Власти Джексон-Хоул требуют от курорта и бизнеса возместить миллионный дефицит бюджета общественного транспорта

Skiers board a START bus bound for Jackson from Teton Village in 2020. Customers and employees of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Teton Village businesses make up roughly 80% of START ridership to the village, yet those entities pay only a small fraction of the cost of providing the service. The alternative to bolstering transit is for the resort to build the multiple parking garages called for in the 1998 master plan at a cost of tens or hundreds of millions. For decades, Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit service has been instrumental in moving people efficiently around Jackson Hole and beyond. The vision of community leaders nearly 50 years ago in building a transit system between Jackson and Teton Village during winter has proven a tremendous success. With expanded service including commuter bus routes from Star Valley and Teton Valley, START has become a vital connection for residents and visitors. Public transit is a basic and necessary service to help reach goals of reducing passenger vehicle volume and easing the parking shortage in high-demand areas like Teton Village during ski season. START carries more than one million riders each year, and it’s hard to imagine what our community might look like without these crucial bus routes. The recent START operating budget shortfall of about $1.5 million — owing to federal transit cuts — brings focus back to funding obligations originally outlined in the 1998 master planning agreement for Teton Village. That plan provided extensive additional development rights but also outlined responsibilities. Clearly stated in the agreement is a transportation demand management program, in which Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and all Teton Village employers (collectively through the Teton Village Association) shall pay for the cost of transporting employees. Consistent data collection has shown that 65% of START riders arriving at Stilson from town are employees riding to work. Yet Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Teton Village Association pay only a small fraction of the cost of transporting those employees. For more than 10 years town and county leaders have struggled to get village businesses to pay for the responsibilities required by the master plan. For 2026, the total cost of START service to Teton Village is roughly $4.6 million, of which JHMR is paying nearly $500,000, or about 15% of operating cost and 10.7% of total cost. TVA has budgeted $210,000 for buying bus passes, accounting for roughly 6% of operating cost and 4.5% of total cost. Nearly two-thirds of the riders are resort and other village employees, yet those business entities are paying a combined 21.5% of operating costs and 15.3% of total costs. In addition, JHMR continues to give many of its ski pass holders free bus passes while paying only half the cost of that service — leaving taxpayers to subsidize ski pass sales. Given the sudden federal funding shortfall of $1.5 million, it would be logical for the town and county to ask JHMR and TVA to pay a greater share of the cost of service — as stipulated in the master plan. But at Monday’s meeting on the topic, leaders gave preliminary approval for asking those entities for a combined $150,000 toward the deficit. Service will be reduced systemwide and fares increased to make up five times that figure. As Jared Smith, a transportation planner and former START board member, has pointed out, taxpayers are covering the vast majority of the cost of transporting the resort’s workforce and customers. Smith has crunched the numbers and rightly pressed the town and county, saying the high public subsidy has hindered START from providing service elsewhere in the community. He estimates JHMR and TVA should be on the hook for up to $2 million, based on the longstanding master plan. That’s a pittance compared to the tens or hundreds of millions it would cost the resort to build multi-story parking garages outlined in the master plan. The town and county will meet again in two weeks. They would do well to heed Smith’s analysis, sharpen their pencils and finally require the resort and TVA to pay a fair share of transit costs. (This has been updated with the correct dollar figure sought by the town and county from funding partners JHMR and TVA. — Eds.) By the editorial board: Johanna Love, Adam Meyer, Kevin Olson and Jim Stanford