Vermont lawmakers are considering a proposal to offload nearly all of Green Mountain Transit’s bus service outside of Chittenden County to other, nearby service providers — a move that would significantly reshape how the state’s largest public transportation agency operates.
A state consultant’s report found that the plan could free up badly-needed resources at Green Mountain Transit, where financial troubles have led the agency to scale back or cut service in and around Burlington in recent months. The plan could also save the state money, the report found, while still preserving services in more rural areas.
But the proposal is facing criticism from the union that represents many of Green Mountain Transit’s drivers, which says some drivers could see a pay cut and lose some of their benefits if their jobs are transferred to a transit agency whose workplace is not organized, as has been proposed in one case.
“The other providers that have come in have indicated to us that they felt that they could take over the service,” said Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, describing recent testimony to him and his colleagues.
When it comes to the people driving the buses, though, “I think the question of whether or not (they’ll be) unionized is still out there,” Westman said.
As it stands, Green Mountain Transit operates local and commuter buses in Chittenden, Franklin and Washington counties, as well as seasonal shuttles to and from resorts in Stowe and the Mad River Valley. It is the state’s largest public transportation provider, with its Burlington-area routes alone accounting for nearly half of all transit rides taken in the state, officials have said.
Under the proposal, Rural Community Transportation — an agency that currently serves Essex, Orleans, Caledonia and Lamoille counties — would take over most of Green Mountain Transit’s service in Franklin County. That includes a bus line in downtown St. Albans and on-demand transit for people in the area who have certain medical needs.
Meanwhile, another agency — Tri-Valley Transit, which runs buses in Addison, Orange and Windsor counties — would absorb much of Green Mountain Transit’s service in Washington County. That includes, like in Franklin County, on-demand trips for certain populations, as well as local bus services around the Montpelier and Barre area.
Green Mountain Transit would, according to the plan, continue to operate commuter routes between Franklin and Washington counties and Burlington, including its “LINK Express” lines connecting the Queen City with Montpelier and St. Albans. (One of its commuter lines also extends into the Grand Isle County town of Alburgh.) Its resort shuttles, meanwhile, would essentially be split between the two smaller providers.
The proposal could save the state — which helps fund all three of the transit agencies — at least $1.2 million a year, the consultant’s report found. That’s because Green Mountain Transit’s costs to operate in rural areas are, likely, higher than the two other agencies’ costs would be to provide the same services, according to the report.
The plan would also, critically, allow Green Mountain Transit to focus more resources on the urban core of its service. The agency is projecting about a roughly $1 million deficit in its budget for Chittenden County-area operations in the 2026 fiscal year, which starts in July.
That’s even after the agency reduced or cut some of its weekend bus service in the region at the end of last year. Some additional reductions, on its LINK Express line between Burlington and Montpelier, are slated to take effect next month.
Green Mountain Transit’s coffers were buoyed over the past several years by an influx of pandemic-era federal funding, but that funding is now running dry, leaving the agency staring over the edge of what Clayton Clark, its general manager, called a “fiscal cliff.”
At the same time, the state consultant’s report found that Green Mountain Transit does not have enough staff to effectively manage its service outside of Chittenden County. Its service in the state’s urban core relies on different funding sources than its more rural operations do, and Clark said the latter is far more complicated to run day-to-day.
The agency has lost more than 40% of its managerial staff over the past decade, the report said, noting that managers are frequently “stressed and under-resourced.”
“This loss in management capacity led to a perpetual crisis mode where remaining staff didn’t have the time to focus beyond the daily fires associated with operating Vermont’s largest transit organization,” Clark told legislators in a memo accompanying the report. The findings, Clark said, showed that Green Mountain Transit “barely had the capacity to operate a small, urban transportation network, let alone rural service” elsewhere.
The plan to offload service needs legislators’ approval because Green Mountain Transit is charged in state law with providing public transportation in Franklin and Washington counties. Both the Senate and House transportation committees have taken some testimony on the plan, though are yet to consider legislation that would enact it.
The changes would, according to the consultant’s plan, take effect starting in July 2026.
Green Mountain Transit’s governing board is not taking a position either for or against the plan, according to Clark. Meanwhile, leaders of Rural Community Transportation and Tri-Valley Transit have said they’re open to the proposal — though also cautioned, in recent interviews, that many details still need to be worked out.
“There’s a due diligence process,” said Jim Moulton, the executive director of Tri-Valley Transit. “It wouldn’t make sense to say, well, we made services in Washington County better — but services in Addison County, or Orange County, have gotten worse.”
One key consideration, Westman and other lawmakers have said, is that the union representing Green Mountain Transit drivers — Teamsters Local 597 — is worried its members in Franklin County could, under the plan, lose their union protections.
None of Rural Community Transportation’s drivers are organized. Curtis Clough, the Teamsters’ business agent, said that — based on figures from the state consultant — Green Mountain Transit drivers in Franklin County could face a 30% pay cut, and lose half of their benefits, if Rural Community Transportation became their employer.
“It’s just not financially feasible for them,” Clough said in an interview, though noted that the union’s perspective could change as the proposal continues to get fleshed out.
Caleb Grant, who is Rural Community Transportation’s executive director, said in an interview that he had just started discussing compensation with the drivers and their union representation, and he couldn’t yet provide details of any potential package.
Grant told the Senate transportation panel last month that, after more conversations, he did not think his organization’s proposals would be “far off” from the Franklin County drivers’ current contract.
“We are a small nonprofit that treats their employees really well. We have a waiting list to drive for us. And we try to have competitive wages to the market,” he told the senators. “When we have a lot of applications, we pay a little bit less. When we have fewer applications, we pay a little bit more. And that’s how we ensure that we can get the most rides for the funding available.”
Clough has less concern for the Green Mountain Transit drivers in Washington County, he said, because Tri-Valley Transit’s drivers are in a union that is also under the Teamsters’ umbrella. The two sets of drivers don’t have an identical contract, Clough noted, but he thinks the Washington County drivers would, broadly, have an easier transition to their proposed new employer.
“Having a unionized labor force — we’re familiar with it. We understand what’s important to the union,” Moulton said. “We may not understand what’s been important to these individual drivers. But my expectation is that most things are going to be similar.”
