The Regional Transportation District Board of Directors on Tuesday night kicked the can down the road on whether to raise fare prices on its Access-on-Demand program, which provides curb-to-curb transit service for people with disabilities.
After four hours of public comment and board discussion, the RTD directors voted to send the proposal back to the Operations, Safety and Security committee to hammer out details. A final vote on the issue is expected in September.
The board had in front of it a recommendation from RTD staff to increase the fare for Access-on-Demand rides from no charge to $6.50. RTD subsidies per ride would have been reduced from $25 to $20 under the plan. There would still be a 60 ride-per-month cap in place.
A stream of people with disabilities took to the microphone Tuesday evening and beseeched the RTD board to leave the Access-on-Demand program alone, calling it “life-changing” for those with limited mobility. One speaker who said the service, which uses third-party services such as Lyft and Uber to provide rides, has made grocery shopping possible for her, and she asked the board to allow her to live the “same kinds of lives you live.”
During the course of the evening, directors proposed lowering the $6.50 fare to $4.50, and then to $2.50. Dropping the fare by $2 per ride would cost RTD $1.4 million in revenues.
Director JoyAnn Ruscha pushed hard to keep Access-on-Demand service free.
“People will lose jobs; they will lose access,” Ruscha said. “There is a human cost.”
Director Chris Nicholson pointed out that cutting RTD revenues by keeping the service free would result in financial impacts to other parts of the sprawling transit system.
A group of 50 or so people with disabilities gathered in front of RTD’s headquarters building on Blake Street on Tuesday afternoon. One person held a sign reading: “Our Mobility is Not Optional.” Another read: “We Can’t Drive — Don’t Cut Our Rides.”
Dave Bahr, who is blind and lives in Louisville, said he relies on Access-on-Demand to visit his girlfriend Chelsea Cook, who lives in Littleton and is also blind.
“It is literally our lifeline,” Bahr said. “It makes my relationship with Chelsea possible.”
Cook, who uses Access-on-Demand for such travel as getting to work or rock climbing outings, said Access-on-Demand is far more convenient and efficient than Access-a-Ride.
“You can be on that little bus for four hours,” she said of Access-a-Ride.
Bahr said being able to travel in a regular vehicle rather than on a specially equipped bus makes him “feel human.”
“It is my lifeline to where I go and who I see,” he said of Access-on-Demand.
Disability activists have a long history — stretching back to the 1970s — of fighting for services and accommodations from RTD.
In 1997, the agency added the “paratransit” minibus service, called Access-a-Ride, for people who, because of disabilities, cannot use buses or light rail trains. The minibuses require day-before reservations (standard fare $4.50) and cost RTD more than $60 per trip. Riders complain that they fail to reach their destinations on time.
The Access-a-Ride service complies with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Five years ago, RTD leaders launched the Access-on-Demand, one of the first comprehensive programs in the nation to provide taxpayer-funded commercial ride-hail service for people with disabilities. It gives qualified riders up to 60 rides a month to locations they choose using Uber, Lyft or Metro Taxi.
RTD pays up to $25 per ride, which typically covers riders’ costs (the average ride cost is $16).
Hours and range of coverage for Access-on-Demand would “mirror” that of Access-a-Ride.
In metro Denver, riders with disabilities have embraced Access-On-Demand. The number of rides they took increased tenfold, from 6,250 a month in January 2021 to more than 62,750 a month, agency records show.
RTD’s monthly cost for Access-on-Demand has ballooned to more than $1 million. Agency managers recently told the board of directors that the program isn’t financially sustainable. RTD projects that the recommended changes would shave about $5.6 million off the $15 million price tag — or about 36% — needed to run the program.
Brian Grewe is executive director of Atlantis Community Inc., a Denver-based nonprofit that helps people with disabilities to live independently. He said he would like to see more emphasis put on building out the Access-on-Demand service over the Access-a-Ride program.
“AoD serves more people and costs less money,” Grewe said.
Inside the hearing room, Grewe told the board that $6.50 per ride doesn’t sound like much in isolation. But that cost is for just “one ride, one location” and that the total quickly adds up across multiple trips, he said.
In other business Tuesday, the RTD board voted unanimously to rename Civic Center Station after Wade Blank, a disability activist who was at the forefront of a movement in 1978 in which people with disabilities blocked downtown Denver streets to demand greater accommodations on RTD buses.
The station will be renamed the Wade Blank Civic Center Station in January. Blank co-founded Atlantis Community Inc.
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