RTD: More for Less

As the Rocky Mountain News article from a few weeks ago hinted at, RTD finally revealed proposals for its "5 percent cut in services," and all I can say is ouch! Right on the heels of a 14 percent fare increase, RTD wants to saddle its riders with significant service reductions on 48 separate routes, meaning more than 30 percent of all RTD routes will see some kind of service cut.

RTD is proposing to cut these routes all together: The G light rail line from Lincoln to Nine Mile, the 465 on south Yosemite, 410 in Franktown and Parker, the 75 on Mineral and Ken Caryl Avenues, the 125 in the Denver West area, the 49 in northwest Denver, CC in Coal Creek, the U which connects Pine Junction and Conifer with Denver, the 145X, 108X, 76X,  and 88X, which are all higher-fare express busses that provide quick connections with communities and a specific destination (the 145X connects Brighton with DIA). The 38 and 24 Limited busses are also being discontinued as are the Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, Parker and Brighton Call-and-Ride Services. A lot of these cuts are unfortunately to areas on the fringes of RTD service coverage and represent a significant and sometimes complete loss of service (The discontinuation of the CC, for example completely gets rid of any transit service to the Coal Creek area, even though they will likely continue to pay sales taxes to RTD). 

The other proposed cuts range from slight to severe. Many bus lines are likely to lose whole parts of coverage or late night, weekend and/or midday service. 

One of the biggest proposed cuts in my mind is to the 1 bus on west First Avenue. RTD wants to discontinue the 1A service which provided a small detour on 5th avenue between Sheridan and Knox Ct. and allowed extra service for riders on the rest of the route. RTD also wants to reduce service to a half hour during rush hour and to an hour other times and simply discontinue several other trips during the day.  I ride this bus quite often and it always has riders: Students going to school, low-income workers going to their jobs Downtown or in Cherry Creek, families going to the two Denver Health clinics on the route. I once saw a teenage kid with what looked like a stab wound take the bus to the Denver Health Emergency Room. Basically it is a route filled with transit-dependent riders and RTD is proposing to make it harder for them to meet the basic transportation requirements of their lives. 

The 1 is just an example of what RTD is proposing. There are a lot of other large cuts, especially to a lot of neighborhood routes.

A note on the brochure reads, "Due to current economic conditions (sales tax shortfalls and fuel cost increases), RTD service adjustments may be more extensive than usual." That line right there shows exactly how RTD management is completely blind to reality. How on earth can they say fuel cost increases are to blame when diesel prices are at a three-year low? Yes, RTD is surely facing lowered sales tax revenues, but their own management apparently can't anticipate a bleaker economic picture even with all evidence showing exactly that. 

I understand that the economy sucks and RTD has to find ways to save money. But what I don't understand is why RTD riders have to always take a huge brunt of RTDs continual mismanagement and inability to forecast. Back in September, RTD decided to pay $3.10 a gallon for fuel in 2009. Now diesel prices are more than 80 cents a gallon cheaper, a more than 70 percent drop. I am not sure if RTD can get out of its fuel contracts or not, but they should if they can, because by the time these cuts go into effect, diesel prices could even be lower and one of the biggest stated reasons for the cuts non-existent. And while sales tax revenue is apparently falling, (despite the fact that Colorado's population itself is growing), the stimulus package in congress could start making economic progress in the Denver metro area. And certainly that fare increase is going to put millions of more dollars into RTD's purse.

We should not allow RTD's mismanagement to be at the backs of its riders. We need to make sure every single cut is met by a fight from its riders. That's why we need to go to every single public meeting RTD is holding and let them know what we think. That's why we need to write letters to the editor, tell other riders about RTD's plans and hold RTD accountable for its actions.

Here are the times and locations of every RTD public meeting. Please attend and encourage other riders to do the same.

Arvada
Arvada City Hall
8100 Ralston Road
Ann Campbell Room
Wednesday, Feb. 4, 7:00 p.m.


Aurora
Red Lion (formerly Radisson Hotel)
3200 S. Parker Road
Boulder/Parker Room
Friday, Feb. 6, 7:00 p.m.

Boulder
Boulder Senior Center
West Senior Complex
909 Arapahoe, Creekside Room
Friday, Feb. 6, 7:00 p.m.

