Helping Coloradans Be More Independent through Shared Rides

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Via Mobility Services

My name is Frank Bruno, and I am the Chief Executive Officer at Via Mobility Services.

That is such a, uh, brief answer. Frank, I think before I ask you the leading question of this conversation, I do wanna know how did you get involved with Via Mobility? Could you give us a little more behind the scenes?

What does Via Mobility do? How were you first introduced to this organization? Need a little more information.

Absolutely. Well, I was serving as an assistant city manager up in the city of Fort Collins, and in 2002 I was one of the applicants for the City of Boulder city manager job, and wound up getting it that December, 2002 and started shortly thereafter, and it wasn’t long into my tenure, basically early 2003 that my library director at the time.

Who had long, long time community leader came to me and said, Frank, you need to go do a ride along. It was special transit at the time. You need to go do a, a ride along and get to know special transit. They’re fabulous and they need our help. She was on the board, by the way, and so I did. As I was told, when, when Marley spoke, you listened, so I, I did.

I arranged for a ride along and was really blown away in part because as a new city manager. Facing a, a large budget crisis in the city. At the time, I realized how much service, public service was being delivered by special transit now via at the time, and it was like without really much involvement from the city of Boulder.

So I did my ride along, and then in 2009 when I wound up serving in 2008, I wound up serving as Vice Chancellor. At the University of Colorado Boulder, and the chancellor at the time said, Hey, Frank, I’d like you to represent us on the Via Mobility Services Board. So again, I, I joined the board that year in January of 2009.

So, you know, just kind of where, where right around the same time, uh, here in 2025 and, uh. Eight plus years ago, I joined the staff and came on as the CEO of the organization. So seven years on the, on the board, including two as board president and now eight plus years as CEO and I. Going strong.

What is one thing that you wish we would know about via mobility services and how they serve the community in 2025?

I think that the most fundamental thing is that we are committed to mobility and you know, we’re talking before we got on the podcast, we’re talking about how, you know, we’re, we’re dealing with illnesses and surgeries. I just had a. My ninth spine surgery and VIA is here for the community. We connect people to their independence, to their freedom.

Mm-hmm. And that’s mainly on the paratransit side. But the way we do this is in part because we have special contracts like the hop here in Boulder. We deliver municipal transit, we deliver the Lions flyer for Boulder County, ride free Lafayette for the county. Uh, we deliver a service for the city of Littleton called Omnibus.

We take all of this revenue. We’re a nonprofit, but we’re a nonprofit public transit and assisted transit provider, and ultimately we use contract revenue to subsidize our own paratransit program. We’re committed to sustainability. We’re a second responder in terms of crisis and have always, and have been for many years.

So when there’s a wildfire, we’re there evacuating people as we were in Mar in the Marshall Fire. But people don’t always understand that we are a nonprofit public transit assisted transit provider, and we need contracts to be able to continue to make investments in our facility here in in Boulder in our facility in the metro area.

And you know, we compete head on for contracts, but we’re not like every other for-profit provider. We’re here committed and make decisions that are all about the communities we serve.

Before we got on, I realized that my grandma actually uses a similar service in her state. She has a medical appointment, a standing appointment a couple times a week that she has to go to.

I’m not really spilling her business here, but she has to go to this appointment. Yeah. And, um, it is better that she not drive back and forth for these. And so it’s been a real blessing. For the access that she has to a similar type of service. I think she pays $4 round trip less than gas, and then it just is a lot off of her in terms of stress when it’s already a slightly stressful situation.

I do wanna ask you what is the key question of the podcast before we get a little further into it, which is, I’m wondering. Is there an adventure, a space, a place, or just somewhere that you got to, that you would like to share with the audience? And the question is always how you got there. Yeah. You can interpret this however you want.

Yeah.

No, I, it’s, it’s easy actually. I mean, I have lots of things from memory growing up in New York City, but, but for me, the thing that most. Impacted me was, uh, in 1997 again, I was with the city of Fort Collins and the mayor at the time was invited to attend a mayor’s world Peace conference in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

Japanese government was gonna pay and pay for one staff person, and the city manager said, you’re going. It was fabulous. And once we landed at, uh, can SAI International Airport in Osaka, we were on. Railroad Japan Railways Jr. Railways. And then we took the well-known Hanen, which is the high speed bullet train from Osaka to Hiroshima.

