New bus route brings long-awaited service to remote parts of Warm Springs Reservation

The landscape unfurled in front of bus driver Chris Ulibarri as he followed a ribbon of road across the Warm Springs Reservation in Central Oregon – a journey marking the first day of a new route that brings public transportation to the tribe’s most remote corner for the first time.

Wide grassy flats gave way to rocky promontories, twisty canyon roads and stands of pine trees as Ulibarri cut across the reservation before turning back to U.S. Hwy 26. Glimpses of the snow-covered Cascades Mountains flashed through the windows.

“To be honest, this is like one of the most beautiful routes I’ve got,” Ulibarri said, after dropping a lone passenger with a bike in the remote community of Simnasho earlier that day.

Much of the roughly 1,000-square-mile reservation has lacked reliable public transportation for decades — until this week. Bus Route 21 now connects communities east of U.S. Highway 26, including the first-ever bus service to the rural community of Simnasho on tribal land. It also provides a way for people to use public transit to reach Kah-Nee-Ta, the tribe’s resort property that reopened in 2024, from the reservation for the first time.

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The grant-funded, 15-month pilot transportation program comes shortly after the resort’s much-touted reopening, but something like it has been needed for decades, said Delson Suppah Sr., an elder and member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. A bus already connects Warm Springs and Madras.

“It’s definitely an uplifting internal feeling for me to see this day come to pass and I’m thankful for it,” said Suppah Sr., who lives in Simnasho.

Suppah Sr. spoke with OPB at 3 Warriors Market, one of the new bus stops in Simnasho. The market, named after a 1977 movie with local ties, sits at the intersection of two highways, about 25 miles from the nearest town.

“A lot of our elders, when I was younger, I watched them walk. I mean, if they had to get to some place, whether it was the Dalles or Madras or Warm Springs from here in Simnasho, they would just start walking,” he said.

A route decades in the making

From Tuesday to Friday, the bus will make a 50-mile loop from Warm Springs to the resort, then to Simnasho, and finally back along U.S. Hwy 26. It’s entirely funded by a $200,000 state Innovative Mobility Grant, said Andrea Wasilew, outreach and engagement administrator for Cascades East Transit.

The route to Kah-Nee-Ta comes after years of discussion and requests from leaders with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Wasilew said.

Lonny Macy, a planner for and member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, said the route is “significant and important because Kah-Nee-Ta provides jobs.”

The once-shuttered resort is now one of the largest employers on the reservation. During high season the resort employs over 100 people, said Danica Williams, a guest services manager and member of the Confederated Tribes of Warms Springs.

She hopes people will use the new bus to get work and enjoy the resort with their families,

Route 21 costs $2 per ride but is free during May. The bus starts and ends in Madras and runs three times a day in one direction from Warm Springs to Kah-Nee-Tee, and Simnasho before turning back to Warm Springs.

The route is also a “flex route,” meaning people can call Cascades East Transit the day before and schedule to be picked up along the route in addition to the planned stops.

People living in Warm Springs are less likely to have access to cars than people in Madras, the next city over and four times likelier to have no access to a car at all, according to U.S. Census data. Rising gas prices are also affecting people who do have cars in a place where the estimated median income is less than $36,000, according to the Census.

Meeting local needs

Only one person rode Route 21 on its run on Tuesday. A passenger with a bicycle got on at Simnasho, a small community in a remote part of the reservation where officials hope the route will make the most difference once the word gets out.

The new bus route will help Simnasho area residents get to the IHS Health and Wellness Center in Warm Springs and to the nearest hospital in Madras, which is the last scheduled stop.

“Connecting residents to medical needs from Simnasho to The Dalles or Simnasho to Central Oregon has been a top priority for the tribe,” said Bob Townsend, Cascades East Transit director.

But, Suppah Sr. added, the trick will be getting people to learn the bus schedule and use it.

Because it’s a flex route, people can catch the bus anywhere along the regular route. Ulibarri, the bus driver, said if people wave down the bus anywhere along that route, drivers will stop.

If successful, Cascades East Transit would try to seek additional funding, Townsend said. That money could come from other grants or potentially contributions from tribal leadership, Wasilew said.