Vernal » It's some lonely blacktop that snakes over 173 miles of mountain and rocky desert to get here from Utah's capital, but not so empty that somebody doesn't need a ride now and then.

It's for these carless residents looking to reach Salt Lake City or Denver and the relatives who want to visit them from the big city that Utah and Colorado are bringing Greyhound bus service back to the hinterlands.

The bus company cut service along U.S. Highway 40 between the two states' largest cities in the summer of 2004. But this year, Utah and Colorado applied for federal start-up funds and are jointly subsidizing the route's return with $275,000 for once-a-day service in each direction.

On Monday morning, the first regularly advertised day of service after a couple of weeks of test runs, the bus from Salt Lake was as sparsely populated as long stretches of the highway. Four passengers were aboard when the bus left at 8:20, 35 minutes behind schedule. That compares to 52 who rode the last bus across this route in August 2004.

"It's been pretty slow," said Jared Dansie, a co-owner of Jiffy's Buy-Sell-Trade-Loan, which now doubles as Greyhound's bus station in Vernal. "One day [the bus] was empty."

Customers are starting to notice the sprinting-dog logo on the door, though, and react excitedly, he said. Even if few will use the bus frequently, he said, now they have the option. One complained of having to drive to Salt Lake City to pick up a relative in the years when the buses weren't running.

A couple of local entrepreneurial attempts to establish a bus link to Salt Lake failed in Greyhound's absence, leaving only social-service shuttles such as one for chemotherapy patients.

During the recent test runs, the Salt Lake-Denver route has averaged 25 riders a day, according to the Utah Department of Transportation.

For riders from outside the region, such as those who rode on Monday, the route's scenery and ski terrain could be its calling card. After offering a glimpse of the Wasatch Back's sheer rock face by Heber City, the eastbound bus descends into sagebrush and orange-yellow boulder country before passing the badlands of Dinosaur National Monument and climbing toward Steamboat Springs and then the heart of the Rockies.

"I picked this route because I wanted to see the back side of the Rockies," said a sightseeing Californian with an open-ended travel itinerary who called himself Wolf Howell. He was unimpressed with Utah's dry country around Duchesne -- "this isn't scenery to me" but looked forward to Colorado's forests. He didn't care which towns or cities he passed.

"Small town? Big town? All I want is a burger."

Utah and Colorado transportation officials will review their subsidy and determine whether to offer it again, shrink it or ditch it each year. For now, they're betting that word will get out and ridership will grow.

"The rural areas really need some reliable transportation back into those areas," said Tracy Young, UDOT's program manager for rural public transit. "As this route grows we expect it to be much more self-sustaining and become a success."

The department is studying other possible routes through rural Utah, she said. The money to start this one came from the Federal Transit Administration.

Making the full 500-mile trip from Salt Lake City's intermodal hub on 600 West to Denver takes about 12 hours, from 7:45 a.m. to 7:55 p.m. Standard fare is $77 one way. The reverse trip arrives in Salt Lake at 11:10 p.m. daily. Traveling between Vernal and Salt Lake takes four hours and costs $37.

The need for a cheap way out of the Uinta Basin is growing as the region's oil-and-gas boom slows, said Bob Gilbert, eastern Utah program coordinator for the Utah Department of Workforce Services. Job seekers still come around, and sometimes don't have a way of getting home.

"People often will pay their last dollar to get here and then there's no job and no way for them to get back," Gilbert said. "But now with Greyhound, there are local organizations that can help them get back to Salt Lake or wherever."

A coalition of local governments and employers also is about to launch a public shuttle between Uinta Basin towns, Gilbert said. He has worked on both the local and long-haul efforts, and said they're crucial for some but not likely to pull many with cars from behind the wheel.

"The busing systems out here that we've been working on are for those who can't drive, the elderly, and those that don't have a car," he said. "It isn't like the whole population was looking for some sort of transportation."