Springdale shuttle — which is free of charge and only travels a few miles — that could quickly lead to problems.

“Visitors here in Zion see a bus (and) get on a bus. Having two different buses doesn't mean anything to a lot of them. So it's going to cause a lot of confusion if there's too much overlap of the systems,” White explained.

The route’s details still need to be finalized and approved, Cutler said, but the city is leaning toward a flat $5 fare for each one-way trip. For residents who use the route frequently, the city plans to offer an unlimited monthly pass for $100. If someone takes the bus to and from work five days a week, that could reduce the cost to around $2.50 per ride.

This map shows the preliminary transit route between St. George and Springdale as a dark red line, with white dots representing the bus stops.
This map shows the preliminary transit route between St. George and Springdale as a dark red line, with white dots representing the bus stops.

The 42-mile route will start in St. George, making stops there as well as in Washington, Hurricane, La Verkin, Virgin and finally reaching its end point in Springdale one hour and 20 minutes later. The challenge, Cutler said, is that the road often fills with cars lined up to enter Zion, so it’s not clear how close to the park the buses will be able to get on busy days.

The exact placement of the stops and the bus schedule will likely be tweaked as the city sees how it works in practice, though for now they plan to run between 6 a.m. and 8:50 p.m.

“So just getting up and running will then show us any weak points, any schedule issues that need to be adjusted (and) we'll be able to make those adjustments,” Cutler said.

The service comes with some significant capital investments — roughly $3 million for the five, 37-seat diesel buses and an estimated $6 million for a building to house and maintain them, Cutler said. Money for the project comes from a $15 million grant from the Utah Department of Transportation to support the bus route’s first decade and ongoing operating funds from part of a Washington County sales tax.

But if the buses can attract even a small percentage of all the people visiting and working in the Zion area, Cutler said, they could fill up quickly.

“Best case scenario — if it becomes so popular that we are just getting these things filled up? Well, we will have to look at adding another bus.”

David Condos is KUER’s southern Utah reporter based in St. George.
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