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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Hi all,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>On September 30, 2025 the RTD board of directors are going to vote on the future of access on demand. It is so important for as many of us to show up in person and tell our personal stories as to why AOD is so important to us. We need to come together as one large group to protect this service as well as getting RTD to improve their services for disabled riders overall.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>If you have any questions or would like some assistance in putting together something to speak on, please feel free to reach out. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Each person has 3 minutes to speak.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The meeting is at 5:30PM on September 30<sup>th</sup>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The address is:1660 Blake St.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Denver, CO<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>There will also be a zoom option, but we encourage everyone who can to come in person. If you are not comfortable speaking in front of people, please feel free to write your testimony. Any and all support is so helpful.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I am pasting information from the previous meeting with their new recommendations.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Hi, all,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I wanted to post this while it’s fresh in my mind.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A $6.50 fare with no area restrictions but with hourly restrictions, which would allow multi-stop trips.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I’m not sure how going from $2.50 to $6.50 can be defined as a compromise, but I digress.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We even got admonished by Director O’Keefe to only attribute the best of motives to what people are doing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We’ll have more specific info on the September 30 meeting in the next couple weeks.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Thanks for all you do!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>