There were days when Liliana Rodriguez Lozalo, after getting off the bus, carried her youngest child in one arm and grocery bags in another as she walked along an icy road to her home. 

A resident of Swan Meadow Village, a mobile home community that sits on the far west side of Summit Cove, Rodriguez Lozalo said she relies on Summit County’s free bus system to make it to medical appointments, the grocery store and to pick up her kids from after-school activities. 

But with the closest stop roughly a mile away, Rodriguez Lozalo would walk 20 minutes or more both ways to make it to and from the bus — a journey often complicated by weather and road conditions. 

When she heard the neighborhood would be receiving a shuttle to drive them there instead, Rodriguez Lozalo felt “happy, not just for myself, but for all the residents who use this service.”

Last week, county officials launched a new shuttle route that will make routine trips between the Swan Meadow Village neighborhood and the Summit Stage bus stop on Cove Boulevard. 

Officials said it’s a temporary solution to provide service to an area long in need of better access to public transportation. County leaders hope that eventually a permanent bus shelter can be built for the neighborhood that will provide Summit Stage routes closer to residents’ doors. 

“We all know the affordability challenges that so many of our residents in Summit County are having,” said Commissioner Tamara Pogue. “If we can make it possible to not have a car and get to and from work or to and from the grocery store or wherever they need to go — then that’s one more way we can make Summit County more affordable and more livable.”

The effort was spurred by the advocacy of Mountain Dreamers, a county-based nonprofit representing immigrants and the Spanish-speaking community. 

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A heavily Spanish-speaking neighborhood, Swan Meadow Village’s lack of direct access to a bus stop created a barrier for many of its working families, said Mountain Dreamers staffer Miriam Garcia. 

A Swan Meadow resident herself, Garcia said she often saw residents walking in bad weather, sometimes with their children. 

“The sidewalk is covered with snow, so they have to walk on the road where cars are running all the time,” Garcia said, “and that’s unsafe.”

For over a year, Garcia and others with Mountain Dreamers pushed for a solution, including gathering over 140 signatures from residents who said they’d support a bus stop. In late August, the group brought residents to speak during a meeting with Summit Stage officials about the need for bus service. 

“I’m proud of all of those who chose to speak in front of the board and mention their needs,” Garcia said. “It’s hard sometimes for people to say what they need.”

Garcia said she feels those efforts helped spur action to provide what is for now a stopgap solution. 

“This is why Mountain Dreamers is here, to find what the Hispanic community needs,” Garcia said. “We don’t want anybody to be hurt. … We don’t want those moms carrying babies on an unsafe rode.”

The current shuttle, provided by SP Plus, runs every day of the week from 6:24 a.m. to 1:09 a.m. 

Its pick-up and drop-off point is at the Swan Meadow Village Community Center on the neighborhood’s south end, where residents can also find the shuttle’s schedule that corresponds with various arrival and departure times at the main bus stop. 

According to county Communications Director Sarah Wilkinson, a proposal to build a permanent Summit Stage stop at the Swan Meadow neighborhood is currently in the design phase with a $200,000 budget. 

Based on the current timeline, construction could begin in late summer and be completed within two to three months, Wilkinson said. 

Pogue said building a new Summit Stage stop will bring a number of benefits from reducing vehicle travel to providing more connectivity for residents who don’t drive. 

“There has to be a viable, quick, accessible option to bring them from their home wherever they need to go,” Pogue said. “This is something I would most definitely continue to support as a high priority.”