Thread by @shayshinecastle

Oh, is there a #Boulder city council meeting tonight? I almost forgot.

J/K. I've been teasing it for a month. Tonight's agenda: Homelessness and encampments. Bone up. (tee hee) boulderbeat.news/2021/01/16/bou…

Also, before that, you might be interested in hearing an update from/on RTD and one from CU RE: spring semester plans.

No public hearing tonight, but there is open comment, so I expect community members to air their grievances there.

The city has listed "activists" as one of the challenges contributing to camping (by handing out warm-weather gear and "encouraging camping"). So, yeah, open comment should be fun.

Obligatory COVID exposure notification and vaccination announcement. www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Exposure_…

Lynn Guissinger and Erik Davidson are here from the RTD board. There have been pretty deep cuts during COVID, including to Boulder-area routes. dailycamera.com/2021/01/08/thr…

And maybe you saw this recently where RTD was like, sorry Boulder, you don't have enough population to support this train we've been talking about for ~20 years. cpr.org/2021/01/13/new…

"Overnight in March, we left 75% of our ridership, Gussinger says. That's come back "a bit" but still down 60%. Service cut in April "because we were just driving around empty buses."

RTD did get $232M from the feds, which allowed them to keep employees last year. (Guissinger again) Another $200M round in 2021 will let laid-off workers return.

"One of our big issues right now is bringing back ridership," Guissinger says. "We rep our constituents and we rep the district. We're trying to keep the district in a stable place, in a good place."

Guissinger: "RTD needed change. One things you sometimes here is we're becoming the agency of no. Which is not a good place to be."

No is what I would hear every time I asked for an interview. Which, admittedly, wasn't often. But still.

Guissinger: My goal is that we're not telling you, local gov't, what changes in service will be, but that we're working together on those things.

One of the biggest changes was a new CEO/director. Apparently good reports from Boulder-area staff.

Davidson: "We're a very large transit agency.... We can't do it all from one agency. We have to be partnering with cities. ... We have a number of challenges ahead of us, and I think we'll only get through them together."

Davidson: The priority is recruiting new riders. We have many full-time riders and many people who could be full-time riders.

Davidson: I want to see this organization become very financially strong. "We're not trying to win an end game; we need to be here forever."

Guissinger: DRCOG (Denver Regional Council of Gov't) has recommended legislation ... intended to give more flexibility to RTD. (For example, stipulation on where its revenue comes from = gone)

"It's cleaning up some pieces that may not be major, earth-shaking things for RTD," Guissinger says, but it will impact how we go forward in the future.

Also: Working on a poll "to see why people have left — obviously it's COVID, but what pieces of COVID: is it safety? Are they not working?" Guissinger says. We need to know how to bring people back.

Young asks a q and apparently stumps the RTD directors. (I mean, I missed it, so I can't really throw shade.)

Davidson: COVID "really highlighted who our regular riders were."

Some routes were "more full" but others were entirely empty, Davidson says. "Not all our lines serve the same types of people. That was an important reminder going forward where we need to add or change service."

Guissinger echoes that and adds: "The next challenge is, how do we address people we also want to bring back? Part of our challenge is, of course, to get ppl out of their cars."

Young makes a plug for the pass working group she sat on, and the work they did.

Brockett: "Obviously ridership is way down. I used to ride RTD all the time. Haven't been doing that much because I've barely left my house. ... (Post-COVID) Do you see RTD getting back to where it was before or going in a new direction?"

Guissinger: There was an article in the Washington Post about why transit agencies need to rethink things, even like EcoPasses, "which we hold dear here" but "It needs to be able to work for people who may not be going into the office as much."

"Money has been an issue for a long time and will continue," Guissinger says.

Davidson: "I think people will be returning to offices, and I think there's an opportunity for transit in all this. ... Does your family need to own two cars if you're not commuting every single day?"

(Tried to find that WP article Guissinger mentioned but couldn't)

Guissinger briefly touches on Boulder kicking in for taxi vouchers for people going to/from Lyons, since that bus route was cut.

"I think that's the kind fo thing we might see more of from RTD in coming days."

Weaver asks about changes to the RTD board.
Guissinger: "I really think we have a good group right now."

Davidson: "Overall change to the board is premature and down the road a little bit."

That's it for this RTD update. @threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you!