And then we took it from Hiroshima to Koka and then bus down to Ngassa. So public transit all around kind of the southern half of Japan. And got to know lots of people, not just from Japan but all over the world that were also attending. But we did it with transit, which was very cool.

Mm-hmm. I’m so jealous of this story, but I will say that I lived in Japan as a kid, but I also went back as an adult, and flu Yoka is one of the cities I was very lucky to visit.

But listeners, we have an additional guest. Lisa, if you could do me a favor and share who you are and a little bit of. Your story participating with Via Mobility Services. That would be fantastic.

Thank you for having me. I consider myself a professional volunteer because at 57 I had to stop working. I’m not done yet.

And so I started volunteering with VIA and also Mobility for All. How I got here for Via was when I was about turning 58, I knocked down my neighbor’s garage, so I decided it was time to stop driving, but I was not going to give up my activities. And so whether that was going to the great outdoor water park, swimming has always been, and the drivers are wonderful.

Because if I’ve been through surgery and, and then they get to bring me swimming, they’re like, oh, good, you’re back. You know? And just their encouragement along the way has been amazing. So it started out with the swimming, but then the person who got me involved was a volunteer driver, who’s also a finance guy at my church, Jeff Sugano, who has been a volunteer for years.

And he said, you have to try via. So while I was on workman’s comp, I used via, and then after I did the garage thing, I signed up for Via. And even before that, when I was at Pace. And these little, you know, well, I call them little old ladies, just. They’re older than me, but they’d go, you went thrifting. I used to love doing that, but I can only go when my daughter brings me.

And I said, no, that is not true. You were signed up because at that time, via was taking care of transportation for true pace. And I said, you’re signed up already. Call them. Go. I think it’s sometimes scary for someone to go out on their trip for the first time, so sometimes I accompany people, you know?

That is only one part of it. These are incredible drivers. That’s what I love and I feel absolutely safe. I don’t necessarily feel absolutely safe. No. I have to sometimes remind drivers on Access-A-Ride to lock me in if I’m going on a big bus. ’cause they, they don’t do it, you know? And I have also, I, I’ve been developing as an artist, I, I was like that when I was a kid, but now it’s serious.

And so they would bring me to my. My art classes and there’s a driver named, I think he’s Alex, and he’s the sweetest kid, and he picked me up to bring a painting over for art show. And I sat against it while he was getting me on and I broke the glass in the frame. So he, the glass. Me there on time, but he’s, he is an incredible driver and his way introducing himself.

Yes, I’m on the spectrum in case you wanna know. If you have any questions, let me know. But he’s so careful about care. So there’s a lot of how I got there. I mean, one thing that I was gonna talk about is my brother said to me, you should get out more with the, which is great. I mean, he, he trusts via first, which is how I am too, for if I’m going to something important, I want FIA to take me and then I’ll call other people.

But, so at that point, I decided to go hiking. I. I don’t know if I had had my knee surgery or not. I, and I have this great big walker and so I went to Davidson Mesa, which is a nice straight path. Walden Pond, you know, I’d have to work with them to make sure they came to the right entrance. My favorite was I went to Up to Chatauqua and walked up the Enchanted Mesa as far as I could get.

And then I got back and I was waiting for via, but I, I sent a message upstairs saying, could I have an iced coffee? And Chatauqua brought me down a yummy iced coffee and would not charge me. And that was a favorite trip of mine. I mean, just being able to do that again. And so it’s really important, even when I can’t do things.

That I can do things, like I’ve said, when you’re at these places, at least knowing when you leave here that you have transportation, you’re not gonna get stranded at your house. You’ve got transportation. You can go do things.

Right. When you hear this story, how does it feel in terms of how you’re serving your community members and just the mission and what, what?

Does it take to be a good via driver? How are you finding people with compassion and empathy and just thoughtfulness so that they’re caring for the rider in a way where they’re independent? They’re able to have autonomy and, and access all at the same time to the experiences that they miss.

Let me start with that actually first.

