RTD WON’T CUT SOME SERVICE

RTD will spare some bus and train service that had been on the chopping block, including the 16L on West Colfax and the 99L to the Federal Center.

RTD is backing away from some of the service cuts to bus and train lines that it first proposed late last year to deal with an ongoing labor shortage after hundreds of passengers showed up to a series of public meetings to sound off on the changes.

Bus lines the Regional Transportation District had put on the chopping block — the 16L on West Colfax, the 99L between the Federal Center and downtown Denver, the 157 in Aurora and the RunRide to the Bolder Boulder on May 25 — are no longer slated for elimination.

In addition, reduced weekend service on the H-Line is no longer being recommended. The revised list was released Thursday night.

RTD’s board of directors will discuss the new proposal Tuesday and take a final vote on it March 24.

The changes would go into effect May 17.

In December, agency staff handed RTD’s elected leaders a list of recommended service cuts. They included the elimination of six bus lines, shortening 19 other bus lines and service reductions in the R-Line, D-Line and H-Line light-rail corridors.

The suggested cuts, RTD said, were based on low ridership or targeted corridors where there is duplicative service.

The service adjustments also called for halving the frequency of the popular 16th Street Mall shuttle from every 90 seconds to every three minutes.

That frequency reduction remains under the new proposal, as does the elimination of the BroncosRide bus service, Colorado Rockies bus service and BuffRide service to University of Colorado games.

While the RunRide will be retained this year, it is suggested to be done away with starting in 2021.

RTD has said that even with the reductions in service, its worker shortage challenge — in which many drivers are working six days per week as part of “mandated” overtime — won’t be fully addressed.

For the past two weeks, RTD officials held public meetings throughout the metro area to explain the labor shortage and the resulting impacts to rail and bus schedules.

The agency has gotten an earful from passengers in return — as well as a rebuke from Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, who accused RTD of unfairly targeting the city with cuts to R-Line train service and two bus lines.

Nearly 260 people attended the meetings, and RTD has received more than 2,000 emails from riders.

Dean Simpson, who commutes

to his job at a downtown Denver law firm via the 99L bus, told RTD officials at a late February meeting that he and his wife chose to live where they do in Lakewood because of how close the Federal Center stop is to their house.

“Without that, I’m questioning why I’m living here,” he said. “It’s all about quality of life, and you’re stripping that from us.”

Elimination of the 99L had generated perhaps the biggest pushback from riders in the district.

A change.org petition to save the bus line has collected more than 850 signatures.

Simpson has been a 99L user for more than a decade and says he’s “proud to be a bus rider and keep my car off of the road, not adding to the day-to-day pollution that a car contributes.”

He said the alternatives RTD has suggested to supplant the 99L, including W-Line light rail, are either too time-consuming or too inconvenient.

Amanda Horvath is a “reverse commuter” riding the 99L from downtown Denver to the Federal Center, where she works as a scientist for a federal agency. She chose to live in the city so that she didn’t have to buy a car.

But that makes any RTD service adjustments monumental for her.

“I rely 100% on RTD or ridesharing services — the 99L is an absolute lifeline to get to and from work every day,” Horvath said.

RTD Director Natalie Menten, who led the public meeting in Lakewood on Feb. 24, acknowledged that “nobody is happy at where we’re at right now.”

RTD projects an annual savings of $8.2 million from the remaining cuts as opposed to the $12.4 million that was projected under the original service changes.

The amended service cuts will reduce operator shifts by 43 per day, as opposed to the 57 shifts that would have been eliminated under the more rigorous reductions.