Brighton
Brighton Recreation Center
555 N. 11th Avenue
Thursday, Feb. 5, 7:00 p.m.

Centennial/Highlands Ranch/Lone Tree
Cresthill Middle School
9195 Cresthill Lane, Cafeteria
Monday, Feb. 2, 7:00 p.m.


Coal Creek
Coal Creek Improvement Association
31528 Hwy 72
Thursday, Jan. 29, 7:00 p.m.

Conifer
Conifer High School
10441 County Highway 73
Thursday, Feb. 5, 7:00 p.m.

Downtown Denver
RTD Administration Building
1600 Blake Street
Rooms T & D
Friday, Jan. 30, 12:00 p.m.
and
Friday, Feb. 6, 6:00 p.m.

DTC
Hyatt Regency Tech Center
7800 East Tufts Avenue
Thursday, Jan. 29, 12:00 p.m.

Green Valley Ranch
Green Valley Ranch Recreation Center
4890 Argonne Way
Thursday, Feb. 5, 6:00 p.m.


Lakewood
Stein Elementary
80 South Teller Street
Friday, Feb. 6, 7:00 p.m.

Longmont
Longmont Senior Center
910 Longs Peak Ave.
Rooms D & E
Monday, Feb. 2, 7:00 p.m.

Parker
Parker Town Hall
20120 E. Mainstreet
Council Chambers
Wednesday, Feb. 4, 7:00 p.m.

An article in the Rocky Mountain News on Friday shows that RTD's financial problems may be worse then many expected. The article said RTD's revenues from November 2008 fell 9.8 percent and the transit agency is considering a 5 percent cut in bus and light rail service along with a staff salary freeze. 

RTD cited decreased sales taxes during this recession as being the primary reason for the revenue drop, despite significant increases in fare collection during the same time. From the article:

The report shows RTD's total revenues down over last year by 0.3 percent through November, despite fare revenue being up 17 percent. And sales taxes, which saw a precipitous drop for November, are down 0.4 percent over those 11 months compared with 2007.

Sales tax revenue is RTD's lifeblood, making up about 60 percent of its resources. The national recession has eaten into retail sales, particularly since October.

Yet, another interesting tidbit contained in the article is that RTD managers apparently miscalculated the amount of available revenues they expected: 

RTD originally budgeted for a 4.3 percent increase in sales tax for 2008.

But with the economy slowing over the summer, the budget was adjusted to anticipate only a 2.5 percent increase over 2007. The picture looked stagnant until the fall.

But a slight drop in September, followed by a 6.3 percent decline in October, signaled problems.

November's figure showed the drop getting steeper, wiping out all previous months' gains over 2007.

"We've been on top of this for a long time, but, frankly, the 9.6 percent drop in November is much worse than we thought it would be,"  [RTD General Manager Cal] Marsella told the Rocky on Friday.

"After adjusting the budget twice, I was hoping we would at least be flat in 2008 over 2007, but it looks like we will be under water.

"You play the cards you're dealt, and you can't control that.

Anticipating future revenues is definitely a tricky game, but back in August, Marsella was still expecting increased sales tax revenues when many economic indicators such as the unemployment rate  and growth rate showed serious problems with the economy.  RTD seems to have a lot of difficulty projecting agency costs versus actual revenues and because of that, it always seems to be scrambling to push quick solutions instead of carefully planning to avoid major problems in the first place. To further Marsella's relatively stupid metaphor, you may have to play the cards you have, but you can still anticipate what cards are left in the deck before you are dealt the hand.

Certainly RTD needs to do what it can to ensure that it gets through the current economic problems without sacrificing too much of what makes it the "number one transit agency in North America." 

The wage freeze and the already implemented fare increases will help RTD's bottom line. RTD could also get a boost by decreasing fuel costs, which I guess they will have to wait another three months to take full advantage of (RTD locks its fuel prices in six month increments, so the agency locked the current rate back in October before diesel prices dropped in half). RTD is also currently in negotiation with its union to figure out the workers' contracts for the next three years after they expire at the end of February. The article suggested that RTD will try to use the economy as an excuse to either cut union pay of only accept very modest increases. However, the article did not elucidate the 5 percent service cuts proposed by Marsella, only to say that any cuts would have to be approved by the RTD board. I hope that cuts are the very last resort to RTD's budget woes. The last thing riders need is an even more difficult and/or longer commute than the one we have now, and the reality is that RTD would be kissing some of their fare increase revenues goodbye if they cut service by the 5 percent Marsella mentioned.

