From 8:45 AM – 12:00 PM Saturday, September 24, Routes 1, 6, 7 and 12 will be detouring around South Ave to accommodate the UM Homecoming parade. Stops shown below will be closed during this time and routes may not be running on schedule until the parade concludes. Please note the Bus Tracker may not reflect these stop closures in real time.
MISSOULA, Mont.— Bryan Ursery has been providing safe, reliable service to Missoulians as a Mountain Line bus operator for 23 years. His safety record is equally long, having never had a preventable accident in all that time. Ursery’s dedication to his field, his outstanding customer service to his riders, and his encouragement of his peers earned him the Carey Pope Award, equivalent to a lifetime achievement, bestowed by the Montana Transit Association at their annual conference last week.
“Bryan always goes above and beyond to make riders, coworkers, and community members feel welcomed and valued,” said Jennifer Sweten, Director of Operations. “He remembers the smallest details shared about your life and asks follow-up questions months later when you board his bus or pass him in the hall. He is respected by peers and loved by riders.”
Ursery has also won multiple internal agency awards for his dedication to his position since starting with Mountain Line in 1999. At the agency level, Ursery has won “Operations Employee of the Year” four times; “Perfect Attendance” seven times; and “Outstanding Customer Service” three times.
He also continues to prioritize honing his own skills as an operator and has been a frequent competitor in the Bus Roadeo, a state and national event that pits bus operators from different agencies against each other in a safety-based obstacle course. Ursery has won the Montana statewide Roadeo Division I title six times (’00, ’04, ’07, ’11, ’14, ’19) and took first place in the American Public Transportation Association’s national Customer Service Challenge at the International Bus Roadeo in Memphis, Tennessee in 2011.
“Bryan is an exemplary employee and bus operator, one we are lucky to have on our team,” said Sweten. “He is humble, invested in his transit family, and well deserving of this award.”
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Mountain Line launched seven-day and seven-night service in July 2022, putting 30% more service on the road. The agency was named the top public transit agency in North America in its size in 2021, earning the American Public Transportation Association Outstanding Public Transportation System Achievement Award. Mountain Line also won the Montana Transit Association statewide safety award in 2021. Committed to a zero-tailpipe-emissions fleet by 2035, Mountain Line has a long-standing commitment to clean air, public health and a more sustainable future. Since becoming a zero-fare system in 2015, ridership has increased nearly 70 percent, to average more than 1.5 million rides annually, pre-pandemic. Mountain Line helps students get to school, employees get to work, and seniors and those living with disabilities stay active, mobile and independent. By reducing the number of single vehicles on the road, lessening traffic congestion and investing in electric buses, Mountain Line benefits us all.
MISSOULA, Mont.— Mountain Line welcomed Tim VanReken, a Legislative Fellow with U.S. Senator Jon Tester’s Office (D-MT), for a facility tour Thursday. VanReken spent the morning reviewing Mountain Line’s electrification efforts and learning about the agency’s plans to convert to a zero-tailpipe-emissions fleet by 2035.
“We’ve learned a lot in the last three years about charging infrastructure, battery capacity, and the mechanics of maintaining an electric fleet,” said Jennifer Sweten, Director of Operations at Mountain Line. “We’re sharing what we’ve learned with officials and other transit agencies to demonstrate the value of federal support and to help other agencies transition as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
Mountain Line was awarded a $10 million Low or No Emissions grant from the Federal Transit Administration on August 16, which will allow the agency to purchase 10 new battery-electric buses and bring its fleet to 90% electric by the end of the decade. The Low or No Emissions Grant Program received a $1.05 billion increase in funding as a direct result of Tester’s bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; both Tester and U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) provided bi-partisan support for Mountain Line’s most recent grant application. Two other Montana agencies also received FTA funding for bus infrastructure improvements.
“Every day, folks in the Treasure State rely on public transit to commute to work, get their kids to school, shop at their local businesses, and enjoy all that Big Sky Country has to offer,” Tester said in an email to Mountain Line staff preceding VanReken’s visit. “This funding for upgrading buses and bus stations across Montana will pay dividends for working families, small businesses, and our climate. I’m proud to have secured cutting-edge investments like this one that will modernize Montana’s transit infrastructure and power our local economies for years to come.”
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Mountain Line launched seven-day and seven-night service in July 2022, putting 30% more service on the road. The agency was named the top public transit agency in North America in its size in 2021, earning the American Public Transportation Association Outstanding Public Transportation System Achievement Award. Mountain Line also won the Montana Transit Association statewide safety award in 2021. Committed to a zero-tailpipe-emissions fleet by 2035, Mountain Line has a long-standing commitment to clean air, public health and a more sustainable future. Since becoming a zero-fare system in 2015, ridership has increased nearly 70 percent, to average more than 1.5 million rides annually, pre-pandemic. Mountain Line helps students get to school, employees get to work, and seniors and those living with disabilities stay active, mobile and independent. By reducing the number of single vehicles on the road, lessening traffic congestion and investing in electric buses, Mountain Line benefits us all.
