10-year Plan for Transit System 

An overview of how the city of Laramie’s challenges to expanding its bus system 

Photo by Marcus Kopp

The city of Laramie has identified serious issues within the city’s current transit systems, including more routes to the University of Wyoming.  

After discussion and a survey, the city has decided to adopt a 10-year plan to expand the transportation system to address these gaps in service.  

“The city wanted a plan to fill the gaps where service isn’t necessarily available in Laramie,” said University of Wyoming Director of Transportation Paul Krunkel. “Our current budget for transit, it’s around 3.5 million. With all said and done, the operating costs of what this would look like 10 years would be, 7.5 to 8 million [dollar] operating costs a year. So, it’d be substantial, and I’m glad they’ve put together a phase plan, so we’re not putting it all together at once. And, you know, making sure that adds slowly and makes sure people are riding and supporting the service before we expand too much.” 

A power point developed by the city identified gaps in the city transit system, such as no service to West Laramie, no fixed-route service on the weekends, no service running north and south, no service to Greyhound bus stop (petro) or the airport, limited stops in downtown Laramie, no evening service in the summer, and no stops at the Ivinson Memorial Hospital. 

Additionally, a survey of 109 people found 1/3 of respondents did not know that the University of Wyoming Roundup transit system is open to everyone, 68% of respondents said that public or alternative transportation is not going where they need to go, and 70% of respondents said that if public or alternative transportation were available they would use it. 

The city has several phases of the plan. The timeline is undetermined, but every part of the plan will have expansion that citizens will feel at each phase.  

“The funding was not identified in the plan,” said Krunkel. “So, it will need to be identified by the city if they want to be the main partner in this expansion or the university or the general public. Currently, we’re a fare-free system. So there likely need to be onboard fares introduced.” 

“Our federal funding was cut for FY27 [fiscal year 2027] by about 37%. So, that amounts to about $800,000. So, we are having to look at ways to cut back on our service this year to be able to fund, deal with the funding reduction. And we’re currently working with the city on funding the link route,” said Krunkel, in response to reduced federal funds from the COVID-19 era. 

“We’ve worked with the city, it’s not finalized yet, but we’re working with the city on having them fund the link route to where service would be the same as it was last year. So, them inject almost a half 1,000,000 [dollars] into our service so that we can operate the link route just like it was last year with every 20 minutes, 4 buses and not reducing any stops. At the same time, the city wants to start looking at this plan and potentially having us develop a pilot route for West Laramie to try out to see if the ridership is there, if there’s demand for additional transit in Laramie. So that’s what we’re currently working with the city now is working with them on fully funding the link route and potentially developing A West Laramie pilot route for next year.” 

“Almost all agencies were cut in Wyoming. There was the reason given to us was that there was pandemic era funding that was supplementing our annual allocation from the federal government and the state had been holding on to that allocation and injecting our allocations from the federal government annually. And we had an announcement. I believe it was April or May. That funding was running out and that we were to expect shorter allocations this year. But that was after we submitted our grant applications and actually, we found out in June,” said Krunkel. “We didn’t know that we were being supplemented by pandemic era funding and it was a shocking announcement to many agencies in Wyoming that funding had run out and we’d be expecting cuts for this year.” 

Another major issue mentioned by Krunkel was high inflation in gas prices.  

“The biggest [issue] is fuel. I mean, we’re paying, you know, we’re not paying what you see at gas pumps around town, but it’s over 6 dollars a gallon for diesel right now is what we’re seeing. And, you know, 80% of our buses run on diesel,” Krunkel said. 

Krunkel continued, “we had to increase salaries last year, was dictated by the legislature, and then salaries are increasing again this year. Since we’re an auxiliary, we don’t get state funding to help with salary increases, so we have to fund that ourselves. So, that’s why we use parking fees and student fees, as well as grant funds to sustain our operation and salaries.” 

Krunkel said that phase one, to work on including bus routes for West Laramie, is a realistic goal. However, there isn’t clear funding for the next few phases, which the city would need to secure to continue work towards this 10-year plan.  

“It’s an ambitious plan to think that Laramie could support a 7.5 million [dollar] just operating cost, annual operating cost transit system for five different routes in a town that’s a little over 30,000 with 8,000 of those being students,” said Krunkel. “It’s an ambitious plan. It’d be the largest transit system in Wyoming as far as you’d even be larger than Cheyenne’s as far as the number of routes and number of passengers and whatnot. So, it’s fairly ambitious, and I’m glad it’s phased.” 

“Let’s do a pilot program, make sure that people are riding, make sure that people are able to pay fares, support the program, and then we can think about adding additional routes,” Krunkel said. “But [we’re] making sure that it’s proven that people there will ride expanded transit if we add it.”