No doubt RTD is struggling with their latest crisis — an ongoing shortage of transit operators — and their solution is a massive reduction in service.
We get it. Equitable, temporary service reductions make sense as a short-term solution. What doesn’t make sense is why the Regional Transportation District rolled out their plan without asking the Aurora community what might best serve our city’s RTD customers and our transit future.
Aurora is the metro area’s second-largest taxpayer population funding RTD. But we are now facing some of the deepest cuts of any municipality in RTD’s service area.
No other light rail line is being targeted for such drastic reductions in service. In fact, no cuts are proposed for the A, B, E, F, G, L and W lines, and weekend service would increase on the C Line. The five-minute average frequency on the R Line’s southeast extension from Lincoln Station south would stay put thanks to federal funding mandates but then slow to every 30 minutes in Aurora if this reduction plan remains intact.
We say “no” to service cuts on the R Line and bus routes 153 and 157.
The city and RTD invested hundreds of millions of dollars to bring light rail to the metro area’s eastern corridor. The R Line was built to be part of a larger system–one that would bring people to the airport, to major healthcare institutions, to key job centers and to the hub of downtown Denver.
Ridership on other lines is higher because other lines are well established. Yet ridership on the R Line — built without the advantage of federal funding — has maintained a slow but steady growth trajectory since day one, with about 6,500 dedicated daily riders on average. The line’s 6.2% ridership increase in the last year is the highest among all of RTD’s light rail lines.
People have moved into the 5,500 new homes built next to R Line stations in Aurora to embrace mobility freedom. Employers along the line are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in transit passes to encourage ridership and reduce regional congestion. Developers have sunk hundreds of millions of dollars in transit-oriented development on the R Line.
A reduction in frequency to every 30 minutes will have a chilling effect on ridership and future development. Why would anyone wait that long unless they have no choice? And is that fair to our most vulnerable populations who have no other option but to ride RTD?
It’s the same questions that we ask for the residents who rely on bus route 157, the only direct route from the R Line to the Community College of Aurora and Buckley Air Force Base, and bus route 153, which transports students to Hinkley, Gateway and Smoky Hill high schools every day and is a major north-south bus arterial for the city.
Under the plan, the 157 will be completely eliminated, and the 153 will run only every 30 minutes. This is unacceptable for the students, military service personnel and civilians, and residents from adjacent neighborhoods who rely on these routes to get to school and work.
It’s only been a couple of months since I took office as Aurora’s mayor, but I have been around long enough — as an Aurora resident, as a past congressman for the 6th Congressional District and as a veteran — to know what R Line means for this city and the region and what these bus routes mean for our community.
We consider RTD to be a partner in good times and in bad. And we are asking RTD to meet us at the table. Let’s come up with some solutions that will truly support our community, RTD’s customers and the future of transit in Aurora and metro-wide.
Mike Coffman is the mayor of Aurora and a former congressman.
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