We are completely befuddled by how the Regional Transportation District’s leaders and board members are handling a $200 million budget crisis. Everyone needs to get serious about this unsustainable budget, and, in a meeting scheduled for Monday, adopt a clear and concise plan to save RTD from its current death spiral.
The past month has not inspired confidence in this state’s largest transit operator.
The drama began when staff for RTD sent alarming service cut plans to committees proposing slashing up to 20% of rail and bus services, including the iconic and essential Free MallRide on 16th Street.
Then, following a public backlash to the proposed cuts, RTD Director Debra Johnson said the cuts weren’t literal but just “illustrative.” Emergency evacuation exercises won’t fill a $200 million budget gap when the ship is actually sinking.
Members of the RTD Board of Directors voted on one committee not to recommend any cuts, apparently banking on some future financial miracle for RTD, rendering the need for cuts moot. Instead, they directed staff to bring forward $12 million in fare increases.
Meanwhile, a separate committee did send proposed service cuts to the full board, but only 10%, which would save RTD about $31 million in next year’s budget.
The full board will now meet Monday, and we urge them to take their heads out of the sand and address the budget shortfall in a meaningful, comprehensive and non-draconian way. Cutting the 16th Street Free MallRide should never have been on the table. The city, state and RTD just spent hundreds of millions of dollars and almost a decade redoing the mall based entirely around the running of fast and frequent free buses through the heart of downtown.
Was the plan to shock the Front Range into action to save the transit agency? Were they trolling for emergency funds or hoping to get a boost for proposed future ballot measures to raise taxes?
No matter what the plan was, it fell apart quickly, and the result may be not to address the yawning gap between tax and fare revenues and spending.
RTD does have reserves to call upon, a necessary cushion that we have urged the board to use in the past to avoid cuts to services and fare increases with the hope that ridership might return. Today, we are six years past the pandemic, and ridership has improved a bit, but it is down 40% since 2019.
The fear is that if RTD cuts services and/or increases fares, ridership will only decrease further. The balance is delicate, but doing nothing is not an option.
First, RTD should strike all non-essential projects that have not yet begun construction, and make even deeper cuts in administrative costs.
Second, instead of slashing popular free routes downtown Denver, RTD should consider making two of them no longer free. The Free MetroRide made sense when the 16th Street was shut down for construction. Now that the FreeRide on the mall is open again, the loop that runs parallel to it along 18th Street and 19th Street should become a paid fare ride to encourage people living, working and visiting downtown to use the broader RTD system as well.
Third, RTD should look at its least used routes for temporary service reductions.
We say temporary because we still have hope that RTD could rise from the ashes and become a world-class transit operator that people up and down the Front Range use for their daily commutes and grocery store runs, weekend plans and everything in between.
Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law this year that will overhaul the RTD board beginning in 2028. For the first time, the governor will be able to appoint four people to the board who have expertise in operating transit systems, finance or work for the employees’ union. Five members will still be elected to the board from separate districts. We hope this change will be a shock to the system and get RTD out of this current rut.
This new board will arrive just as a $3.5 million study to optimize RTD’s operations is concluded in the fall of 2027. The study, being conducted by Jarrett Walker and Associates, is expected to consider the system’s operations from the top down, analyzing and optimizing future routes.
RTD is also banking that the City of Denver’s investment in a bus rapid transit system on Colfax will lead to a boost in ridership network-wide. RTD purchased 47 buses for the seamless route with dedicated lanes and middle-of-the-road transit stops at a cost of almost $67 million. With such intensive, dedicated service in Denver, when RTD serves 40 cities in eight counties spanning 2,349 square miles, it makes sense for RTD to approach Denver for assistance in maintaining these frequent and fast operations.
And Denver cannot be the only entity to step up and assist RTD. We can imagine large cities finding revenue to enhance or even take over RTD’s operations within their jurisdictions while RTD maintains the long-distance routes between our population-center hubs. Would voters be more willing to support their city’s transit operations with new revenue streams than they would be to approve a Front Range-wide sales tax increase to fund RTD operations that might not impact routes in their neighborhood? We aren’t certain, but it’s worth asking at this critical juncture of transit service.
We all want a safe, reliable transit system that can provide affordable transportation to our most vulnerable citizens and also supply Coloradans with an option that is better for the environment and reduces traffic. RTD is struggling now, but that doesn’t mean transit is dead.
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