Beginning next week, RTD plans to step up fare enforcement on light-rail and selected bus routes in Denver using off-duty plainclothes police officers, transit agency officials said Tuesday night.
And, for the first time, fare evaders on buses will be ticketed for not paying, said David Genova, the Regional Transportation District’s safety and security chief.
The new fare-inspection policy on buses will mirror the existing light- rail fare enforcement, with first-time violators getting a warning, second offenses resulting in a ticket and those nabbed for fare evasion a third time possibly banned from buses and trains for a time, Genova said.
He would not say which bus routes will be getting plainclothes officers, but officials previously have pointed to fare-evasion problems on high-volume bus routes that serve East and West Colfax Avenue and Broadway.
Also on Monday, RTD plans to start an advertising campaign on trains and buses that will stress “the criminal nature of riding without paying,” according to an agency memo.
Light-rail sweeps to increase
At Tuesday’s meetings of RTD’s finance and operations committees, Genova also said the agency will increase the number of fare-inspection “sweeps” on light rail from one per week to two per week.
In these sweeps, teams of RTD inspectors or Wackenhut security guards randomly board trains and ask for evidence of fare payment from all riders.
RTD uses information obtained from sweeps to calculate the agency’s fare-evasion rate. Increased sweeps will begin Monday, Genova said.
RTD’s other issues
RTD directors considered a number of other issues at Tuesday’s meetings, including:
• A proposal to spend $2 million on a test project beginning next year replacing granite pavers on three blocks of downtown Denver’s 16th Street Mall with a more durable paving material. RTD says it costs $1 million a year to repair and replace the mall’s damaged or sunken granite pavers and it cannot continue to incur that expense.
• An update on the FasTracks transit expansion showing that if no federal money is obtained to build the Gold Line and Denver International Airport trains, RTD could construct the Gold Line only to Sheridan Boulevard instead of Ward Road and the airport train could be built only to the Stapleton area from Union Station instead of to DIA. RTD is hoping to get $1 billion from the Federal Transit Administration to build the lines their full distance.
• A report about troubled light-rail car and facility leaseback deals RTD has with the financially distressed insurer AIG. The U.S. government recently rescued AIG with an emergency loan package.
RTD must either terminate its AIG lease arrangements or replace the insurer with another entity, officials said. Otherwise, a default related to the lease deal could result in RTD “losing access to the vehicles and facilities which are subject to the leases.”
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
