State lawmakers behind Colorado’s push for increased high-density housing around transit hubs see trouble ahead: a lagging Regional Transportation District bus and train system.
When they invited agency leaders to a transportation hearing at the Capitol this week to talk about it, RTD balked.
This flummoxed lawmakers because they’ve been counting on tightly packed “transit-oriented communities” as the core of their approach to many of Colorado’s problems, including traffic congestion, climate-warming vehicle pollution and affordable housing for workers.
“If we don’t have transit, the whole thing falls apart,” Rep. Meg Froelich, D-Cherry Hills Village, told The Denver Post after Tuesday’s Transportation Legislation Review Committee hearing.
The lawmakers are reviving efforts to reform RTD by increasing the agency’s focus on ridership and pursuing parts of a legislative overhaul backed by Gov. Jared Polis earlier this year that would change the composition of the district’s publicly-elected, 15-member Board of Directors.
That overhaul gained traction during this year’s legislative session but failed in the final appropriations stage. The bill originally proposed to cut the RTD board’s size from 15 elected members to seven members, with five of them elected and two appointed by the governor.
It’s not yet clear whether legislators will pursue that same breakdown in any new attempt to remake the board next session.
RTD hit turbulence this summer as safety inspectors found “railhead burn” deterioration along tracks, forcing a maintenance catch-up blitz that has slowed some trains to a tortoise-like 10 mph and disrupted downtown intersections.
The agency, created by state lawmakers in 1969 to run a mass transit system that by 1976 had 30 million riders, also has struggled financially because an expiring exemption to the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights this fall jeopardizes nearly half its revenue.
An inability to lure and retain enough bus drivers and train operators further hurts service, reducing opportunities to add buses when trains are disrupted. Societal violence and illegal drug use spilling into buses and trains have coarsened the transit environment as well.
The agency’s ridership decreased from 105.8 million boardings in 2019 to 65.2 million in 2023.
When lawmakers invited RTD to participate in discussions at this week’s hearing, agency leaders refused, citing scheduling, said Sen. Faith Winter, D-Broomfield, the assistant majority leader.
“It was a wall,” she said.
Colorado’s push for Front Range cities to create transit-oriented communities clustered around bus and train hubs “is one of the major reasons why we have concerns” about the agency’s performance, Winter said in an interview.
“There’s some dysfunction. Management is confused,” she said, echoing conclusions of a recent RTD internal report. The agency struggles to meet the needs of transit-dependent workers and also offer alternatives to driving for metro Denver residents across its 2,342-square-mile, eight-county service area, Winter said.
Safe buses and trains arriving consistently every 15 minutes are essential for the state’s envisioned transit-oriented communities, she said.
RTD’s governance “should stay on the table”
Lawmakers plan more discussions through September as they mull measures to improve public transit, said Rep. William Lindstedt, D-Broomfield, a sponsor of this year’s reform legislation, HB24-1447.
“Governance of the transit agency is certainly something that should stay on the table,” he said.
RTD’s decreasing ridership increasingly stands out as transit in other cities rebounds after decreases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are clearly an outlier,” Lindstedt said.
The concept of transit-oriented communities emerged as a goal for state leaders who believe that concentrated housing is necessary for the future.
Lawmakers passed legislation compelling cities and counties to designate transit areas where local governments must allow high-density development within a half mile of bus and train stops. They also passed laws that loosen requirements for developers in dense urban areas to provide vehicle parking for residents.
Polis has backed the push as a way to increase options for convenient, low-cost living.
RTD officials declined to discuss lawmakers’ concerns with The Post on Wednesday.
The agency’s general manager wasn’t made available for an interview. RTD communications director Stuart Summers said he was at an all-employee forum Wednesday and referred questions to the agency’s media relations team.
“RTD appreciates the continued focus on exploring the agency’s operational environment and developing solutions aimed at enhancing bus and rail services,” Summers said in an email, referring to Tuesday’s legislative review hearing.
The transit district’s Board of Directors and staff “remain committed to pursuing good policy in future sessions in partnership with state policymakers,” he said. RTD “is grateful to have so many voices and partners in the region helping to bolster its efforts, communicate ongoing challenges and highlight opportunities
“Is your board dysfunctional?”
Earlier this year, state lawmakers exploring reforms “agreed to not really go negative on RTD” because they didn’t want to hurt the agency’s appeal to voters this fall to let it keep unspent tax revenues, Froelich said in an interview.
RTD directors this month said they will ask voters for financial help through a ballot measure on Nov. 5 that could let the agency keep tax revenues instead of providing refunds required under Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
Lawmakers this year sought a broad discussion covering many aspects of RTD’s system, beyond just the proposal to shrink the number of voting members on RTD’s board and add appointed positions — though that’s what board members focused on, casting the bill as a hostile takeover.
That legislation also would have tied RTD service more closely to the Denver Regional Council of Governments’ plans, required directors to create a 10-year plan for increasing ridership and improving transparency, and directed the use of RTD-owned land for new housing and mixed-use development.
RTD decisions would have to had to support state climate, housing and transportation goals, and RTD officials would have been tasked with identifying potential funding opportunities to expand public transit.
Lawmakers still have questions for RTD, Froelich said.
“Why are so many routes canceled?” she said. “Why can’t people effectively commute through RTD? What is the relationship between reliable transit and transit-oriented communities? A lot of those questions lead to governance. Is your board dysfunctional?”
Legislative discussions will continue through September when RTD officials are scheduled to present a required overview report to lawmakers.
“We’re asking for specific people to come talk about specific things” and “we hope for some participation from RTD,” Froelich said.
When lawmakers speak to community groups about public transportation and mention possibilities for reforming RTD, “we get standing ovations,” she said. “We hear from constituents who say: ‘I would love to commute on RTD. I try my darndest. But I can’t when there is a bus every half hour and a certain percentage of the time the bus doesn’t come.”
Greater Denver Transit, a grassroots public transit advocacy group, is participating at the state Capitol and favors reforms. Part of the problem is RTD’s reflexive posture of “circling the wagons,” the group’s co-founder, Richard Bamber, said.
“It does seem, on the surface, a little odd that they couldn’t have sent at least one person to the hearing, given that they have a lot of suitable people,” Bamber said.
“The legislature created the RTD. It is a child of the legislature. The legislature has the power to change it.”
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