RAPID CITY - Although it started a month late and was hindered by scorching summer heat, Rapid City's new trolley service was well received in its inaugural season.

"We had lots of positive comments from everyone who rode it," Rich Sagen, the city's Rapid Transit manager, said. "We had a good mixture of local residents as well as tourists, and they were very complimentary of the entire service."

The green-on-red City View trolleys officially got underway July 2 and operated through mid-September. The trolleys will start running again in late spring next year, a starting date missed this year because the vehicles were still under construction.

Sagen said people enjoyed the trolleys' colors, liked the way they looked inside and thought the service was a good value, Sagen said. They also enjoyed the established route and indicated the destination points provided a great deal of information about the city, he said.

"When people came to town they got to see a pretty good overview of the entire community," he said.

Sagen said the trolley averaged about 2,550 riders in July and August, which is very good, considering it's a brand new service.

"It went very well. To say that we were pleasantly pleased would be an understatement. There were times where we had 50 people trying to get on at one time," he said. "I think we would have had even better numbers had it not been such a hot summer. In the afternoon when it got up to 105, it slowed down considerably because people just weren't out. We certainly saw trends there with weather."

For $1 per person, riders could use the trolley all day to travel to points of interest in the city while a prerecorded narrative, triggered by a global-positioning satellite system, provided information about various stops.

The trolley operated on two routes: a day route circulating between points of interest including downtown, The Journey Museum, Stavkirke Chapel, Storybook

Island, Dinosaur Park and Canyon Lake Park; and an evening route that focused around the core downtown area in a Main Street, Fifth Street, North Street and West Boulevard loop.

"The day tour, I must say, was more successful than the evening tour," Sagen said. "The evening was more of a hit-and-miss type situation. It was narrow in scope, and it was basically meant to be a shuttle between the hotels and downtown. We had some nights that were good, and some nights not so good."

But the GPS-based narration was a highlight.

"It's new technology. We hadn't heard of it being used in this application, but we are very excited about how it worked. It was very reliable," he said. "The nice thing about it is we can easily change the message in a short period of time if we want."

The city bought two trolleys from Nevada-based Specialty Vehicles at a total cost of $234,296, though only one was on the street at any given time. A combination of federal funds, private donations and the sale of advertising space paid for the trolleys' capital cost.

Federal funds available through the Federal Transit Administration reimbursed the city for 83 percent of the capital cost, and an anonymous donor agreed to pay the 17 percent local match, totaling about $40,000.

Annual operation and maintenance costs, estimated at $50,000 per year, are split equally between federal funds, private donations and the sale of advertising space in the trolleys for three-year terms. No local tax dollars were involved.

In the next few weeks, a trolley committee will review the first season and discuss ways to improve the service next year.

Contact Scott Aust at 394-8415 or scott.aust@rapidcityjournal.com