By Gene Meyer
July 29, 2010

(KansasReporter) TOPEKA, Kan. - Kansans waiting for federally-supported new bus service to Colorado may need to wait as many as 60 days longer, state transportation officials confirmed Thursday.

Prestige Bus Charters, the Wichita company named in May to provide service between Wichita, Salina and Pueblo, Colo., said it still is waiting for federal operating permits along its two planned routes. The company also is trying to deal with production delays on four new busses it is buying for the routes and to settle some questions about station facilities in McPherson and Hutchinson, said David Rockey, its chief executive.

Rockey and Lisa Koch, public transit manager at the Kansas Department of Transportation both estimate that working through those issues could delay the beginning of service along the two routes by as many as 60 days. Transportation officials initially hoped service might begin as early as this month.

Prestige and the Kansas and Colorado state transportation departments in May announced they'd reached agreements for the Wichita company to begin providing daily round trip service along two routes - roughly along U.S. Highway 50 between Wichita and Pueblo, and along Interstate 135 between Salina and Wichita.

The routes will help extend existing national Greyhound Lines intercity service in Kansas to underserved areas in southwest Kansas, Koch said. As part of the agreement, Kansas is using $2 million in federal stimulus funds to help Prestige buy four new busses for the two routes and also paying up to $200,000 per year on each of the two routes to help pay the Wichita company’s operating expenses if revenues from the routes come up short.

Rockey said this week that Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration officials assured him verbally that operating permits for the new routes would be issued soon, though he could not say when. Federal regulators couldn’t be reached Thursday for clarification.

Rockey also said he expected to resolve the difficulties finding service stops that provide 24-hour ticketing services and waiting facilities in McPherson and Hutchinson very soon. If nothing else works, the company might simply reduce ticketing and other services in Hutchinson and not offer it at all in McPherson, he said.