AURORA — RTD officials got an earful from residents and local officials at a public meeting Thursday night in which potentially sharp cuts in service to the R-Line, the metro area’s newest light-rail line, were laid out.
“The city of Aurora is really disappointed,” Mayor Steve Hogan said.
City leaders didn’t learn about the possible schedule changes until the Regional Transportation District made them public this month, he said. Not only did it take them by surprise, but it left them wondering why a rail line that opened in February is already being eyed for service cuts.
“My suggestion — talk to us,” the mayor said to a room at City Hall filled with nearly 100 people.
Hogan penned a stern letter to RTD this month, stating it is “completely unacceptable to cut service on the R-Line” so soon after its opening.
Arapahoe County Commissioner Bill Holen said RTD “dropped the ball” in getting people more excited about riding the R-Line, which connects Aurora to Denver’s southern suburbs. There should have been a stronger marketing effort by RTD, he said.
“You can’t just build a line and expect people to come,” Holen said. “And you don’t (increase ridership) by changing the schedule to a minimum number of runs.”
RTD is proposing an end to weekday off-peak R-Line service between Florida Station and Lincoln Station and eliminating all weekend service on that stretch. The agency says ridership on the R-Line badly trails ridership on FasTracks’ other rail lines and that service adjustments, which would take effect in January, have to be made to ensure that the agency isn’t simply running empty trains up and down the tracks.
Aurora residents would still be able to travel south of Florida Station any time of the week, but it will require making transfers to other light-rail lines. The RTD board of directors is expected to make a final decision on service changes across the entire district Oct. 24.
“We’re trying to match the service to the level of ridership,” Jessie Carter, RTD’s manager of service planning and scheduling, told the crowd Thursday. “The R-Line did catch us by surprise with the lack of ridership.”
The R-Line has an average of 41 hourly boardings during the work week, according to RTD, which is way behind the top-performing University of Colorado A-Line’s 196 boardings per hour. Even the W-Line, which provides light-rail service between downtown Denver and Golden and has been criticized for weak ridership, records 141 hourly boardings during the week.
But Aurora resident Aly DeWills-Marcano said just keeping trains in high operation during peak hours ignores the many service workers and hourly employees who work jobs with odd hours. She said her sister managed to get a promotion at her job at Park Meadows mall, but only because she relies on the R-Line’s current service level all the way to Douglas County.
Chuck Montgomery, who lives in Aurora’s Heather Gardens senior community, said the proposed cuts come at a time when several major projects in the city — the Anschutz Medical Campus and the Veterans Administration Hospital are two of the bigger ones — are either under construction or undergoing expansion.
Aurora also has made it clear it wants to be home to Amazon’s second headquarters, a bid that can only be hurt by a decline in transit service.
“Six months is not enough time,” Montgomery said, regarding the approximate time the line has been in operation.
Pretty quiet at Aurora Ctr station at 4p. RTD says cuts to R-Line service may be coming. Meeting tonight in @AuroraGov pic.twitter.com/CkPYqgPfIU
— John Aguilar (@abuvthefold) September 21, 2017
At the Aurora Metro Center Station earlier Thursday, Sam Zimmerman said he opposes service cuts on the R-Line. He said he regularly rides the line south of Florida station.
“I think they should keep it running,” said the Aurora resident, who describes himself as a full-on RTD traveler. “It’s a service we taxpayers pay for.”
Activity at the Aurora Metro Center Station on Thursday afternoon was light, with fewer than half a dozen people waiting for late afternoon trains on either side of the tracks. Still, the 145 spaces in the station’s parking lot were more than 75 percent filled.
RTD spokesman Nate Currey said the agency was chastened by the message it received at Thursday’s meeting.
“We have to remember who we’re serving and keep those leaders informed,” he said.
