2009 New Year's Resolutions for RTD

Every year at this time, people make resolutions for themselves of what they would like to accomplish in the year ahead. Organizations sometimes also have future goals for themselves, but rarely do these aspirations come from the people the organization itself serves.

So as a thought experiment, I thought it would be interesting to come up with some New Year's resolutions for RTD in 2009. But instead of coming from the RTD board or some middle management bureaucrat, I asked normal RTD riders waiting for their bus or light rail what they would like to see RTD resolve to do in the upcoming year.

Here are their answers:

A few people I talked to said they were satisfied with the RTD service they use and wouldn't want any changes.

Janet from Golden said she would like to see RTD keep the rates lower or at least cease increasing fares like they have been doing the last few years.

Mary, a commuter who takes the FREX bus from Colorado Springs reiterated the need for transit agencies like RTD and FREX to have fares that are more in line with the current economic situation. "I don't think they are at a fair price, because gas prices are cheaper and their prices should align to the economy."

"More service," was what Harry from Denver wanted RTD to resolve to have in 2009. Harry said he rides the 2 bus from east Denver to Downtown. However, during the weekends, the 2 bus stops at 1st and Harrison instead of continuing east into the Hilltop neighborhood. He took the bus often before the change and understands that he was one of the few people who did, but laments RTD's cuts to service at a time when fares are increasing. He also said the midday 2 buses that come every half hour are packed with people and the line could benefit from more buses during rush hour.

Harry also would like to see better enclosures for Light Rail stops. "Proper shelters," Harry said. "A lot of them give nothing to withstand the weather, and we stand out here almost freezing to death in the winter and are boiling in the summer." He said this needs to be an even greater priority considering the changes RTD is implementing at the new year to have passengers transfer lines at the I-25/Broadway station.

Lindsay from Lone Tree says she takes RTD busses and light rail every day to get to work and wants to see RTD put more emphasis on the busy rush hours. She said that trains are jam packed during the rush hour and especially so if they coincide with downtown events. "After a Rockies game, I've seen elderly people forced to stand in the train," Lindsay said.

She would also like to see RTD's buses work towards meeting its schedule. Lindsay said late buses have occasionally made her late to work, sometimes by 20 minutes or more. She said late buses are especially problematic during inclement weather, and would like to see RTD implement some kind of mobile or Web notification system to tell riders if buses are behind schedule.

"Smart cards," was the first thing that came to mind when Clark from Denver was asked what RTD should resolve to do in 2009. "It can better explain what the actual trips we use are instead of some theoretical system." Unlike, many other city transit agencies, RTD does not use any kind of smart card system that allows customers to put money onto a card and track how it is used. When I asked an RTD spokesman about smart cards at an public meeting in September, he said RTD has no plans for smart cards at this time, because they are expensive to initiate. Of course, smart cards are likely to save RTD money in the long run because they allow people to put money onto a card that they might not actually use on a trip and they prevent more people from using services for free. They are also something that many riders clearly want as well.

Karen from Highlands Ranch has a RTD resolution a bit simpler than redoing the whole payment system, but equally as important: Keep the trains cleaner. Karen said there are often spilled soft drinks or food on the seats, making for a smelly and potentially sticky ride home. Perhaps RTD should enforce its no food rules more or simply make light cleaning a part of the job duties for ticket checkers instead of waiting until the end of the day to clean the light rail trains.

Finally, some of the suggestions offered were a bit more of wishful thinking. "Give a free stick of deodorant to everyone who enters the #3 bus," said Rob, also of Highlands Ranch, who apparently has had more than one bad experience with BO while riding this bus along west Alameda Avenue.

Here is a good sampling of some RTD riders' New Year's resolutions for 2009. I plan on e-mailing this list to the RTD board members, but first would like to give the opportunity for anyone else who has 2009 resolutions for RTD.

Go ahead and let RTD know what riders want from RTD in 2009.

Get ready to freeze your butt off

In the organization's never ending quest for "efficiency," RTD decided to make many daily trips on light rail end at the I-25/Broadway station starting at the first of the year. 

Remember how convenient is was to take a light rail train after a Broncos or Rockies game and take that train all the way home? Well apparently RTD thinks that is horribly inconvenient for them and has decided to make all the riders on the C and E lines (the lines that end at Union Station) to get off the trains at I-25 and Broadway and wait for another train to take them the rest of the way along the lines in southwest and southeast Denver.

