[Colorado-Talk] My Email to the Entire RTD Board

[Curtis Chong]

Hello all:

 

Shown below please find the text of email I sent out today to all 15 members
of RTD's Board of Directors.

 

<Begin Excerpt>

 

My name is Curtis Chong. I am a totally blind person who now has the fortune
of being able to retire in the state of Colorado--specifically, in the city
of Aurora. Because I am blind, I am not permitted by law to drive.
Consequently, I must rely on the transportation services available from the
Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) to get where I need to go.
While I am not a person who has signed up with RTD to receive what is
generally referred to as paratransit services, as an activist and a leader
in the blind community, I have worked on a variety of RTD transit-related
issues.

 

When RTD began providing Access-on-Demand service to paratransit customers
to the tune of $25 per ride, sixty rides per month, and with no restrictions
as to when and where a customer would be picked up or dropped off within its
large service area, its intentions may have been altruistic, but the end
result seems to be a system that is now costing RTD more than $1.2 million
every month. RTD is telling the public that this cost is "not sustainable."

 

I have to wonder how it is that RTD created this spectacular disaster in the
first place. Did its management and staff not know that the traditional
Access-a-Ride service was plagued with so many problems that most people
would choose not to sign up for the service unless they were desperate to
receive this alternative form of transportation? Did RTD management and
staff not understand that, with respect to Access-on-Demand,  they would
have created much less resentment and public acrimony if they had started by
offering a little bit of service and gradually expanded service as they
could afford to provide them rather than throwing open the floodgates,
offering everybody everything for nothing, then finding themselves in a
position where they had to take services away from people who have now
become dependent on it? Why is RTD management and staff surprised that
Access-on-Demand has been flooded with a lot of new customers who would
never have applied to receive paratransit services to begin with?

 

The Access-on-Demand service as we now know it has been operating for a
little more than two years. Before Access-on-Demand, what did the people who
now rely on this service do to go to and from work, participate in social
events, or travel to medical appointments? I am sure that while some folks
did stay at home, other people found alternative ways to get around--ways, I
fully understand, that cost them a lot more than Access-on-Demand does
today.

 

RTD is now in an untenable position. No matter what it does to keep
Access-on-Demand alive, it will incur anger from a community of paratransit
customers who will feel that they have been forced to make a sacrifice in
their personal independence simply to help a large government bureaucracy to
reduce spending. The blind community and the community of folks with other
disabilities will experience  a reduction in one or more aspects of the
Access-on-Demand program. As you, the RTD Board of Directors, decide on the
specific reductions that are to be made to Access-on-Demand, please keep the
following points in mind.

 

1.           According to what I have heard from RTD staff, restricting
Access-on-Demand service so that trips must originate and end within three
quarters of a mile from a fixed route or rail station will result in an
estimated  6% reduction in the number of Access-on-Demand trips, saving
approximately $49,000 each month. This suggested program modification will
require changes to both the Uber and Lyft software that Access-on-Demand
customers must use to arrange transportation. How much time and effort will
these changes require to implement? How much more will it cost RTD to modify
these systems when routes are added  or changed? In other words, is $49,000
per month a truly accurate estimate of the savings that would result if the
Access-on-Demand service area were to be restricted? If only 5% of
Access-on-Demand trips start or end outside of the traditional RTD service
area and if fewer than 4% of riders take trips this way, what is the harm in
simply continuing to have Access-on-Demand provided without regard to
distance from a fixed route or train station?

 

2.           The staff recommendation to reduce the number of
Access-on-Demand rides per month from 60 to 30 will be problematic,
especially  for people who use this service to get to or from work. People
whose ability to get to and from work is now dependent on Access-on-Demand
would not have enough subsidized trips to keep their jobs without losing
income given the average of 22 work days per month for someone who is
employed full time.

 

3.           Finally, is it really helpful  to increase the Access-on-Demand
per ride subsidy from $25 to $30? If the average cost per trip is only
$17.20, there seems to be no compelling reason to implement this increase.

 

RTD should learn from its mistakes, obtain truly meaningful data from the
community of paratransit riders, and implement cost-saving reductions in
Access-on-Demand so as to hurt as few individuals as possible. Alas, no
matter what happens with Access-on-Demand, RTD will still have a lot of
angry Access-on-Demand constituents.

 

Very truly yours,

 

Curtis Chong

 

<End Excerpt>

 

 

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