The popular Front Range Express commuter bus service between Colorado Springs and Denver will not be eliminated to help the city cover a budget shortfall in 2009.

That decision, sure to be welcome by the 700 or so folks who ride the buses up and down Interstate 25 each day, came when the board of the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority reaffirmed on Wednesday its funding commitment to FREX.

The authority helps fund the service through revenue raised by a one-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2004. The authority’s decision followed an informal agreement Monday by the Colorado Springs City Council that it would not cut its share of FREX funding.

The elimination of FREX became a possibility when city leaders told officials at the city’s bus system, Mountain Metropolitan Transit, which operates FREX, to identify ways to cut up to 20 percent of its budget, or about 50,000 hours of bus service.

The council recently revised that request downward after it decided to eliminate the free downtown shuttle, called DASH.

Transit must now identify ways to trim its budget by 14.5 percent, or about 34,000 hours of local bus service. Transit officials have identified a variety of cuts to do that while retaining full service on well-used routes.

The City Council, after hearing from the public Tuesday night about sweeping cuts to numerous city services, will make a formal decision about transit and other cuts Feb. 24.

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Contact the writer: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazettedev.gazette.com 

A red Robin lands on a tree branch along Wentworth Avenue in Clifton, Ohio on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009. Photo by (AP Photo/The Cincinnati Enquirer, Gary Landers)

Gary Landers