8 OCTOBER 24-30, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | illustrating the challenges the agency faces in working for over three million people. “I don’t envy it,” says Denver City Coun- cilwoman Shontel Lewis, who served on the RTD board from 2019 to 2022 before being elected to council. “How do you bring folks from the suburbs into the city? How do you bring folks out of the city into the suburbs? How do you operate train services? How do you operate regular bus service? How do you operate a BRT? How do you operate the accessible transit that they have? It’s a lot for one transit agency to carry.” RTD serves forty municipalities with 112 fi xed bus and rail routes. Of those routes, 85 are local and twelve are regional. The dis- trict owns and operates 607 buses in-house and owns another 421 operated by private carriers. It has 201 light rail vehicles and 66 commuter rail vehicles. “Because they’re spread so thin, I think very few people are happy about what they’re receiving, understandably,” Lewis says. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated RTD’s problems, with a 46 percent decrease in RTD ridership from 2019 to 2022. In 2023, RTD had more than 65 million annual board- ings, but that is still signifi cantly lower than pre-pandemic numbers of over 100 million, according to RTD. With funding that depends on ridership, such sharp declines can create a dangerous cycle. During the pandemic, the state leg- islature repealed RTD’s longtime require- ment to recover 30 percent of its expenses through fares. According to a Common Sense Institute Report on RTD, fares accounted for only 4.4 percent of RTD’s operating costs this past January. Richard Bamber, co-founder of Greater Denver Transit, an advocacy group focused on providing technical expertise to urban public transit discussions around the city, believes that a 30 percent limit is too high, but worries that RTD no longer needs to generate revenue through ridership. “They do need to be seen to be maximiz- ing their own revenue and doing everything they can to bring dollars in,” Bamber says. And unlike taxes and grants, fare money has no strings attached; those dollars can go wherever RTD chooses. Even with ridership revenue struggles, RTD’s budget for 2024 is projected to reach over $1 billion for the fi rst time, according to the Common Sense Institute. RTD construction and delays hurt reputation While taking the fi rst steps to redo the downtown rail lines, the agency completely shut down the L Line from the end of May through September and rerouted the D and H lines to Union Station instead of their usual routes through the Central Business District. RTD also restored coping panels (retain- ing wall caps) on its Southeast Corridor, which comprises twenty miles of track along Interstate 25 from Lone Tree to Denver on portions of the E, H and R lines. At the same time, RTD dealt with unexpected safety issues during work on the lines that the district had to repair, creating slow zones. As recently as October 21, there were slow zones on the E, H, R and D lines because of safety maintenance, according to the RTD speed restrictions dashboard. Transit advocates like Bamber say RTD’s lack of public outreach regarding the delays has hurt the agency. Greater Denver Transit has repeatedly asked RTD for temporary schedules that refl ect slow zones rather than promising that trains will run at cer- tain times, only for people to be delayed and let down. “We really wish that RTD would actually say, ‘Look, something has gone wrong here for us to be imposing mass amounts of slow zones,’” Bamber says. “Customer experience: Public transit agencies just do not focus on it, and that’s the problem we have.” Riders reported delays and trains not arriving when expected just two days after RTD’s latest service changes were imple- mented on September 29. Bamber says RTD needs to put forth a plan for how it will man- age assets as it ages, rather than claiming to be constantly in “maintenance mode.” “I appreciate if RTD believes they were not giving enough to maintenance,” Bamber says. “But to say that because we didn’t do enough related to maintenance, we’re going to justify gutting the capital projects and programs part of [our] organization does not seem right, given that I think we’re all universally agreed that we still need to build way more transit than we have to build the system we need.” Operating rail lines during expansions requires a lot more money and resources than the average citizen recognizes, accord- ing to Lewis, who says that one of her biggest realizations while on the board was just how much maintenance RTD had put off because of costs. Fixing leaky roofs, replacing obso- lete items in the mechanic shop and other repairs added up to around $20 million when she was on the board, Lewis says. But she concedes that it’s hard for people to keep an open mind about RTD while they’re struggling with service problems. The A Line is one of the more problem- free lines. It’s operated by contractor Den- ver Transit Partners; 50 percent of RTD’s fixed-route system must be allocated to private companies through a competitive contracting process. Because the commuter rail system is largely farmed out, it’s often repaired more quickly than the rest of the rail system, Bamber suggests: “If they don’t run trains, they don’t get paid — it’s as simple as that.” A Line maintenance, for example, is often done at night, and as soon as it’s completed, the trains are running again. But when construc- tion on the RTD-operated downtown rail line was done early in September, RTD waited three weeks to resume light rail services. Caldara believes that if more of RTD’s services were contracted out, the entire system would function better. “If they wanted to fi nish out FasTracks, all they would have to do is contract out the rest of their fi xed services, bus services, and use that savings to build the rest of the system,” he argues, noting that during his time on the board, contracting was less expensive for RTD than operating routes in-house. RTD budget challenges looming RTD could face bigger budget problems soon if voters don’t approve Ballot Issue 7A, which would make RTD’s exemption from the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights permanent. Because of TABOR, government organi- zations like RTD must refund unexpected tax revenue to taxpayers each year. For RTD, that would now require refunds of 7 to 10 per- cent of its over $600 million in tax revenue. But RTD has been exempt since 1995, when voters originally agreed to release the agency from TABOR restrictions through 2005. In 1999, voters extended that time frame until RTD paid bond debt from the construction of certain light rail lines, and those lines will be paid in full by November. Even those critical of RTD want the mea- sure to pass. “The transit agency, the transit system, we need to tackle our congestion, our cli- mate, our livability, our equity goals. It’s going to need funding,” Bamber says. “All the current sort of gripes and bones we’ve been going through have come about in the last seven, eight, nine, ten years. This is a 25-year decision.” Bamber believes that the next 25 years could see even more expansion from RTD, but only if the agency puts customers fi rst. Historically, transit systems in the United States have provided bus service with low- income users as the target audience and trains for suburban dwellers to get to the city for work. But to make transit systems more relevant, the people in charge need to consider how to convert daily car driv- ers, he says. And to do that, public transit needs to ca- ter to people’s sense of comfort, and not just provide routes and hope people use them. “In the same way that Spirit’s planes go just as fast as United’s, they go to the same places, they’re actually just as safe, but you’d still rather fl y United, wouldn’t you?” Bam- ber says. “It’s because of customer service.” Metro areas like Denver also have ride- share options that cater to usability through the pick-up and drop-off process. If RTD were to embrace its strategic initiative of creating a welcoming transit environment beyond cleanliness and crime consider- ations, that would convince people to ride, Bamber argues. He cites a time he News continued from page 6 continued on page 1. When RTD rolled out light rail, the agency offered signage to teach passengers how to use the trains. A project to update all downtown rail lines interrupted RTD service this summer. CATIE CHESHIRE RTD
