After its buses went dark, Idaho Falls built leaner transportation program by IBR

Heide Brandes//August 5, 2026//Idaho Business Review When the Targhee Regional Public Transportation Authority shut down in May 2019, Idaho Falls became a city without a single public transit vehicle on its streets. Seniors lost their rides to the pharmacy. Workers with disabilities lost their rides to jobs they still held. For three years, the gap simply stayed open. “We will never know the true impact, but we know that people suffered as a result of the system shutting down,” said Kade Marquez, who oversees Greater Idaho Falls Transit for the city.

What Idaho Falls built to replace the failed bus system has become one of the state’s more closely watched experiments in public transportation. GIFT On-Demand, launched in June 2022 with a $4.2 million federal CARES Act grant administered through the Idaho Transportation Department, scrapped fixed routes entirely. Riders book door-to-door trips through an app or a phone line, and a small fleet of minivans threads them together across the city’s 33-square-mile footprint.

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