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Regional transportation office outlines transit ridership gains and a safety action plan for Fruita area
Summary
The Grand Valley Regional Transportation Planning Office updated Fruita City Council on transit growth—about 580,000 annual boardings and a 12% ridership rise on routes serving Fruita—and on a new safety action plan that targets behavioral causes and will use FHWA grants for a high‑risk network study, outreach and speed feedback signs.
Dana Brossega, director of the Grand Valley Regional Transportation Planning Office, told Fruita City Council that the office is working across Mesa County to support transit, safety and long‑range planning.
"We had about 580,000 boardings on Grand Valley Transit," Brossega said, and she highlighted a 12 percent increase in ridership on routes serving Fruita after the addition of Route 12. Brossega said Grand Valley Transit recently opened a fleet maintenance facility that increased spare capacity and improved operations, and noted expanded intercity service—six buses each way daily between Denver and Grand Junction and one daily to Durango.
The RTPO receives substantial federal support, Brossega said: roughly 70 percent of transit expenses and about 80 percent of MPO expenses come from federal funds. She warned that proposed state cuts to MMOF funds could strain local transit funding.
Rachel Peterson, the RTPO's senior transportation planner, presented the first annual report from the Mesa County Regional Transportation Safety Task Force and described the group's multidisciplinary approach—engineering, law enforcement, EMS, hospitals, school district staff and nonprofits—to reduce deaths and serious injuries on local roadways. Peterson said the task force recorded roughly 2,200–2,300 crashes per year in Mesa County and that fatal and serious‑injury crashes are not trending downward as desired. "About 24 percent of the fatal and serious injury crashes were related to impairment," Peterson said, and speeding was a factor in about 31 percent. She also reported that 24 percent of those crashes involved drivers under 25 and that fatalities among vulnerable road users (pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists) are higher than the state average.
Peterson outlined three Federal Highway Administration grant‑funded efforts the task force will use to target safety problems: a high‑risk network study focused on rural corridor geometry and roadside features, a messaging and outreach study to tailor community communications, and deployment of speed feedback signs. She said jurisdictions across Mesa County—including Fruita—will receive funding for speed feedback devices and that Fruita is scheduled to receive two signs.
Councilors asked about school outreach; Brossega and Peterson said outreach with District 51 is being planned and that the safety program manager, Tara Flaherty, will coordinate those efforts.
Peterson pointed councilors to a public crash‑data dashboard at mesacounty.us/move-safe-mesacounty and reminded the council of upcoming public events tied to outreach and safety promotion: Cycle Safety Fest on April 18 at the Mesa County Fairgrounds and Bike Month in May. The RTPO also noted the Colorado Traffic Safety Summit will be held in Grand Junction in July.
The presenters encouraged council support for local outreach and said they will continue returning to area boards with updates and opportunities for collaboration. The council thanked the RTPO for the briefing and indicated interest in additional local outreach at community events.
