Post Premium: Top stories for the week of Jan. 24-Jan. 30 – The Denver Post

Years of declining ridership flummoxed leaders of metro Denver’s transit system, just as a staffing crisis routinely left buses and trains without operators — while financial pressures kept the agency from fulfilling key promises.

That was before the coronavirus pandemic broadsided the Regional Transportation District.

Ridership plunged, bottoming out at 30% of normal in spring 2020. And even as riders have slowly returned, recovery has been uneven. Buses attracted 56% as many riders in November as in the same month in 2019, before the pandemic, according to a Denver Post analysis of RTD ridership data.

Train service, representing billions of dollars of investment, is not recovering as quickly. While less commuter-heavy trains are performing relatively well, six of eight major train corridors that were open in late 2019 fell short of the bus recovery rate by at least 15%. Those low-performers ranged from the B-Line, at 37% of 2019 ridership, to the R-Line, at nearly 48%.

RTD at a Crossroads
A Denver Post series examines the ways the coronavirus pandemic has complicated and in some ways worsened old challenges faced by the Regional Transportation District:

Part 1: Pandemic’s “devastating blow” scrambles commute patterns, raising questions about RTD’s future.
Coming Monday: Large operator and staffing shortages keep RTD from restoring more service sooner.
Coming Tuesday: Agency faces big financial headwinds, but it’s on a firmer footing than once feared.

— Full story via Jon Murray, The Denver Post

Special report: RTD faces future clouded by new commuting patterns, staff shortages and big questions about service

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