The damage is done.

The RTD board met last night and approved most of the proposed May 2009 service cuts. The board meeting had nearly 100 people in attendance, most trying to persuade RTD to save some service or another. Unfortunately, it looks like it was mostly to no avail. The largest turnout by far was in support of the Route U bus, which travels from Pine in the Jefferson County mountains to the Denver Tech Center, but was completely eliminated by the RTD board.  Except for a few services that were saved because various municipalities agreed to cost-share programs with RTD, pretty much all of the original cuts went through. 

RTD is clearly in a mismanaged free-fall. RTD Director Kent Bagley told the Denver Post that the cuts approved yesterday may just be the beginning under these current economic conditions. Though the cuts will save RTD $4.3 million, they still are nearly $3 million below budget. Like I have said many times, part of the problem is RTD's idiotic decision to lock in the price the agency pays for diesel back in October at $3.09 a gallon, which means they are paying more than a $1 a gallon than it would if they were buying fuel on the open market. With diesel prices continuing to fall, that decision is costing RTD millions of dollars every month. 

Apparently, RTD is trying to extend the agency's fuel contract with a new rate until 2010. I am not sure how the agency pays for fuel, but they really should consider multiple-length contracts where RTD pays part of the price of fuel at a current rate and the rest at a previous rate. That is what Southwest Airlines does to the company's benefit.  Clearly though, RTD is not being managed well and has zero accountability to its riders. At this point, I am not sure what riders themselves can do. Obviously, the direct approach yields little, as dozens of people fought for the U and it still was cut. What are the other options? I'd say kick all the idiots out, but the last election actually retained pretty much everyone on the Board of Directors and general manager Cal Marsella still has his job (and apparently a very good bonus/benefits package) despite what seems to be his general incompetence.

So the question is: What can riders do? Anyone have any ideas?

Does RTD actually listen to its riders?

I went to the RTD meeting on Friday about the agency's proposed and severe cuts to service. There were only 14 people in attendance. Since the meeting was on a Friday night, that seems pretty good. Friday night has to be the worst night to hold any kind of meeting, so of course RTD held five meetings then.

Those in attendance made their cases to save various routes. I was glad to see that many of the people were there to protest the cuts of the 1 bus. Many of them made very good points, noting that the geography of west Denver makes it harder for people to travel farther for transportation and that this burden is particularly hard on the transit-dependent riders such as the elderly and the disabled.

I made my case, explaining that RTD's service is already lackluster compared to other cities, that its unfair to increase fares and reduces service, and that riders should not have to suffer for RTD mismanagement and inability to anticipate problems. The RTD bureaucrat who conducted meeting dismissed by comments in typical bureaucrat fashion by not really answering my claims and instead insisting that there was nothing RTD could have done to prevent its current situation (fire the "several economic advisors [that] told us fuel prices were going to go back up again," for one).

We'll see what happens next. I think those of us who fought for the 1 were convincing and it seems like they might moderate the cuts somewhat in the final version. The bureaucrat asked if we would support having 1A service only during peak hours. I told him that I think the bus is used all day, particularly since much of the ridership consists of students, the elderly and low-income workers who often have different schedules then the typical "peak hour" users have. I suppose having the 1A at all is a positive step though.

In the end, I left the meeting feeling as though I wasn't really listened to. Even the bureaucrat admitted that the meeting was basically a legal formality and though there was a note-taker, there was no recording of the meeting, so who really knows if our opinions from the meeting are actually going to be heard by the board.

I know mine well at least, because I plan on attending the next board meeting. I found information about the meeting in the crevasses of the RTD web site. The next board meeting will be on Tuesday, February 17 at 5:30PM in the lower level meeting room at RTD headquarters; 1600 Blake Street. The public is allowed to attend and make three-minute comments directly to the board. You can also send an e-mail to your RTD board representative here. If you didn't attend the public meetings on the service cuts, this will be the last chance to give your opinion. I can't promise they will listen, but at least it will be heard.

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.