Residents and visitors who seek an inexpensive way to travel between Sedona and Cottonwood without driving will have more options to do so starting on Tuesday, Oct. 1, as the Verde Lynx transit system will expand its hours starting on that date.
Beginning on Tuesday, the bus between Cottonwood and Sedona will be running on Monday through Friday from 6 in the morning until 10:30 at night, expanding from its previous hours ending at 7:15 p.m.
On Sundays, the buses will run from 6 a.m. through 6 p.m., starting an hour and a half earlier than the bus service’s original start time at 7:30. Saturday will remain unchanged from its previous schedule of 6 a.m. to 7:15 p.m.
From 6 a.m. through 7:30 p.m., the bus will run every 45 minutes, reducing to one every 90 minutes after 6:45. The final bus will leave from the Sedona Municipal Parking Lot at 10:30 p.m.
“To support those riders that may be coming back to Cottonwood after the normal CAT buses end for the day, a new service called CAT Connect will be available to take those riders from the Cottonwood Library to their homes, initially and as more people take advantage of the service, a route will be established to cover from Clarkdale to Verde Village to ensure everyone gets to their home or a safe drop-off point near their home once a flex route is established,” Cottonwood Area Transit wrote in a press release.
According to Cotton- wood Transportation Manager Bruce Morrow, the extended hours will be accomplished by moving some part-time drivers to full-time, without the need for additional drivers. Morrow does however say that Cottonwood Area Transit has been trying to fill some openings for additional drivers for some time, finding it difficult to find drivers who can get a Commercial Driver License and pass a background check.
According to Morrow, most of the funding to pay for the additional hours of operation comes from grants from the Arizona Department of Transportation. Matching local funds come from Sedona, with the city of Cottonwood paying none of the costs of the expansion.
Morrow hopes that the additional hours will lead to more residents of Cottonwood and Sedona using the services, as well as tourists visiting the area.
“The biggest hope is that employers will get on board with this and help their employees, primarily the major hotels and resorts that are along 89A and 179,” Morrow said. “There’s a lot of opportunity for tourists to get on. I’ve been trying to promote this with the various hotels that have bus stops basically right alongside their door.”