The inbound Route 11 bus stop at the VA Clinic will be closed starting Sept 6 until further notice due to construction.
Mountain Line will operate on a Sunday schedule Monday, September 5, for Labor Day. On that day, all buses will run on the same schedule as they do on Sunday. You can find Sunday schedules here.
MISSOULA, Mont.— Mountain Line is committed to a zero-tailpipe-emissions fleet by 2035, and thanks to a $10 million Low or No Emissions grant awarded by the Federal Transit Administration Tuesday, the agency’s fixed-route fleet will be 90% of the way there this decade.
“This award will greatly benefit the Missoula Valley airshed by helping Mountain Line further reduce its carbon footprint to keep our air clean,” said Corey Aldridge, Mountain Line CEO and general manager. “While public transportation is already part of the solution as we work toward a more sustainable future, we want to go even further by making Missoula’s public transportation as clean as possible.”
Replacing aging diesel buses with zero-tailpipe-emission buses will reduce Mountain Line’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 586 metric tons and prevent the release of 17.5 pounds of particulate matter from entering the Missoula valley airshed annually.
“To quantify these positive benefits another way, this reduction in emissions and particulate matter results in a social cost saving of an estimated $64,000 each year,” said Mountain Line Projects and Planning Manager, Colin Woodrow. “Our transition to an electric fleet benefits all Missoulians by protecting our air quality for a healthier community and planet.”
Additionally, operating battery electric buses instead of comparable modern fossil-fuel buses will reduce the amount of energy that Mountain Line uses each year by 6,030 gigajoules. That energy is equivalent to 100 years’ worth of gas for the average American car driver every year.
Mountain Line was an early adopter of battery-electric bus (BEB) technology in the U.S., debuting its first six electric buses in the summer of 2019. Now, with 12 BEBs in service, Mountain Line has become a resource for agencies across the country looking to make the same transition.
“We’ve learned a lot in the last three years about charging infrastructure, battery capacity in cold weather, and the mechanics of maintaining an electric fleet,” said Aldridge. “We’re sharing what we’ve learned with other transit agencies to help them transition as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
Mountain Line’s leadership in transitioning to BEBs played a key role in securing this most recent grant, the largest received in the agency’s 45 years, as did robust community and congressional support. The grant application received bi-partisan support from Senators Daines and Tester, and local support from the Missoula County Commissioners, the late Mayor John Engen, University of Montana, Missoula Metropolitan Planning Organization, Providence St. Patrick Hospital, Clearwater Credit Union, Homeword, Missoula Institute for Sustainable Transportation, Climate Smart Missoula, City of Missoula Climate Action, MMW Architects, and Missoula Midtown Association.
The award is the fourth, and largest, Low or No Emissions grant Mountain Line has received in the last five years.
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Mountain Line was named the top public transit agency in North America in its size in 2021, earning the American Public Transportation Association Outstanding Public Transportation System Achievement Award. The agency also won the Montana Transit Association statewide safety award in 2021. Committed to a zero-tailpipe-emissions fleet by 2035, Mountain Line has a long-standing commitment to clean air, public health and a more sustainable future. Since becoming a zero-fare system in 2015, ridership has increased nearly 70 percent, to average more than 1.5 million rides annually pre-pandemic. Mountain Line helps students get to school, employees get to work, and seniors and those living with disabilities stay active, mobile and independent. By reducing the number of single vehicles on the road, lessening traffic congestion and investing in electric buses, Mountain Line benefits us all.
The inbound Route 1 & 7 bus stop located on South Ave next to the fairgrounds will be closed until further notice due to construction.
Route 8 bus stops located at 10th & Catlin and 10th & Grant have been consolidated to a single set of stops at 10th & Garfield. These changes are part of Mountain Line’s Bus Stop Improvement Project with the goals of increasing system safety, accessibility and efficiency. To learn more about this project, or to see a map of other upcoming changes, visit https://mountainline.com/news/bus-stop-improvements.
Due to a server disruption, all real-time bus information is currently down in our mobile app and bus tracker. We are working to get this back up as soon as possible. For now, please default to scheduled arrival and departure times.
We are operating today, Sunday, July 10 (hooray!!!). However, bus icons may not appear in the app.
We hope to have this remedied by tomorrow. Please default to scheduled times shown online and in the app and know your bus is on the way.