According to RTD's information, the E line will cease operation during the middle of the day and the C line will cease operations in the evening. The C line during the day and the E line at night will provide 15 minute frequency between Union Station and I-25 and Broadway. Unfortunately if you want to continue south, you will have to get off the train and take another train the rest of the way. RTD says "connections will be readily available," but depending on where you are going it could be another 15 minutes wait before the train arrives. According to the Rocky Mountain News, more than 1,000 daily riders could have to add time to their commutes because of the system change. 

Just last week, I was waiting at I-25/Broadway for any SE light rail train (E, F, or H) to take me to the Colorado/Evans station at around 8 p.m., and had to wait more than 15 minutes in sub-zero temps for the train to arrive. Be prepared for that to become more and more common.

I do understand that this new system would increase frequency at Union Station, but we should be aware of the cost. If you just miss a train at Union Station, you'll have to wait 15 minutes. If you get to I-25/Broadway, and just miss your connecting train, it could be another 15 minute. Even if you had to wait 20 minutes initially, you'd still be better off than having to wait a full half hour for two different trains when one of them now could have taken you straight to your destination.

Every other American city's transit seems to be more efficient without stranding passengers halfway through their trips. And since Denver can have such a cold winter climate, this new system will probably be particularly aggravating for passengers who thought they would be headed home after the game and are instead freezing their butts off at the entirely outdoor I-25/Broadway station.  

RTD told the Rocky Mountain News that it expects save only $633,800 on the service changes out of an expected budget deficit of more than $35 million for 2009.  A paltry sum for RTD to inconvenience more than 1,000 people everyday. Is it too much to hope for some I-25/Broadway station heat lamps with the money RTD will save? Yep.

2009 RTD service changes

Along with its 14 percent fare increase, RTD has announced some significant service changes that will greet passengers at the new year. On the whole, these changes may not seem to be remarkable, but a closer look will show real changes that will affect transit users.

The changes to the bus schedules don't seem like much with eight bus lines seeing service reductions, 10 with service improvements four with what RTD calls "adjustments." The latter are not significant, mostly just adding school bus routes and reworking a few lines.

The reductions however do have an impact on users, particularly those of us who actually may use transit at night at all. The 38 bus, which traverses north Denver along 38th avenue will lose all of its late night service on the weekends after 2 am. RTD claims that riders can take the 31 bus on north Federal Boulevard at night, but this negates a simple fact about these lines: that one goes north and the other west. The 38 bus currently is a convenient way to access north Denver and Wheat Ridge all the way to Applewood. Since Federal only continues north, passengers trying to go anywhere west late at night will be out of luck. RTD says they are discontinuing the late night busses because of low ridership, but late night busses connecting downtown to the outer reaches of our city are rare and should be an affordable option for those of us who prefer not to drink and drive. Except for the 16 on Colfax (23 blocks or three miles south of 38th Avenue) and the aforementioned 31, there are no other north Denver options for late night travel. I have taken this bus after bars close at 2 and while not packed, there are always a handful of riders. And I am certain we can all appreciate that those handful of riders, likely coming back from a night of partying in downtown, are sobering up in a bus instead of behind the wheel of their cars.

RTD is also discontinuing trips on routes 5X, 9, 24, 323, 324 and DD, and completely eliminating the 51LTD bus route that ran from the Evans light rail station to south Sheridan Boulevard. I understand the need for RTD to evaluate the use of its routes to improve efficiency, but this seems unfair when RTD is asking for fare increases and (possibly) increased taxes. I am not as familiar with the other routes, but the cuts on 9 seem especially harsh as that route has seen similar cuts in recent years. The 9 and 10 routes were at one point tied together, providing an important link between east and west Denver along 10th and 12th avenues (especially since the Colfax bus doesn't go through all the way). Since RTD severed these buses, the 10 in wealthier east Denver has seen healthy expansion, running from early morning to late night and with 15 minute increments during the middle of the day. The 9 meanwhile runs at best only every half hour (despite often very full busses) and only until 8 p.m. at the latest. It looks like they are now cutting early morning schedules as well, another blow for transit commuters in the lower income west Denver and Lakewood communities. Maybe RTD is simply anticipating their inability to afford the increased fares.

To RTD's credit, they are also increasing service to some routes. The ever-popular 16 and 30 buses are increasing the number of rides and times of service. The 16LTD will start service on Sunday and west Colfax will see more buses in the middle of the day and later into the night. I suppose this partially makes up for the cuts to the 9 which is only five blocks south. The 30 bus on south Federal Boulevard will also see increases in bus traffic pushed earlier in the morning and later into the evening. A weekday rush-hour trip will now continue the full route to Wadsworth and Hampton instead of stranding passengers to wait for another bus at Federal and Evans as was the custom. The 14 bus along west Florida Avenue and the B bus from Downtown Denver to Boulder will increase its frequency to every half hour on Saturday. I rarely take the 14, but I am glad RTD is increasing frequency on the B on Saturdays, which have often been packed to the brim with college students and others coming down to Denver for the weekend. This change should hopefully provide some much needed relief to that route. Minor improvements (mostly additional morning or evening trips) are also being added to the 0ltd, 86X, 122X, 130, DM, and HX routes.

