By Shannon Lukens.

 

Slippery slushy snow sent a Steamboat Springs Transit bus sliding this morning on Apres Ski Way. Everyone is OK and was able to get off the bus safely.

 

Vince Arroyo was as passenger on the bus when it started sliding.

“I was just sitting on the bus watching the cars slide around the road. Then the next thing you know, we started sliding. The bus driver, she was very calm and had it under control. And then when we stopped where we did, the people that were on their phones looked up and said, ‘Oh, we’re here.’ So it’s a good reminder that 4-wheel drive gives people a false sense of security. Please slow down. We don’t need to be in a hurry in this town because we’re already here.”

 

Nikki Vande Velde works at The Phoenix and saw the bus start to slide. She shared these pictures from her office window.

“We were just coming out of the upper portion of our property at The Phoenix. As we were pulling out, the bus just started sliding down and going straight towards the building. We started clenching our seats and I thought, ‘Please don’t hit the building. Please don’t hit the building. That’s my office.’ The bus essentially just stopped as soon as the front tires were no longer on the ground.”

 

Jonathan Flint is the manager for Steamboat Springs Transit. He says everyone is fine.

“It was kind of a combination of not only the slipperiness of the snow but also there was a lot of slush built up. So the bus just slid over across the other lane and just came to rest there. Everybody on the bus was fine. The driver was fine. They were able to back the bus out of there. And then we bring it back here to just make sure that we do a full inspection on it before we put it back in service. But it sounds like everything is in good shape.”

 

The Winter Bus Schedule for the City of Steamboat Springs goes into effect Nov. 25. Steamboat Springs Transit has 42 bus drivers ready to go for the winter season.

Longer version with Jonathan Flint

 

More pictures courtesy Nikki Vande Velde.