’cause I think that is so, it’s so poignant to some extent, especially on our paratransit, the assisted transit side. To some extent, the drivers find us. Mm-hmm. And what I mean by that is, of course. Our HR department is recruiting, actively recruiting really all the time because, you know, we have, uh, several different services.

Paratransit is what I call our founding mission. That is the first love. 46 years ago how we got started, and the people that tend to apply for the paratransit service generally have a. Somewhat of an inkling of what they’re getting into that it’s, we, we make it very clear it’s a door through door service.

Mm-hmm. So, um, Lisa mentions Access-A-Ride, which is an RTD federally mandated service that via used to deliver as a contractor. We, we no longer do, but that’s a door to door service. We are door through door, we’ll help people on with their coats. Uh, we’ve, we’ve had drivers that help with, uh. Groceries, carrying it in, cleaning a litter box.

They’ve been known to do that. And, and yes, you’re right. These are people that have a great deal of compassion. Mm-hmm. It’s different. And not to say that a, a municipal transit bus driver doesn’t have compassion. They do. Yeah. But someone that’s going to stay with paratransit, they care. Either they see their mom, their dad, their aunt, uncle, grandparents.

Every rider or they see even themselves to some extent, as Lisa was talking about, the driver had, you know, a situation that he deals with every, each and every day. And we all have something.

Yeah. And again, I think that’s something the paratransit drivers just, just hone in on what, what I, what I wish that the community really understood.

Was the fact that we are unlike other, there’s a lot of private transportation providers these days. Mm-hmm. When we got in this business, when we were, you know, again, initially special transit, there really weren’t many options and now, you know, obviously there’s a, a bunch of different things people can take.

Not all created the same, uh, not all with the same degree of, of care for the rider. And sometimes people don’t need much other than, you know, a bus pulling up at a stop and jumping on. But we need to preserve this service for the future. Costs have increased. We all know that fuel has increased, insurance has increased, wages have had to increase.

Because I, I, I want the best that I can hire and that all results in cost increasing. And that may mean we can do, we can’t do as much paratransit as we once did without either more contract revenue that we can bring to the table ourselves. Or more public funding and that is the big challenge.

The other day I read a really interesting report about how transit outside of the Denver metro actually has expanded quite a bit, kind of in the the country towns, if you would, and how Denver Metro is really having a hard time.

Really retaining writers, and I think maybe the question I, I’m thinking about is in a state that has had the type of growth that we’ve had and all of the transit needs that we’re dealing with, what is something that, that we can do as people in the transit space to encourage people to get back on transportation?

Like what are the things that we can control to, to encourage them to use. The services that are out there, and what are the things that we as different, you know, multi-modal, uh, organizations could do better to serve, to communicate that we’re out here as well as just to provide a, a service that, that I.

People to say Yes.

You want me to take that? Either one of you. I

think, you know, part of it is helping out with fundraising. I really want Via to be more funding. That’s part of it because I want it to stay alive and to keep the quality drivers. The caring quality drivers. In fact, I interviewed Craig Christopher, who’s in charge of training, and he gave me a great story.

He said, no, I used to ride on the bus with my father for four years. He goes, and then I just showed up and volunteered because I wanted to work here. You know, and that’s the kind of thing it would be. Great. If there were people who ride it and then go for working for it, that’s not gonna be me. But, you know, and I think also making the community aware of it.

Yes, I work for Mobility for All, but if I’m gonna give you a description of transportation that you can take in this area. I, in fact, I have like 20 squeeze balls that to give people when they, when they train with me. And I also think that via is. A lot easier to get started with. You don’t have to go to Denver and be tested that you are really disabled.

That’s part of getting on Access-A-Ride. Oh, wow. Okay.

And I would add to what Lisa’s sharing there and, and say that, you know, we talk in, those of us in the, in the public transit world, or like I say, the multimodal world, we talk about. Last mile, first mile connections. What we’re talking about there is like, to get from your house or your apartment is invariably gonna be at least a mile in a place like Boulder or Fort Collins or Denver, at least a mile from, maybe less so in Denver from public transit, a, a viable public transit line, like a main bus line, that sort of thing.

