Regional Transportation District trains linking downtown with west metro Denver may soon run twice as frequently as they have for the past five years — at no extra cost — after transit officials recognized the agency has been paying a contractor millions of dollars for service residents did not receive.
The trains to Arvada would run at a peak frequency of 15 minutes, as they did before the pandemic, instead of 30 minutes. trains to Westminster would be restored to run every 30 minutes, instead of once per hour.
RTD’s have embraced this doubled frequency as a potential game-changer to boost lagging ridership at a difficult time when agency officials are struggling to address a $250 million-a-year budget hole. They’d been considering service cuts, and agency leaders are planning job cuts.
But the agency’s board hasn’t taken action to hold the contractor, , accountable.
When RTD officials discovered that Denver Transit Partners wasn’t providing the service required under an agreement with the agency, they “immediately” ordered the company to boost train frequency, starting in June, subject to board approval, agency spokeswoman Marta Sipeki said in an emailed response to questions.
The transit agency reduced bus and train service during the pandemic and, in July 2022, committed to a plan for restoration of service, factoring in ridership. No timetable was set, but bus and rail service elsewhere has been restored.
RTD data reviewed by The Denver Post shows the agency has paid Denver Transit Partners more than $414 million since 2019 to run and maintain RTD’s B, G and A rail lines. RTD did not specify how much it overpaid, under a complex contract, for services not delivered.
Agency officials did not respond to The Post’s requests to elaborate on those costs, or explain when they first realized Denver Transit Partners wasn’t delivering the full B and G line service required by its contract.
Officials at Denver Transit Partners declined to comment for this story, referring questions to RTD.
RTD did not make executives available to discuss this matter with The Post, and agency communications officials did not respond to repeated follow-up questions.
RTD spent millions
The agency’s executives haven’t said whether they’ll seek reimbursement or impose a penalty on Denver Transit Partners, which received $87 million to run the A, B, and G rail lines in 2024 alone, according to the agency data provided to the advocacy group and reviewed by The Post.
Metro Denver residents across eight counties pay sales taxes that fund RTD operations and cover roughly 70% of the district’s record $1.5 billion budget.
RTD began running the 11.2-mile electric commuter rail G Line in 2019, and the agency opened the 6.2-mile B Line in 2016. Both were part of RTD’s FasTracks project, approved by voters in 2004 on the understanding that revenues from a sales tax increase would fund eventual extension of the G Line to Golden and the B Line to Boulder and Longmont.
FasTracks hasn’t been completed due to insufficient funds.
RTD Director Patrick O’Keefe, chairman of the agency’s 15-member board, said he is interested in understanding agency contracts better to determine what happened.
“I will look at the agreements. … I am very happy the service on those lines is increasing,” O’Keefe said Thursday.
RTD’s reliance on privatized funding “means we owe minimum payments even if the service is not being delivered,” and “higher frequency still costs more than we pay for minimal or no service,” he said, adding that he’s frustrated and “we have to live with those contracts, for now.”
RTD Director Brett Paglieri, who represents a west metro district encompassing the G Line’s , said the increased frequency means public transit will be viable for more people because “if people have to think about when to leave, they are less likely to use it, and if trains run frequently and you likely won’t have to wait more than 10 minutes they are much more useful.”
“Being able to do this without increased cost is a huge win. It shows there are a lot of opportunities in the agency to make transit more efficient and benefit the riders. … I understand it sounds a little suspect,” Paglieri said, planning to seek a full explanation for how service can be increased for no extra cost.
“All I was told previously when asking about this was that ‘it is very complicated,’ ” he said.
The ridership on RTD trains and buses has fallen by nearly 40% since since 2019. Colorado lawmakers, along with transit advocacy groups, blame low frequency as the core obstacle to making transit competitive with driving. Service improvements can cost millions to implement.
Mayors elated
West metro mayors welcomed the prospect of better rail service, aware that residents face worsening traffic congestion and rising costs as they move around metro Denver.
“I am absolutely over the moon about this. It is going to help a lot of our commuters,” said Arvada Mayor Lauren Simpson, who used to ride G Line trains to drop her daughter at school and reach work downtown, before 2020, when trains ran every 15 minutes.
When RTD supervisors reduced the frequency during the pandemic and then did not restore it, Simpson no longer could rely on public transit, she said. “I spent a small fortune on parking in downtown Denver.”
Along the B Line in Westminster, Mayor Claire Carmelia anticipated the return to 30-minute frequency as “a milestone for improving transit options for our community.”
“Not everybody can afford a car in this inflated economy,” she said, noting better public transit and closer collaboration with RTD has become a primary conversation for members of the regional planning organization, where she serves on the board.
She and Simpson questioned how RTD wasn’t able to run trains more frequently over the past five years and could now propose to do so at no extra cost.
“If there was an error, and service was being paid for and not delivered, that is highly concerning,” Simpson said. “Itap highly inappropriate for money to be spent for a service that wasn’t delivered. … I certainly want to know more about it.”
‘Getting a sub-par experience’
RTD officials issued a statement confirming their push for Denver Transit Partners to boost train frequency. If approved by the board in March, the changes will take effect June 7.
RTD selected Denver Transit Partners in 2010 to design, build, finance, run, and maintain the A Line to Denver International Airport, along with the B and G lines.
The train hours and mileage costs for running service at current frequencies on the B and G lines total about $11.3 million ($7.9 million for the G Line, and $3.4 million for the B Line), agency spokeswoman Sipeki said in an email.
On Dec. 2, Greater Denver Transit advocates met with RTD’s new chief operations officer, Patrick Preusser, who joined the agency in September, and raised questions about train frequency on the B and G lines, among other issues.
Preusser committed to look into the matter, two Greater Denver Transit leaders said, lauding him for “openness to review operational issues” and solve problems.
On Feb. 11, Preusser told directors in a committee meeting that agency staffers proposed to double B and G line train frequency and that this restoration of service would be “cost neutral.” RTD staffers proposed the changes to strengthen reliability and restore service “where it matters most,” he told directors.
RTD directors in March are expected to approve the increased train frequencies, along with other , including the extension of RTD’s 15 bus route to reach an Amazon fulfillment center and the resumption of C Line trains running between southwest suburbs and downtown.
RTD Director Chris Nicholson said he’s “excited that the current RTD board and leaders could deliver increased service on the B and G lines. Understanding what happened before is worthwhile and is something the board should look into.”
It’s a matter of trust, said Saigopal Rangaraj, a co-director of Greater Denver Transit, and “when contract terms are not upheld, it is fair for the wronged party to take corrective measures.”
“If frequencies have been lagging by half what RTD has been paying for, we as a community have been getting a sub-par experience. This contributes to a significant decrease in usability and ridership on these lines,” Rangaraj said. “Faith in public institutions is already quite low. Any instance of RTD not providing what was promised hurts the agency’s credibility.
“There are a lot of critics in our community who believe that investing in transit is not a wise investment of public funds. Worse ridership plays into that narrative that public transit is not a worthwhile investment.”
