A new bus stop now operates on the ground floor of the Alpine Building at Timber Ridge Village, which the Town of Vail calls Building A. The Town's Nov. 2 construction update shows it in service. Starting tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 13, buses leaving from that stop and the rest of West Vail will carry skiers to opening day on Vail Mountain. They will run on a timetable built for summer, and that timetable gained more riders this year than any change to Vail's bus system in decades.
West Vail starts the 2026-27 season with two easy ways to the lifts. Town lot parking is free for the first week, and the bus is free all the time. The bus also arrives with a full summer of ridership numbers behind it.
A Week When the Lots Cost Nothing
Vail Resorts set Vail Mountain's opening for Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, depending on weather and conditions, in its Aug. 18 opening-date announcement. The resort's Opening Day event is centered at Gondola One in Vail Village. Breakfast, sweets and a DJ start before first chair, and après follows at Express Lift Bar. According to the resort's hours page, ticket offices in both Vail Village and Lionshead open daily starting Nov. 13.
Parking changes this year. In its Oct. 21 winter parking announcement, the Town said paid parking starts Nov. 20, a week after the mountain opens. In past seasons paid parking usually began on opening day. Rates and pass options are the same as last winter. The Lionshead and Vail Village parking structures still offer free parking to cars that enter after 3 p.m., good until 4 a.m.
The Town also cut a few peak days. The Mondays of Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend and Presidents' Day weekend now count as non-peak. The peak and non-peak calendar is posted at vail.gov/parking.
The key dates through mid-December:
- Nov. 13: Vail Mountain's scheduled opening day, with ticket offices open in Vail Village and Lionshead.
- Week of Nov. 13: Eagle River Water & Sanitation District crews begin packing up from the Matterhorn area for the winter.
- Mon., Nov. 16: Westside Cafe brings back dinner service.
- Nov. 20: Paid parking starts in Town lots.
- Mid-December: The summer bus schedule's posted end date. The winter timetable follows it.
The Summer Schedule Earned Its Extra Month
On Oct. 7 the Town released ridership numbers for the schedule that began June 8. It called the update the largest change to its transit routes and frequency in more than 30 years. The changes rerouted the Lions Ridge Loop, West Vail Red and West Vail Green, and they added trips on every outlying route between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. Here are summer boardings for West Vail's routes since June 8, compared with the same period last summer, from the Town's release:
| Route | Summer 2025 boardings | Summer 2026 boardings | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Vail Express | 24,709 | 38,449 | +55.61% |
| West Vail Red | 42,376 | 52,513 | +23.92% |
| West Vail Green | 36,152 | 39,985 | +10.60% |
| Lions Ridge Loop | 4,902 | 16,688 | +240.43% |
| All outlying routes | 214,130 | 265,638 | +24.05% |
Across all outlying routes, boardings rose 24%. The Express, the limited-stop service connecting West Vail to the Lionshead Transit Center and the Vail Transportation Center, grew more than twice as fast as the system overall. The Lions Ridge Loop more than tripled, which suggests the new routing reached riders the old one missed. A Colorado Clean Transit Enterprise grant paid for part of the expanded schedule.
The Town says the summer schedule stays in effect through mid-December. The winter schedule will keep the same improvements, raise East Vail service from every 20 minutes to every 10, and bring back extra Ford Park service at morning and afternoon peaks. So opening week and the first powder days of the season run on the schedule that riders used heavily this summer. The fare is still zero, since the Town's posted timetable lists Vail Transit as free.
Which Bus Stops Where in West Vail
All four West Vail routes on the current timetable stop at Timber Ridge, but they differ in frequency and stops:
- West Vail Express: every 15 minutes. It runs between the Vail Transportation Center, the Lionshead Transit Center and Timber Ridge, with stops including West Vail Mall and Lower Buffehr Creek.
- West Vail Red: every 20 minutes from the Vail Transportation Center. Stops include Timber Ridge, Lower Buffehr Creek, West Vail Mall, Intermountain, Matterhorn and the Lionshead Transit Center.
- West Vail Green: every 20 minutes. Stops include West Lionshead Plaza, Matterhorn, Intermountain, West Vail Mall and Timber Ridge.
- Lions Ridge Loop: every 30 minutes from the Vail Transportation Center. Stops include Timber Ridge, Lower Buffehr Creek, Pineridge, Vail Commons, Upper Buffehr, Grand Traverse and Simba Run.
ride.vail.gov shows where each bus is in real time and how full it is. Printed grid schedules are posted in bus shelters and available at the Vail Transportation Center.
The Timber Ridge stop is changing along with the property around it. The Town's Nov. 2 update reported Building E in final inspections and Building G next in line. Buildings C and D are close to their finished look, with exterior paint and metal panels nearly complete. Crews are also still building the western stairs that connect the property to Lionsridge Loop. Triumph Development West is the developer, and Timber Ridge Village has details on the housing. About a mile east, at 351 N. Frontage Road, Southface Vail is also under construction. It is a 268-home workforce rental project, and crews have started surveying for the footers of an elevator structure that will serve its transit stop. The Town's Southface project page estimates completion in September 2028.
The Walk to the Stop Gets Quieter
Some West Vail construction pauses in opening week. Eagle River Water & Sanitation District has been replacing aging water and sewer mains on Geneva Drive and putting in new service lines tied to the new main. The district says the roadway work will require temporary closures and detours on Geneva Drive, Matterhorn Circle and Upper Matterhorn Circle. The Town's Nov. 2 update says the contractor starts packing up the week of Nov. 13. Work stops for the winter and picks up again in spring 2027, with completion expected in late 2027. Once crews leave, the Matterhorn streets go into the ski season with that work paused until spring.
The North Recreation Path improvements, which run between the pedestrian overpass and Vail Run, are partly finished. The section east of Red Sandstone Creek has reopened with new hardscape. The bridge replacement and path work west of the creek are pushed to next spring.
Breakfast Before First Chair
For a sit-down breakfast in West Vail, Westside Cafe at 2211 N. Frontage Road West has served the neighborhood since December 24, 2002. Its website lists off-season hours of 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily from Oct. 22 through Dec. 14, 2026, so breakfast is available on opening morning. Dinner is closed Nov. 1 through 15 and returns Monday, Nov. 16, running Monday through Saturday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. At busy times the cafe uses Yelp's waitlist app, which quotes wait times and lets you join the list before you arrive.
Kind Bikes and Skis is in the First Bank building at the North Frontage Road roundabout. In February 2025, Vail Daily reported that Yeti's Grind had opened a location inside the shop, in the space that used to be Northside Grab and Go. The same story described Kind's full-service winter ski shop, with rentals, tuning and demos, alongside its year-round bike shop. Owner Chris Anderson explained the location to Vail Daily:
"I also thought this space is perfect because West Vail doesn't have a local coffee shop and it doesn't have a local bike ski shop. Now we can have both."
The Express, Red and Green routes all stop at West Vail Mall. For anyone who would rather drive opening week, Town lot parking stays free through Nov. 19.
Our family has watched West Vail's streets, bus routes and businesses since 1978, and we keep track of the details that affect how people actually use the neighborhood. If you own in West Vail and are wondering how the new Timber Ridge stop, the bus's ridership growth or the coming housing projects affect your property, Kyle Denton and Denton Advisory Group can put those changes in context. Request a complimentary home valuation, and we'll show you where your West Vail home stands this season.