So how do you get from your apartment, your home to that stop if you’ve. You’re dealing with some physical mm-hmm. Issues. You’ve had a surgery and so it can be a routine part of your life. And, you know, I think we’re all working towards closing those connection gaps that exist and making it easier. And I know RTD is spending a lot of time and, and money now on their partnership program because they’re RTD is saying, Hey, the R in RTD is regional and so they want and intend to focus more on local routes or, or have focus more on regional and have.

The local communities focus more on local routes, and so that means like City of Boulder where I used to be, city manager, is dealing with that reality that at some point, local service, the very local service here has gotta be in local hands. Meaning they’ve gotta figure out a way to fund local transit and make those connections because the world, it’s changing.

The world is different and. Michelle, you hit it on the head earlier. You said the areas outside of the metro area have maybe been growing in their public transit because they’ve been developing these little small microt transit routes, uh, or small public transit routes that they never had before. And they’re wildly popular and they’re actually.

Smaller and, and therefore they’re a little bit easier to manage, so,

oh wow-I think that’s a positive.

I love having ride free Lafayette, you know, and it is great to see a Via driver than I know from Via. The big thing they’re gonna do is connect the free lines in the different communities so that you can take Lafayette free ride to Longmont instead of stopping at the Lafayette lines.

When I first got involved with Transit. There were changes that had to be made because VIA would go to Erie, but they couldn’t go to the part of Erie. That was the other county. They could just go to the part of Erie. That was Boulder County. And that seemed to be changed really quick, but I was like, that’s ridiculous.

It wasn’t even in a, but to make somebody who has mobility problems. Across a busy road so that they can pick up via. I was like, what? And I don’t know how real that was, Frank. And fill you.

I mean, that’s true when you have county funding, unless there’s a prior agreement, inter governmental agreement between mm-hmm.

Say Boulder and Weld, you can’t necessarily use that funding to provide transportation into. To weld or it’s more complicated, but you’re right, we are actively working on closing gaps like that. The rider shouldn’t have to care where the city lines are. This is something we, you know, here in Colorado, we, we develop cities based on sales tax collections to some extent in terms of how they expand and that that’s chasing tax revenue.

But it doesn’t necessarily make any sense when you’re providing a service like transit. The rider shouldn’t have to care about whether they’re in Boulder or Lewisville or Lafayette or Superior. They should just be able to ride, or for that matter in Weld County.

Mm-hmm. I have a random question. Did did you guys participate in the Zero fair for Better Air.

Campaign, was that something that you could be involved in or was that outside of the services you could provide?

Well, we did from the standpoint of the hop here in Boulder. Okay. Which is, you know, something funded, uh, in part by City of Boulder. RTD, Boulder County and the University of Colorado. So that was absolutely part of the, uh, fair free initiative On our paratransit side for the pandemic, we did a two year fee waiver.

You know, we didn’t have any, any fees for maybe three years, and we reinstituted the fair, not because we so desperately need the revenue, although we do, but the amount of revenue that we can generate in paratransit isn’t gonna move the needle. But we just want to have the writers understand the value there that exists.

’cause if something is free, sometimes people don’t have the same sense of value that they place. Mm-hmm. But so if someone can’t afford to pay, they don’t pay. And it’s okay with via. So in essence, we’ve always been zero fare, just in one way or another.

You also do a reduced rate?

We do. Oh, yep. And we’ll also pay family and friends.

If someone, if we can’t provide the service, but family and friends can give a ride, we’ll help subsidize someone giving you a ride. We do a bunch of things again, things that we do that the private for-profits. Don’t necessarily do, they’re not gonna necessarily sign on to be a second responder in times of a crisis.

They might say, well, we’ve gotta check with corporate and see if it’s okay. Uh, we just say on a, you know, on the dime we, we’ll be there at eight o’clock. What, where do you want us to be? We’re there, we’re, we’re here and committed 46 years in this business. But, you know, Lisa said it, well, you know, without.

The funding via Can’t be around forever.

Yeah. We’re wrapping up and I think my last question would be this kind of touching on the longevity of the service and continuity of Via, what do you hope for in the next couple of years and, and what do you wish people would know that we haven’t discussed about Via?

