Guards to Be Placed On 'Vomit Comet' Buses

Aspen partygoers, beware. Transportation officials have voted to hire a security firm to patrol the bus station and late-night buses on Fridays and Saturdays that commonly have to take drunken passengers home from Aspen. The bus service on those nights has been inauspiciously dubbed the "Vomit Comet."

Hiring guards should allow drivers and supervisors to concentrate on moving people instead of coping with "these crazies on the bus," said Kent Blackmer, the authority's co-director of operations.

For seven years, drivers have called police to handle people who could not care for themselves or posed a threat to drivers or other passengers.

But the agency has been dealing with an increasing number of people unable to walk, fighting and hassling other passengers or just plain passed out, Blackmer said.