With the price of gas bouncing around $4 a gallon, many commuters are parking their cars — either at home or outlying park-n-Rides — and turning to public transit instead.
Ridership on Regional Transportation District buses and trains was up about 10 percent January through April compared with the same period a year ago.
The same trend is occurring nationally.
Light-rail ridership across the country jumped 10.3 percent in the first quarter while commuter rail use rose 5.7 percent, and heavy, subway-style train ridership was up 4.4 percent, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
Meanwhile, road use is flat or declining in Colorado and much of the country, Federal Highway Administration statistics show.
Nationally, vehicle miles traveled were down about 2 percent through April compared with the same period in 2007.
Another measure of increased transit use is how often RTD’s parking lots fill up.
A recent agency survey found nearly all lots on the southwest rail line were filling each weekday, as were seven lots on the southeast line — Belleview, Colorado, Dayton, Dry Creek, Nine Mile, Orchard and Yale.
Local bus routes in Aurora that feed the Nine Mile station saw ridership jumps of between 14.7 percent and 40.6 percent in April when compared with a year ago, said Bill Porter, RTD’s manager of service planning and scheduling.
Ridership on the bus route that links Highlands Ranch with the Mineral and County Line rail stations was up 28 percent in April, Porter said.
Ridership increases everywhere
Bus ridership from north metro Denver also has grown as well. April boardings on the 120X and 122X express buses that serve both the Wagon Road and Thornton park-n-Rides were up 13.6 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
The downside of all the transit growth is trains and buses fill faster and force some commuters to stand longer.
Rick Banks, of south Jefferson County, is a longtime RTD rail commuter who notices the influx of new riders.
“I was cheap long before high gas prices,” said Banks, of the five years he’s been riding the D line from Mineral station to his job with Johns-Manville in downtown Denver.
“The trains are a little more crowded, especially going home,” he said. Yet Banks will stick with rail. “It’s either that or get stuck in traffic.”
RTD grapples with “paradox”
One challenge for RTD is to retain customers — old and new — as it deals with what agency officials call the “transit paradox.”
It refers to the increased demand for service at a time RTD is paying far more for diesel fuel and collecting fewer sales-tax receipts, which RTD relies on for operating the bulk of its system.
“We’re struggling to optimize service with our available resources,” said RTD general manager Cal Marsella.
RTD staffers are assessing options for dealing with the financial crisis including more cuts in transit service and possible fuel surcharges or other forms of fare increase.
Last week, the U.S. House passed a bill that will funnel $1.7 billion to transit agencies to expand services and help keep fares down. The money will allow agencies to offer incentives for commuters who choose transit.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
Meet some of the riders
Susan Richey
Susan Richey, vice president, commercial card services, Bank of America, stopped driving to her job in downtown Denver from her home near Parker two months ago. She now takes the F-line train from the Dry Creek station.
The reason wasn’t solely high gas prices.
“It occurred to me I was not doing my part to make a difference in our city,” she said. “My goal was to spend the least amount of time in the car and enjoy the benefits of our light-rail system.”
She estimates it takes her 10-12 minutes to drive from home to the Dry Creek station and another 35-40 minutes to get downtown on the train.
Richey said she has enjoyed trading the “white-knuckle” experience of driving on Interstate 25 for the rail alternative even though there is little or no savings in time. “I did the math time-wise and mileage-wise. I’m very analytical.”
Erich Zeeb
“If I take the light rail, I’m paying myself for two hours a day instead of buying gas,” said 24-year-old Erich Zeeb, as he waited late Wednesday afternoon at the I-25/Broadway rail platform for a D-line train to take him to his car at the Englewood station.
He is one of thousands of new riders on the Regional Transportation District’s system since the first of the year.
With his Denver Tech Center employer paying half the cost of his $108-a-month transit pass, Zeeb figures he’s saving about $250 on monthly transportation costs.
He made the switch from roads to rail a month ago.
Ric Tanner
For about a year, Ric Tanner commuted by car from his home in the Tech Center area to his job downtown with the financial services firm Morgan Stanley.
As the price of gas steadily inched past $3 per gallon, he switched to light rail from the Belleview station into downtown for his daily commute.
“It’s convenient, safe and fast,” Tanner said. “I’ve always been a ‘green’ person. Now it’s the thing to do.”
Marc Agins
Marc Agins used to drive from his Littleton home to his downtown Denver job, but switched to rail in the past month.
He had been resistant to trying public transit.
“As a sales guy, it was all about my time, having my own schedule, said Agins, 36.
The steep rise in fuel and parking costs pushed him over the edge.
“Gas prices are ridiculous and my cost of parking went up $40 a month, from $120 to $160,” Agins said.
It took him a week to adjust to a new commuting pattern from the Mineral station. “Now I catch up on reading,” said Agins, who figures he’s saving $50 a week by not buying gas and another $40 that would have gone for parking.
To top it off, Agins’ employer pays for his transit pass.
Jared Haynie
Jared Haynie, 32, brought his family to Colorado this summer from Michigan for a summer internship with a downtown Denver law firm.
He and his wife share one car, so to get from his rented home in Lakewood to work each day, Haynie is taking the 35 bus from South Wadsworth Boulevard and West Hampden Avenue to the Englewood rail station each day and heading into downtown Denver on the D-line train.
Haynie, who will be a third-year law student this fall, bought a monthly transit pass for $60 instead of the $30 a week he’d be paying for gas if he drove, and avoids the parking costs downtown. “I think it’s a steal,” he said.
— Jeffrey Leib, The Denver Post
