Fear of getting assaulted, drug use are factors in RTD driver shortage
Robert Pumphrey pulled his RTD bus into the Westminster public transit station earlier this month, got out and faced a belligerent man who head-butted Pumphrey and punched him in the face.
An ambulance took Pumphrey, 68, to a hospital for treatment. His eye and the side of his face swollen, he was driving again three days later but wondered whether the attacker might return — “the first thing on my mind,” Pumphrey said during a break, ruling out retirement. “I’m a senior citizen. But in this day and age, you’ve got to keep working to make a living.”
In January, a Regional Transportation District driver at the end of her Colfax Avenue route went to the back of her bus to rouse a rider who seemed to have fallen asleep, standard protocol. He popped up and assaulted her, leaving her bruised with broken ribs. She, too, was planning to keep driving after completing physical therapy.
As RTD struggles to fill its openings for bus and light rail drivers, violence and illegal drug use on public transit create an obstacle to attracting and retaining employees, despite wages that allow a driver to earn more than $80,000 a year.
“Would you want to work for an agency where, as an operator, you have to smell meth on your train? People have a choice in where to work. Nobody wants to work where they might be assaulted and have to smell meth,” RTD board member Paul Rosenthal said, referring to a bus driver who’d been exposed to drug fumes and needed medical treatment for headaches.
The violence targeting drivers “makes it difficult, a deterrent” in recruitment and retention, Rosenthal said.
RTD’S bus driver vacancy rate remains around 16% and, for light rail operators, 21%. RTD officials said they’ve budgeted for 850 full-time bus drivers and that 706 were working, with 50 in training. For light rail, RTD needs 200 operators and has 158. For commuter rail with 30 budgeted engineer positions, 26 were filled.
RTD lost 368 bus drivers and train operators in 2022 and 2023, agency data shows, including 63 retirements.
The shortages of bus drivers and rail operators for years have impeded RTD efforts to ensure reliable service, let alone increase the frequency of service. Maintenance disruptions this summer will reduce ride frequency on key routes, but RTD officials have said that due to the shortage of bus drivers, they’d be hard-pressed to provide temporary bus “bridge” shuttles to help riders reach their destinations.
RTD has not responded to an April 2 request under the Colorado Open Records Act for statistics on assaults, But abuses targeting drivers “happen daily at some level. They’re verbally threatened, yelled at, spit on, cursed at, and have things thrown at them,” said Lance Longenbohn, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents RTD workers. He relayed the case of the driver along Colfax, who asked not to be identified because she was embarrassed.
The abuse “is definitely a contributing factor” causing driver shortages, Longenbohn said. “It is not getting better.”
“If we collectively provide respect and security to folks on the frontline, they will take us everywhere we need to go,” RTD board chairman Erik Davidson said.