[Colorado-Talk] Denver Area: OSCC Meeting Recap

[Amy Sabo]

hello tim,

thanks for sending your notes and thoughts on the rtd board meeting from last night. it was greatly appreciated for us who didn't attend to know what happened in your words and feelings on this.

i too love that they want to use synposis 6 but, i don't like thatthey need to increase it to $6.50

i think imo that they need to have one fare amount for access a ride and, a another one for the access on demand service. that would be the best circumstance imo that rtd could do in this matter. thanks again for all that you do for us here in the nfb of co and, i will talk to you soon.




sincerely,
amy sabo


________________________________________
From: Colorado-Talk <colorado-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> on behalf of Tim Keenan via Colorado-Talk <colorado-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2025 8:38 PM
To: 'NFB of Colorado Discussion List' <colorado-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: tkeenan79 at gmail.com <tkeenan79 at gmail.com>
Subject: [Colorado-Talk] Denver Area: OSCC Meeting Recap

Hi, all,I wanted to post this while it’s fresh in my mind.Before the Committee could even vote on the Board’s motion with the $2.50 fare and unrestricted area, Director Harwick amended it with a new proposal which he called a compromise:A $6.50 fare with no area restrictions but with hourly restrictions, which would allow multi-stop trips.I’m not sure how going from $2.50 to $6.50 can be defined as a compromise, but I digress.This proposal passed, 5-1, so that’s what will be recommended to the Board on September 30. Director O’Keefe was the lone no vote. I should note that Director Buzek wasn’t there, and he has always been a supporter of keeping the program as-is as much as possible.Also, several directors who have been supportive of our positions are not on this committee. The original staff recommendation with the $6.50 fare and area/hourly restrictions passed this committee 5-2 back in July, yet the full Board significantly amended that proposal.So, this is a setback, but there is every reason to believe we can convince the full Board to amend this recommendation as well. One reason for my guarded optimism is that Director Nicholson advocated for a $1.50 fare for LIIV program recipients. He ultimately withdrew his amendment when Deborah Johnson pointed out that LIIV fares are typically 50% of the regular fare, and this would make the Access on Demand fare significantly lower than the Access-a-Ride fare.However, the solution seems simple. Make the AOD fare $4.50, and the LIIV fare by definition would be $2.25, not much more than the $1.50 he was advocating for. So, I think we really need to push that and that it should make sense to the Board.What I do not understand is the Committee’s apparent willingness to accept staff delineating the cost of wheelchair accessible vehicles as part of AOD without accounting for this by lowering  the Access-a-Ride budget. So, they’re accounting for this money in two places, which is certainly not an accepted accounting practice and appears solely designed to make the AOD program seem more expensive.Committee members were also silent on the inclusion of cutting bus routes in the memo, which was slammed by a few public commenters, including our Maureen, as almost a threat.We even got admonished by Director O’Keefe to only attribute the best of motives to what people are doing. So, bottom line, we still have more work to do on September 30. Dr. Folska hit the nail right on the head when she commented how stressful it is for us to constantly be fighting to protect this program that has done so much for so many so efficiently.But we’re gonna have to go back to the ring for one more round. Directors, particularly Harwick and Nicholson, seem determined to move this forward. They comfort themselves by saying that they can review it in a year and make any needed changes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a year is a very long time if you suddenly can’t use a service you’ve come to depend on. That’s exactly what’s going to happen to me if Harwick’s proposal is adopted, since I work a lot of overnight shifts at Amazon, which means my rides either two or from, depending on the shift, will not fall within the AOD service hours. So, please, let’s have all hands on deck at the September 30 meeting. Apparently, we’re not getting through sufficiently, so we’ll have to raise our voices again, loudly and proudly, as we always do. We’ll have more specific info on the September 30 meeting in the next couple weeks. Thanks for all you do!  -Tim