One of the many bills awaiting action by Gov. Bill Ritter would limit the Regional Transportation District’s ability to use private or non-profit groups in its bus operations. We’d like to see him veto the measure and ask lawmakers to make some changes next year.
Senate Bill 251 was introduced late in the legislative session and rammed through with little opportunity for taxpayers to ponder the higher bus fares it could easily force. This abuse of the legislative process is itself reason enough for a veto.
SB 251 would allow a future RTD board to totally eliminate private bus service, though it would not require such a move. If a future pro-union board majority did eliminate all private contractors, it would cost taxpayers some $35 million a year more just to operate the bus service they already have. Such mushrooming costs would either force a fare increase or possibly lead to cutbacks in the upcoming FasTracks rail system.
As it passed the House, the bill capped the service RTD would be allowed to contract out to private operators at 58 percent. We could live with a ceiling of 58 percent – or even 52 percent – if it only referred to regularly scheduled bus service. But the bill actually limits “vehicle hours.” An express bus rolling to Longmont for 60 minutes with 40 riders counts as one vehicle hour. So does an hour’s trek by a minivan that carries one handicapped worker to her job in Lakewood as part of RTD’s excellent access-a-Ride service, required by the Americans for Disabilities Act.
RTD often works with private, non-profit, groups like the Senior Resources Center in Jefferson County and Special Transit in Boulder to provide services to disabled citizens. Such community-spirited non-profits shouldn’t be lumped in with for-profit bus contractors like First Transit, as SB 251 thoughtlessly does. Likewise, this mindless measure of “vehicle hours” might force RTD to exclude non-profits from its handicapped services to free up private service hours on its costlier, regularly scheduled routes. If such paratransit operations are excluded from the private service calculations – as they should be – just 45 percent of RTD’s rubber-tired service is currently handled by private operators.
Ritter should veto this affront to taxpayers. If there is a problem here – and we don’t see one – the issue of limits on private bus service can be considered again next year when it wouldn’t imperil the financing of the already hard-pressed FasTracks plan or potentially undercut RTD’s services to handicapped citizens.