This is all grim news for RTD, and especially its riders. Let's just hope that lowered fuel costs and a hopefully quick economic recovery will help RTD get back on its financial foot again. Because the reality from a rider point of view is that its hard to demand much needed improvements to service or structure (fare cards, getting rid of zones), when the agency is quite possibly struggling just to maintain what it has now. 

RTD activism on YouTube

This blog is not the only RTD rider activism happening online. I was browsing some YouTube videos today, and there is quite a bit of interesting activism when you search for RTD. (Feel free to ignore the awful RTD PR pieces about FastTracks that somehow forget to mention the project's excessive cost overruns and very likely possibility of delay.)

Instead, most of the videos are related to eminent domain issues and RTD's abuse of eminent domain for its building of new transit. Now, I am not necessarily one to say that transit agencies and other governmental or quasi-governmental agencies shouldn't be able to use eminent domain for the greater good, but there is a human cost, and RTD has a very long and poor reputation of using eminent domain but not paying fair prices for the private property it decides it needs. 

Here is an interesting video about a Latino family in East Denver and their struggles with what they see as unfair use of eminent domain by RTD back when it first built the original light rail line in the 90s:

Here is another video produced by Colorado Inside Out on RTD's dual role as a transit agency and developer with FastTracks:

I'm not a huge fan of Jon Caldara and the Independence Institute, but I do appreciate their bringing issues of eminent domain into the public spotlight. In the next video, Jon Caldara interviews a family being ousted by RTD so they could build a parking lot and potentially 12 stories of retail on the site of their own family business. 



I am all for expanding much needed transit in Denver through RTD's FastTracks, but the unfortunate reality is that RTD as an agency isn't exactly being the best neighbor when it comes to taking eminent domain rights against private owners without fair compensation. The couple in the video above have no problem with the RTD project themselves, but feel (rightfully) screwed over when their property is being taken for private redevelopment use. And they are not alone. According to the Rocky Mountain News, more than 180 property owners will have some or all of their properties taken by eminent domain, sometimes using it for redevelopment. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court in one of their most egregiously wrong rulings has made the legal precedent for cases just like this in Kelo V. City of New London.

Of course, RTD can still avoid egregious use of eminent domain, have profit arrangements with landowners or other more mutually beneficial solutions. Instead though, RTD uses the broad powers of eminent domain to kick out longtime small businesspeople and redevelop their own businesses at that same site (I am sure it does this to make more money for itself). Just another case of RTD looking after only itself instead of the community it purports to serve.

Transportation for a new Downtown Denver

Yesterday, I attended an event at the Museum of Contemporary Art called Top 10 and WITY Cocktails.  The even featured Ken Schroeppel, an urban planner, Denver enthusiast and the creator of the Web site DenverInfill.com, which examines Central Denver development and how to improve the general environment of Central Denver.

Ken's site is great and his discussion was even better. Ken presented his top 10 ways to improve downtown Denver. His list featured everything from planting more street trees to putting a Target store downtown. One of his ideas was to create a downtown streetcar system that could take people around the central core for low or no cost, something which is already a part of the plan for the redevelopment of Union Station as part of FastTracks. 

Our conversation definitely delved into the need for more and better public transportation not just downtown but all over the city. Unfortunately, I and others at this talk felt that RTD is somewhat of an impediment to really making solid transportation happen in this city. We discussed such topics as extended streetcars, a fare-free downtown zone and the possibility of a smart card system like many other cities use.

Key to this entire discussion on improving downtown, was the importance of the public process. Ken gave a great quote on if the public demands, the politicians will follow, which I think is exactly the kind of thinking we need as Denver transit riders. We need to push RTD to be more accountable to us. We need to attend meetings, write letters to the editor, talk to friends and family and be vocal in what we want from a transit agency.

This is our city, so we need to fight for what we want.