Lisa

again said it earlier about the fundraising that we really do need. Now I’ve been here with Via for 15 years split between the Board and as CEO, and I’ve seen that the people that are giving to Via are in essence, sometimes the same people every year.

Wow.

And that’s fine. The reality is that we’re, you know, a whole cohort of people that are philanthropically minded are growing out of our area.

And that’s sad. It’s sad. So what I really need people to understand is that when we’re competitively bidding on a contract for a city or a county, that they need to understand, they need to take into account what we call our community benefit. This second response, this commitment to. Uh, zero emission vehicles and apprenticeship training.

We just brought on our first apprentice that we had brought in from Boulder Valley School District hired him full-time when he was, when he graduated. Now we’re doing all these very public facing things, not just to make a dollar, but because we’re committed to the community, but without funding either more contract revenue that we, we can get more contracts from the public sector.

Through our community benefit making us more competitive. We can’t be around forever.

For instance, one thing that’s changed is I used to call via when I had a medical appointment, especially if he somehow didn’t do it, and then I called one day and they said, no, we don’t do medical appointments anymore.

Because they, they’ve adopted c Tripp or something. Frank might know what, what that’s about, but I was like, I was kind of shocked.

Lisa, I think what you’re may, may be referring to is that we, we still do a little bit of work for True but True is now has decided now that they think they can do it more cost effectively on their own, which.

It’s very sad for us. We’ve been committed to true for six, seven years and we’ll still likely do some degree of non-emergency medical transport for them, but not all of it. We still do non-emergency medical doctor’s visits, clinic visits with via paratransit, and we’ll always do that. That’ll always be a big part of what we are and what we do and something that does set us apart.

We used to be able to do a lot more of the quality of life. Types of appointments, like someone needs to go to the hairdresser or to the senior center, or just that play poker with friends at lunch. We’re not able to do as much of that because again, our funding is, is limited now. And so we’re working hard to try to, to increase funding.

We’ve just, we’re very engaged in Colorado Gifts Day and on December 7th for, um, you know, trying to raise, uh, more annual revenues for paratransit. I. That’s where that money goes. But it’s hard, you know, without growing the donor base dramatically. And look at the donor base in Boulder County. It’s so split between so many nonprofits, so many, you know, valuable and wonderful nonprofits, so to say.

I actually have figured out what my last question would would be, which is. We’ve talked about fundraising. How can someone who is listening to this episode connect with you, with the organization in order to donate, to share information with their community members?

Maybe they are deep pocketed individuals who don’t necessarily live in Boulder. Maybe they have a second home in Boulder, you know? Right. Uh, but they, they would like to leave a positive impact. So what is the best way to go about doing that?

The easiest way is through our website, which is, you know, www.viacoloradoviacolorado.org.

Very simple and right on that home landing page is how to, how to donate. And the other thing is for people that. Just simply want a more personal connection. They can email me and I’m simply at f [email protected]. I’m always happy to interact. I do a lot of letters to people that, that are donors and, uh, and I delight in communicating with them and, uh, writing notes.

I’ve written out some notes to some people for 5, 6, 7 years. So personal touch matters.

And Lisa, what’s your next adventure with Via,

it’s the really important one. It’s to go meet my realtor and go home. I’m mean. I haven’t visited my house since September and also go for a tour of Willoughby. I’m up for an apartment there and I’m very excited about it.

That’ll be great.

So those are, those are the important appointments right now. That’s more important than getting out. But I also, I just, I hope the drivers get thanked of a lot for what they do. As Greg said, they are our billboard. Every one of them has been interesting. Me,

Craig spends a lot of time giving me ideas and suggestions.

He’s someone that I respect deeply and we come up with a lot of things together and we really do appreciate all of our drivers. And the paratransit drivers get an awful lot of, lemme just say love. They, they get a lot of love ’cause they give it. And that’s really important.

And Craig’s one of your drivers?

He’s our training manager. Oh. And to be a. At Fireside Elementary School, yeah. Oh, wow. Years ago. But he’s been, he’s been with Via, so, man, the, my entire time as CEO, which is, you know, nearly nine years now. Before that, so he’s uh, he’s incredible.

Thank you for spending some time with me. Everyone. Please do support via mobility.