Flathead ConnectorFlathead County, Montana
Flathead County, Montana Not an operating service Modeled from published data

The cost model

Here is what it costs.

Phase 1 links the three cities and the airport with a bus every 30 minutes all day. It costs a typical home about $47 a year. The full network runs a bus every 15 minutes all day on the two busiest routes. It costs about $131 a year.

Phase 3, the full build

$25,490,529a year to run all 10 routes
207,535bus hours a year
74buses in the fleet
1,182,122rides a year
27.97mills of county property tax

Three phases

Years 1 to 2, about two years

Phase 1: Connect the Valley

10.02 mills

about $47 a year on a typical home

#1 Airport & Whitefish, #3 Highway Two, #5 Kalispell City and #6 Canyon. Every 30 minutes all day.

  • 79,687 bus hours a year
  • 21 buses
  • $10,103,139 a year to run
  • $6,687,898 from local property tax
Years 3 to 4, about two years

Phase 2: Fill In and Speed Up

20.33 mills

about $95 a year on a typical home

#1 Airport & Whitefish, #2 Ninety-Three, #3 Highway Two, #4 Forty, #5 Kalispell City, #6 Canyon and #9 Whitefish Local. Every 15 minutes at peak and 30 the rest of the day.

  • 151,208 bus hours a year
  • 56 buses
  • $18,763,545 a year to run
  • $13,566,410 from local property tax
Year 5 onward

Phase 3: Make It Frequent

27.97 mills

about $131 a year on a typical home

#1 Airport & Whitefish, #2 Ninety-Three, #3 Highway Two, #4 Forty, #5 Kalispell City, #6 Canyon, #7 West Shore, #8 East Shore, #9 Whitefish Local and #10 West Two. Every 15 minutes at peak and 30 the rest of the day.

  • 207,535 bus hours a year
  • 74 buses
  • $25,490,529 a year to run
  • $18,664,818 from local property tax

This is the yearly cost to run each phase. Each bar shows its share of the full build.

Phase 1 is small on purpose. Its four routes reach 89% of the people the full network reaches. They reach 91% of the low-income, disabled, older and car-free residents. They cost 49% as much.

Operating budget

Here is where the money comes from.

This is the full build (Phase 3). Fares and grants pay part of the cost. The county property tax pays the rest.

SourceEach year
Airport fares ($20 one way)$1,506,400
Local fares$1,465,193
Passes bought by employers and schools$650,000
Glacier National Park contract$400,000
Advertising$260,000
Federal urban transit money (FTA 5307), after the 2030 Census$1,650,000
Federal bonus for strong bus service (FTA STIC)$900,000
Federal rural transit money for the outer routes (FTA 5311)$500,000
State transit money (MDT TransADE)$550,000
Airport authority$600,000
ADA paratransit fares ($4.00)$63,209
County transit property tax$16,945,727
Total to run the buses$25,490,529

Fares pay 11.9% of the cost to run the buses. That is high for Montana. Billings covers 8.9% and Great Falls covers 6.6%. The airport fare is the reason.

Capital

Here is what has to be built.

ItemCost
74 buses, bought over three phases$55,635,000
A transit center in Kalispell and a bus garage$34,000,000
4 transfer stops at $80,600 each, built on both sides of the street$644,800
21 stops with shelters and 107 simpler stops, built on both sides of the street$3,825,494
Design, engineering and a 15% reserve$14,356,844
Total to build, all three phases$111,809,137
Federal share, 80%$89,447,309
Local share, borrowed over 20 years at 4.5%$1,719,091 a year

Calculator

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Who pays

Everyone pays the same rate.

There is one transit district and one tax rate. Every property in the county pays it. The table shows what each area pays through that tax. It also shows each area's fair share of the service, and what that share would cost on its own.

A typical home pays $131 a year, anywhere in the county. City property is 32% of the county's tax base. So the cities pay for about a third of the system.

Context

Here is what other places spend.

This is the yearly bus budget per resident. Budgets are from the National Transit Database for 2024. Populations are from the 2024 Census. Jackson Hole's START serves a resort county of 23,000 people. Missoula County has about as many people as Flathead County.

These are the assumptions.

InputValueWhere it comes from
Cost to run a bus for one hour$118Billings pays $106.18 an hour. Jackson Hole pays $127.05. Missoula pays $136.16. These are 2024 federal figures. The fleet is the buses needed at rush hour, plus 20% spares.
Riders1,182,122 a yearThat is 5.7 riders for each bus hour. We built it up route by route from local data: 40,300 jobs inside the county, 3,409 college students, about 2,700 high school students, and 554,184 airport arrivals. We assume 4% of trips between towns take the bus, 3% of trips inside a town, and 2.5% in rural areas. Peer systems carry 6.7 riders an hour in Billings, 7.4 in Great Falls and 12.5 in Missoula, which runs frequent service; 8.5 is typical. We use the lower number on purpose.
Airport riders7.2%This is the share of people who land here and take the bus, counted both ways.
Fares$1.33 a rideWhat each rider pays on average, after passes and discounts. Pass holders pay about $1.20 a ride, which is a $50.00 pass spread over a month of rides. Cash and day pass riders pay $1.70. Students pay $0.65, because riders 18 and under are free. Visitors pay $2.40. Airport riders pay $18.83 after round trips and senior fares. Free transfers and the low income fare come out of this line. Card fees are counted separately, under collecting fares.
Building it$111,809,137Buses cost $727,500 to $827,500 each. Stops are priced by what is at them. Each is built on both sides of the street. The bus garage is sized to the fleet. The local share is 20%, borrowed over 20 years at 4.5%. There are no park and ride lots.
Winter+8% running timeWinter trips take 8 to 12% longer. The fleet is sized for winter. The tax is more sensitive to this than to anything else. With no snow penalty at all, Phase 1 would be 8.96 mills. With a large one, 9.82. This page uses 10.02.
Property tax$667,426 a millThis is the state's certified value for tax year 2026. The county's own 2027 budget uses the same figure. A typical home is worth $578,000.
Federal moneyrural, then urbanPhases 1 and 2 use federal rural transit money. It pays 54.11% of running costs in Montana. Phase 3 assumes the Kalispell area passes 50,000 people at the 2030 Census. Then it gets federal urban transit money instead, plus a bonus for strong service.
ADA paratransit$594,195 a year in Phase 1Federal law requires door-to-door rides for people who cannot use a regular bus. It covers everyone within three-quarters of a mile of a route. In Phase 1 that is 21,221 trips a year and 4 vans, at $28 a trip. The share of people who qualify is a guess. If it doubles, this line doubles.
Fares by distance$7,416 a year in extra fares at full buildRiders tap on and tap off. The fare is $2.00 up to 14 miles between stops, then $0.50 more for each 3 miles, up to $4.00.
Collecting fares$118,864 a year at full buildCard readers at both doors cost $7,000 per bus. Cards, processing and the office behind them cost 4% of fare income.
Where the homes go700 acres outside WhitefishA bus route is cheap per rider when homes are close to the line. Columbia Falls and Kalispell put their new growth along these routes. Vision Whitefish 2045 set aside 115 acres inside the city and 700 acres outside it, in 10 separate areas. No bus network serves that pattern well.

Some of these numbers are still guesses.

These 4 visitor numbers are estimates. They make up 15% of the riders modeled.

Visitor marketPeopleShare who rideRides a yearStatus
Whitefish Mountain Resort, by connection457,0005%45,700estimate
Glacier Range Riders, game days (no route reaches it)104,2853%6,257estimate
Empire Builder at Whitefish46,40025%11,600estimate
Glacier National Park3,136,9312%125,477estimate

Sources