Regional Transportation District leaders could eliminate Denver’s free 16th Street shuttle, several light-rail lines and dozens of bus routes under proposed service cuts designed to save the financially ailing agency up to $62 million.
RTD staff have compiled five scenarios with progressively larger cuts to routes and service hours, along with progressively larger savings, according to documents posted for a Tuesday night meeting of the district’s .
In all but one scenario, RTD would cut the — which had 2.3 million riders last year — to save an estimated $9.5 million. The hop-on, hop-off shuttle that connects Union Station and Civic Center Station along 16th Street is one of RTD’s most popular routes, agency data shows.
The proposal sparked concern among Denver officials, including downtown advocacy group and Mayor Mike Johnston’s office.
“We are deeply sympathetic to RTD’s budget situation, but cutting a popular service used hundreds of thousands of times a month and millions of times a year isn’t the answer,” Johnston spokesperson Jon Ewing said in a statement, adding that has highlighted the route’s importance to downtown.
“Itap the kind of thing we need more of if we want people to use public transportation, not less,” Ewing said.
Downtown Denver Partnership President Kourtny Garrett said she knows RTD has tough budget decisions to make, but she described the shuttle as critical infrastructure for downtown.
“As it weighs those decisions, the Downtown Denver Partnership urges the agency to weigh the substantial and measurable momentum the FreeRide has generated since the completion of the 16th Street reconstruction, and the outsized role it plays in connecting workers, residents, and visitors across downtown’s core,” Garrett said.
Other services on RTD’s chopping block include the B, R, L and T light-rail lines; and the between Union and Civic stations along 18th and 19th streets in Denver.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
