Regional Transportation District leaders could eliminate Denver’s free 16th Street shuttle, several light-rail lines and dozens of bus routes under proposed service cuts designed to save the financially ailing agency up to $62 million.
RTD staffers compiled five scenarios with progressively larger cuts to routes and service hours, along with progressively larger savings, according to documents posted for a Tuesday night meeting of the district’s finance and planning committee.
The list of possible cuts is not definitive, and RTD board directors on Tuesday night acknowledged it may have caused confusion and alarm.
“That list is not something we’re voting on at this point,” Director Patrick O’Keefe said during the committee meeting. “This is pretty inside baseball. I get it. I understand. But we have to be better about how we’re describing what we’re voting on and when.”
All but one of the five service cut scenarios put together by agency staffers cut the 16th Street FreeRide — which had 2.3 million riders last year — to save an estimated $9.5 million.
The hop-on, hop-off shuttle that connects Union Station and Civic Center Station along 16th Street is one of RTD’s most popular routes, agency data shows.
The proposal sparked concern among Denver officials, including a downtown advocacy group and Mayor Mike Johnston’s office.
“We are deeply sympathetic to RTD’s budget situation, but cutting a popular service used hundreds of thousands of times a month and millions of times a year isn’t the answer,” Johnston spokesperson Jon Ewing said in a statement, adding that RTD itself has highlighted the route’s importance to downtown.
“It’s the kind of thing we need more of if we want people to use public transportation, not less,” Ewing said.
Downtown Denver Partnership President Kourtny Garrett said she knows RTD has tough budget decisions to make, but she described the shuttle as critical infrastructure for downtown.
“As it weighs those decisions, the Downtown Denver Partnership urges the agency to weigh the substantial and measurable momentum the FreeRide has generated since the completion of the 16th Street reconstruction, and the outsize role it plays in connecting workers, residents and visitors across downtown’s core,” Garrett said.
RTD’s proposal to cut the 16th Street shuttle comes less than a year after agency leaders cohosted a grand opening for the newly renovated pedestrian mall after a three-year, $175.4 million revitalization project.
As part of the construction, crews installed nearly 1 million granite pavers, which officials said have better friction and drainage to support the RTD shuttle. Before the October grand opening, RTD General Manager Debra A. Johnson praised the 16th Street bus service as “a prime example of how RTD is making lives better through the connections it provides.”
Other services included in the service cut scenarios included the B, R, L and T light-rail lines; and the Free MetroRide between Union and Civic stations along 18th and 19th streets in Denver.
Emotions ran high at several moments during Tuesday’s meeting as directors disagreed over the best path forward to solve RTD’s $200 million budget deficit, including through increasing rider fares.
Shortly before a vote on fare increases, Director Karen Benker exhorted her colleagues to come together and compromise, and, if they voted no, to put forward their own proposals.
“We need to make a decision. If not, why are we here? Why are we here if we can’t do this?” she said.
That sparked a response from Director Michael Guzman, who told Benker he did not “appreciate being spoken down to like that.”
“I’m sure none of us do,” he said. “And I do understand that we are here to do the hard work of civic leadership. So can we move on?”
The committee then approved a motion instructing agency staffers to come up with different scenarios to raise $8 million to $12 million through fare increases, with four committee members voting in favor and two against.
Board members also discussed proposed service cuts, and Benker asked her fellow directors to consider a potential dollar amount of service cuts rather than a percentage, because the percentages have “already been in the media, and it has alarmed some of our customers and some our cities that we service,” she said.
The scenarios compiled by RTD staffers ranged from 5% in service cuts to save $15.5 million to 20% cuts and $62 million in savings.
Benker also proposed asking RTD staffers for three new service cut scenarios that would save $20 million because of the “controversy” about the first five scenarios.
“If we were to take the list that we were given, it’s not going to pass,” Benker said. “I know my cities will be very upset, Denver is very upset.”
But the committee rejected that motion and instead voted to recommend no service cuts next year. RTD’s operations, safety and security committee will vote on the same service cut recommendations during a virtual meeting set for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, and RTD’s full board is set to meet about budget recommendations on July 28.
If approved, the RTD board will likely make final decisions about service cuts and changes in September, agency officials said.
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