The Sedona Shuttle has picked up thousands of people in the second week of its fully opera tional trailhead transit service.
In just the first four days, the city of Sedona reported the shuttles were boarded 8,500 times. A boarding is being defined as anytime a person gets on a shuttle.
“It was wonderful. Everyone was very kind and cooperative,” Anne Katie Malinowski, a visitor from South Bend Indiana, said.
Malinowski, along with her husband Mike and their children, rode the shuttle at State Route 179 Park and Ride to Cathedral Rock. But initially, the family did not have plans to ride the shuttle at all until they were turned away from the Cathedral Rock parking lot and redirected to the shuttle’s lot at 1294 SR 179.
The majority of riders told a similar story, as city Traffic Control Assistants [TCA] are stationed at the closed trailheads to redirect traffic.
According to the TCAs, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. it seems like a constant cycle of redirected cars. With around 60 parking spots off of SR 179, the lot fills up quickly. And for the past two weeks, TCAs have been turning away many cars after the lot is filled.
Many times these turned-away visitors are unsure of where to go after counting on the Cathedral Rock hikes. And based on the TCA’s perspective, this has caused some uncomfortable situations with tourists.
Jacob Frazier, who was vacationing in Sedona from Northern Virginia, almost ran into this issue when he parked in the last spot available around 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning on his way to the Templeton and Cathedral Rock trail.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if there was no parking,” Frazier said.
For that particular morning, the secondary bus at SR 179 picked up around 185 passengers between 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. These passengers were dropped off at the Little Horse and Cathedral Rock trailheads.
Each bus driver from the current four operational shuttles, all hired by the city’s transportation partner MV Transportation, writes down the number of passengers who gets on and off the bus for each stop. The drivers were also handing out masks as every passenger is required to wear one for their entire ride. The federal mask mandate for public transportation is expected to lift April 18.
B u t a c c o r d i n g t o multiple drivers, this has not been an issue so far. Since the weekends are much busier, a weekday shuttle with 185 passengers by 1 p.m. on Wednesday felt slow. But with two buses running the 10-minute circuit, there was still a wait for the hikers.
For the SR 179 shuttle, both buses stop at the parking lot then make their way to Cathedral Rock and then head to Little Horse, before returning to the parking lot. The second bus begins 15 minutes after the first, with an expected shuttle at each stop every 10 to 15 minutes throughout the day.
“I honestly didn’t mind it that much, but it just seemed like an extra step,” Frazier said. “I also wasn’t too fond of the waiting time after finishing the hike because I was just ready to go back and I had just missed the shuttle, and I had to wait an extra 10ish minutes.”
F r a z i e r a n d t h e Malinowski family, along with many of the other riders on Wednesday, had never been to Sedona previously and openly admitted they did not know any different now that they used the shuttles.
And although the Sedona Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Bureau provided marketing materials, such as signage and flyers to many local hotels and businesses across the city, the majority of riders, like Frazier and the Malinowski family, simply got onto the shuttle after being redirected.
“I am not sure if local hotels are encouraging guests to use the Sedona Shuttle, but I would assume they would because traffic gets so backed up here so quickly,” the Sedona Chamber ’s Operations Manager and Events C o o r d i n a t o r J e s s i c a Gooch said
