The service adjustments support modest increases in ridership, improve on-time performance and increase service reliability. With this set of changes, RTD will also lift vehicle capacity limits that have been in place throughout the pandemic, a move that aligns service levels with available staff resources and helps RTD prepare for additional increases in ridership with summer events and more people returning to the office. To review the service changes, visit RTD’s website.
RTD Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), 5/19/21
Bill Sirois, RTD, gave an introduction to RTD’s upcoming Fare Study and Fare Equity Analysis. The process should take about 18 months and does include a peer review. This will probably start early next year.
CAC was given a “deep dive” into RTD’s finances by Doug MacLeod, CFO and it captured the problems they are experiencing. They’re in the process of completing a near term budget (6 years) and a long term financial plan (30 years). There is currently a short term internal adopted budget.
They are waiting for the State Legislature’s (Gov. Polis’) final action on the new transportation bill. Passenger fares are currently only about 15% of their budget, sales taxes are about two-thirds, and the rest comes from federal grants and loans. Bonds & debt service payments come out of collected sales tax money. There’s a $7 billion limit on borrowing that will expire when FasTracks is paid off in 2050. $500 million in bonds were issued before TABOR for the base system that will be paid off in 2024. The UC Leed School of Business provides forecasting services for RTD.
When asked about other ideas for sources of Revenue, Mr. MacLeod suggested charging for parking, a property tax mill, and getting rid of unused services. Each idea comes with many problems including an election for a mill levy.
Colorado Senior Lobby Meeting Updates:
Topic: Transportation Issues
- The Colorado Senior Lobby has changed it’s name to: Colorado Center for Aging. To officially be known after the current legislative session
- Transportation Bills following 2021 Session
- HB21-1206 Medicaid Transportation Service – Transfer safety and related requirements from PUC to HCPF. Has been Laid Over Daily. Next Hearing 6/1
- HB21-1139 Driver License Electronic Renewal for Seniors – requires 6 month proof of eye exam, Governor Signed
- SB21-290 Security for Colorado Seniors – allocates 15 million dollars to Area Agencies on Aging to establish grant programs to assist older Coloradans to include transportation: New Bill
- SB21-187 Dialysis Transportation Reimbursement – Killed in Committee
- This Legislation Session officially adjourns June 12, 2021. Many Bills remain for further action, if actions are not completed by June 12th, the Governor has to the authority to call a Special Session with a specific agenda.
Next scheduled meeting is June 7th, 2021
Designing for Transit Equity, 5/19/21
The main take-away from this webinar is that organizations should include people from the populations they are trying to serve. Include them from the beginning; let them help word surveys; let them recommend the best way to get a survey out to their community. The featured contractor was hired to figure out the best way for San Francisco to implement surge pricing for rush hours, which would definitely affect the inner-city dweller.
Important things to consider:
- Co-design data with the people
- Gather unstructured data, not just stats. Use open ended questions, natural language
- Design surveys with not for a population
- Texting is more successful that phone or email with underserved populations. Phone surveys skew older.
Significant stat: For every $1 invested in transit equity, you get $5 in economic output and improvement.
Strategic Action Planning Group on Aging, 5/10/21
The meeting started with Karin Stewart describing Jefferson County’s Age Friendly efforts.
Jarrett Hughes, the Governor’s Senior Advisor on Aging, gave an in-depth update on the status of vaccination shots in Colorado and introduced a new program, Serve Colorado (Governor’s Commission on Community Service), to come forward in the fall of 2021. He also updated us on Colorado’s Lifelong Colorado program and Livable Communities.
We were given also an update on SAPGA’s recommendations for federal stimulus spending to support older adults.
These were followed by Mayling Rodriguz, the program manager for the Innovation in Aging Collaborative efforts for an Age Friendly Colorado Springs. They have completed the first 5 years of the program and are now reviewing the lessons learned before they launch into the next 5 years. They have a technology equity pilot for seniors; they’re bringing art to local care homes. They want to see how much the demographics and regionalism plays into the inequity. In planning for housing, houses must be fitted for aging from the beginning.
The meeting ended with Megan Wolfe, the Senior Policy Development manager for the Trust for American’s Health, discussing an age friendly public health system. 80% of older adults of one chronic disease, 75% have at least 2. She described the 5 C’s of an Age-Friendly Public Health System that made a lot of sense.
- Connecting and convening
- Coordinating
- Collecting and disseminating data
- Communicating
- Complementing and supplementing
Not vaccinated yet? Hurry up!
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Find a vaccine near you at cocovidvaccine.org or call 877-CO-VAX-CO.
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