DENVER — Over the course of roughly four months, where 12 meetings totaled to 43 hours, a group designed to hold a major Colorado public transit agency accountable produced 31 recommendations they presented to state lawmakers on Wednesday.
The Regional Transportation District (RTD) serves eight counties along the Front Range.
Problems like crime and drug use have plagued the public transportation system, which has also suffered from low ridership numbers.
"I believe in a robust, reliable, safe, environmentally conscious RTD system," said Maria Garcia Berry, the Chair of the RTD Accountability Committee. "Right now, RTD has one of the lowest riderships of all its peers, and it's not recovered from the pandemic."
The RTD Accountability Committee stemmed from Senate Bill 25-161, which tasked 15 appointed members with developing recommendations intended to improve the agency. The work done by the current members built upon a previous committee's work which was created in 2020.
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The committee presented their findings and recommendations to state lawmakers in both the Colorado House of Representatives and State Senate on Wednesday afternoon during a joint committee hearing. The presentation was based off of a full report submitted to the legislature and governor on Jan. 30.
"There's an urgent need — today — to address the mobility issues of the region, and RTD has to be at the forefront and at the table in order to solve those issues," Garcia Berry said. "We're doing our job. We're reporting to the legislature. It's now for them to take it from here, right?"
The committee determined that RTD faces "system level problems with respect to low ridership, reliable service, effective resource management, and responsiveness to stakeholders."
"RTD is failing my community, and they continue to fail my community," State Sen. Kyle Mullica, D-District 24, said during the hearing.
The RTD Accountability Committee found that the size of the RTD Board of Directors, along with "limited competition for elected seats" and "gaps in expertise" created challenges when it comes to "leadership, accountability, and oversight."
The committee is recommending lawmakers reduce that board size from 15 members to nine. Under their proposal, five of the members would be elected, while four would be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.
"Don't get me wrong. I believe all 15 board members are hardworking, but I think they all have very different, at times, views as to what the role ought to be on the board. We need more expertise on the board," Garcia Berry told Denver7. "Not just the number is an issue. I think it is hard to coalesce 15 people. I think the biggest challenge we have is their lack of ability to see themselves as major partners with local governments, with the state, with constituencies, to solve major transportation problems in the region."
The idea was met with mixed reviews from members of the RTD Board of Directors.
"I am thrilled that there exists this much interest in making RTD as good as it can be. That's wonderful," said the Chair of the Board of Directors, Patrick O'Keefe. "[A] 15-member board is pretty big. I'd like to note that the State Senate is only 35. So, we're pretty big. However, our districts are already 240,000 people... It would be a challenge to get as much input and context from the districts, to make sure that the people who are paying the taxes and riding our buses and trains are getting the best service."
While O'Keefe said he is open to the idea of reducing the size of the Board of Directors, he did not assign a number to how many members there ought to be. He also pointed out that it would only be one piece of the puzzle when it comes to solutions needed for RTD.
"The sales tax that funds our base system is not adequate to fund it in about 2030, 2032. That is a problem whether or not the Board of Directors is appointed, elected, bigger or smaller," O'Keefe said.
On the other hand, another member of the RTD Board of Directors, Matt Larsen, opposes the recommendations.
"I do agree there are some reforms that should be made. I think what the accountability committee, the majority, ultimately decided to do... ends up with the situation where the voters, the riders, the taxpayers of RTD, could end up in a situation where they don't really have representation, or where they have representation that doesn't agree with the will of the majority of the voters," Larsen said. "We've seen in our country lately what happens when an executive has more power and the elected officials don't sort of check that power, and I'm afraid that with four appointed members, members appointed by the governor and the state, that will give them too much power... I agree that the governor should have some appointments on the board. I just don't agree that it should be so many that, you know, it potentially enables the governor to dominate the board."
Denver7 asked Larsen if the current 15-member board has made it difficult to accomplish change in the public transit system.
"No, I don't think—I mean, I think that the board has sort of done the best it can, by and large, at least recently, with the hand that it's been given," Larsen said.
State Rep. Meg Froelich, D-District 3, is the Chair of the House Transportation, Housing & Local Government Committee.
"I think the accountability committee did a great job. They did highlight many, many recommendations," Froelich said. "They did suggest that this 15-member board is kind of large. We floated that balloon in legislation two years ago — got a lot of rotten tomatoes pelted on us — so it was interesting to see the accountability committee come up with the same solution on that front."
Froelich said legislation will be drafted based off of the recommendations from the RTD Accountability Committee, but did not commit to what exactly that bill will contain.
