Public bus service in Washington County is expected to be on firmer financial ground now that an operator with a rural focus has taken over after years of service cuts under Green Mountain Transit.
Tri-Valley Transit, which has operated routes in Addison, Orange and northern Windsor counties since 2017, took over from GMT in Washington County this month.
Local riders and officials had decried past service cuts, but the switch to a new operator had some feeling hopeful.
“I think in general we need to look at our public transit systems as a vehicle for people to get to the places that they need to go,” said Barre City Councilor Michael Deering II. “When we’re seeing the transition from Green Mountain Transit to Tri-Valley Transit, being able to do more specialized rural transportation, I think we’re going to see more bang for our buck.”
The change comes as part of a statewide transition in which the Vermont Agency of Transportation seeks to match small-town areas of the state with rural-based transit providers. During the 2024 legislative session, Vermont’s yearly transportation bill, Act 148, was passed, instructing GMT to consider cost-effective alternatives for urban and rural transit services.
The agency and GMT jointly decided to transfer rural services away from Green Mountain Transit, which also operates the bus system in Chittenden County, after a consultant’s report found the move could free up resources for GMT’s urban service and save the state money.
On Jan. 1, Franklin and Grand Isle counties switched from GMT to Rural Community Transit.
Having one exclusively rural operator in Washington County opens the door to a wider range of funding sources and more efficient services, said Tri-Valley Transit’s executive director, Jim Moulton.
Ross MacDonald, manager of the public transit program at the transportation agency, said service providers in rural areas “generate their nonfederal, nonstate funds through town meetings, ballot initiatives and working with communities.”
Tri-Valley Transit is working to maintain the existing service schedules in Barre, Montpelier and other Washington County towns it serves, with no expected interruptions, MacDonald said. One exception is the LINK commuter service between Montpelier and Burlington, which will remain with Green Mountain Transit.
MacDonald added that offloading the rural services allows GMT to refocus its resources on the Burlington area, calling it “the most important transit region we have.”
“We were hoping that it would provide more efficient service, saving us a little bit of money,” MacDonald said. “And we also hope it will certainly improve the service in our rural areas, that we might forget, so we then would just have rural providers and urban providers, and not one provider trying to do both at once.”
Existing drivers and staff were given the opportunity to stay onboard amid the transition to Tri-Valley Transit, Moulton said.
Nathan Culver, who has been a bus driver for GMT for three years, is staying on with Tri-Valley Transit, though he said the union for bus drivers — Teamsters Local 597 — is still in contract negotiations with the new operator. The only difference he said he’s expecting with the move to a new employer is a change in uniforms and bus numbers.
Rachael MacNeil, who rode the No. 83 Waterbury Commuter route to Montpelier one day late last month. She said she appreciated that the routes would stay the same after the transition. MacNeil said she regularly rode the bus in fall 2025 and only recently started using it again after she found herself without a car.
“The fact that I have this bus, you know, that I have accessibility to use this bus route, it’s the only way I’m able to go to my doctor’s appointments,” she said.
However, riders in 2023 did not have consistent access to many routes. The switch to Tri-Valley comes after years of service reductions from GMT throughout Washington County.
In 2023, GMT temporarily reduced its No. 89 City Commuter route between downtown Barre and Montpelier to hourly and temporarily suspended its No. 84 U.S. 2 Commuter route and its No. 93 Northfield Commuter route. At the same time, the agency had also reduced the availability of its on-demand microtransit service, MyRide, throughout Washington County.
Under TVT, MyRide will continue to run through Montpelier, excluding the area between Main Street and State Street.
As the transition unfolds, the transportation agency plans to continuously monitor the services, MacDonald said.
Deering said he’s hopeful that Tri-Valley Transit will meet the needs of commuters in Barre and other places in Washington County that were not previously met. He suggested that because previously, the majority of the GMT’s board was based in Chittenden County, they have not always been able to fully see to the needs of local riders.
After the transfer of rural services, the board is now entirely from Chittenden County.
“If you’ve got a board of 20 individuals and one of them has a voice from Washington County, you know there are 19 other individuals that have a voice that are going to carry much louder and stronger together than that one voice for Washington County,” Deering said.
Shaun Robinson contributed reporting.