The 0 on Broadway is undergoing some bizarre changes that basically screw over anyone who uses the bus south of the I-25/Broadway light rail station. RTD is discontinuing a bunch of early morning and evening/night buses from Highlands Ranch, Littleton Boulevard and Evans RTD is basically running many more routes just from Downtown to the I-25/Broadway light rail station, perhaps assuming people are more inclined to take light rail for points further south. I've already noticed RTD increasing this tactic, which has been a personal pain for me whenever I try to catch a bus to see a concert at the Gothic Theatre in Englewood, only to find that it only goes to I-25 (or Evans) and I have to wait for another bus to take me the full way. Since Broadway is such a major north/south thoroughfare and the 0 is among the most popular bus lines, I am not sure why RTD is doing this. I suppose it increases efficiency from the barely four and a half mile Downtown to I-25 segment, but if people wanted to take light rail to points south, they can already do that downtown, so what is the point? What we're left with is decreasing service (it's barely at a half hour midday now) for the vast majority (it's more than 13 miles to Highlands Ranch from I-25/Broadway) of one of Denver's major streets. Certainly the south light rail service helps with that, but it doesn't help the riders who want to go actually travel to places on Broadway itself. I guess half-decent service on one of Denver's most used streets is just too much to ask from RTD.

Six paragraphs and I only covered the changes to the bus routes. But ooh boy, did North America's "number one" transit agency plan a number for a beloved and convenient light rail service in 2009 (let's just say it definitely won't be as convenient and probably not as beloved after you experience the changes for yourself. Stay tuned for my little exploration of that in the next post.

Welcome to RTD Watch

Welcome to the early version of my blog dedicated to watching the goings-on at the Regional Transportation District, the transit system in the Denver Metropolitan Area. From time to time, I will blog about transit in Denver from the perspective of an active RTD rider. Please feel free to post comments, questions, leads or your own RTD experiences.

My official guide to the January 2009 RTD fare and service changes

RTD's Web site has all the information of the service "improvements" and fare increases explained on mundane detail.

But what do these changes mean to the average RTD rider. Well in this blog's inaugural post, I'll explain:

First the RTD fare increases:

RTD is increasing all regional fares from $1.75 to $2.00. (The third increase in five years). What does $2.00 a ride mean? Well for a commuter who rides twice a day, every work day, every month that comes to an additional $120 a year at least you have to give to RTDs coffers (That's even if you are a monthly pass holder, as RTD is increasing passes $10 a month). It may not seem like a lot, but I know I could use another $10 a month. 

The $2 fare puts Denver on the level with many other cities who have much superior public transportation than our city. New York, Chicago and Boston all have local transit that is $2 or even cheaper. (Boston's bus system only charges $1.25 to $1.50.) Anyone who has ever used public transit in those cities knows those transit agencies have extensive, on-time, frequent and effective service that frankly puts Denver to shame. In New York City, you can travel from north Bronx to east Brooklyn (easily 30 miles) with $2. And since Denver uses a stupid zone system for light rail, riders get to pay even more money simply because we cross an arbitrary line. Why do we in Denver have to pay an additional $2 to take light rail from downtown to Park Meadows mall, a distance half that of the scenario in NYC? 

At the public meetings held this summer, an RTD spokesman said Denver's fare increase was more in line with other city's. Of course he didn't compare the quality of service amongst the cities because anyone who has ever travelled outside of Denver knows that our public transit is significantly less effective than most.

At the public meetings for the fare increases held in September, an RTD spokesman said the increase was needed because of the increased fuel costs faced by RTD and a lack of sales tax revenue to deal with those high gas prices. Back in September, the diesel fuel used by RTD was averaging nearly $5 a gallon. It has since dropped to $2.57, a more than 50 percent decrease in only four months. Of course, RTD is still continuing with its fare increase even though the reason for that increase is basically nonexistent, especially since gas/diesel prices are expected to remain low or even decrease more in the foreseeable future. In a recession, so will sales tax collection. But it's in trying times like these that people are even more reliant on public transportation and in the complicated calculus of public transit funding, RTD should do all it can to encourage people to take transit by keeping fares as low as possible.