The Verde Lynx transit service will soon have not only a new look but a new name as well.
Beginning in early July, the service will be rebranded with a new name — Verde Shuttle. Included in the change will be new buses as well as a marketing campaign by the Sedona Chamber of Commerce.
Selena Barlow, of Transit Marketing LLC, led the discussion about the new-look transit program during the recent Sedona Lodging Council meeting.
“For the last year we’ve been talking about a reboot of the Verde Lynx service as the new Verde Shuttle,” Barlow said. “This just began with us talking about how we could better market the shuttle, but it’s evolved as the year has gone on and everything has changed.”
The current route runs from the Cottonwood Library through West Sedona and Uptown and down State Route 179 to Poco Diablo Resort. It does not, however, go to the Village of Oak Creek. In order to do that, funding would have to be made available by Yavapai County. However, there may also be private funds available to help cover the costs, Barlow said.
When the Verde Lynx began in 2009, there were eight trips per day between Sedona and Cottonwood. By October 2020, with additional funding from the city of Sedona and chamber, they increased that to 20 trips a day and included an evening trip that leaves Sedona at 10:30 p.m., which was geared toward the hospitality industry, Some of the hoteliers at the meeting requested that the 10:30 p.m. route be extended at least 30 minutes later since a common hotel/resort shift ends at 11 p.m. Barlow said they will look into it but it may require additional funding.
“The reason this is being rebranded at this time is to not only reintroduce it to the community but also because Cottonwood is getting all new vehicles [three] for the service,” she said, “The service will offer nice, new, clean state-of-the art buses.”
Barlow said the original plan was to work with area employers, but in recent months what they’re hearing is how many businesses are struggling to fill their staff positions. So, they refocused their transit plan to help get people back to work by providing them a way to get there.
“We want the message to be that employers are hiring in Sedona and the Verde Shuttle is the way to get to work,” she said, noting that the cost is $2 each way.
A new website, verdeshuttle.com, will be going live in the next week or so for the shuttle service that lists times and location and additional information in both English and Spanish. The service will also provide a bilingual pamphlet with a route map to its passengers.
“We’ve done a number of things to try and make the schedule really user-friendly for people who may not be used to using transit,” Barlow said.
In order to get the word out, they plan to advertise the new services as well as utilizing social media through the city of Sedona, chamber and city of Cottonwood and other public relations.
“The thing we’re focusing on is just how easy it is to get from Cottonwood and work sites in Sedona,” she said.
Once in Cottonwood, the Verde Shuttle is offering a free, on-demand after-hours service to get people to their homes if they arrive after the local Cottonwood bus service ends its daily runs.
“Our workforce is vital to our service-based tourism economy here in Sedona,” Candace Carr Strauss, president and CEO of the Sedona Chamber of Commerce, said after the meeting. “Being that only 15% of Sedona’s workforce can live in Sedona, we need to do our part to ensure those commuting in from Cottonwood and the greater Verde Valley have reliable transportation, while at the same time, doing our best to mitigate traffic.”
