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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#467886" vlink="#96607D" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Hi everyone,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>I thought I’d share the public comment letter I just sent to the Board. It’s long, but there’s a lot to say, and in writing, we don’t have to worry about the 2-minute time limit. This is a good template for you to use as you send your own public comment letter to the Board, but please don’t just copy and paste; give your letter your own unique flavor.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Cheers,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Tim<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0in'><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p>Dear Members of the RTD Board of Directors, <o:p></o:p></p><p>My name is Tim Keenan. I am the State Transportation Chair of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, and I am a daily user of Access-on-Demand. I live at 49 W 1st Ave in Denver, which means I am a constituent of Director Guzman's. I want to address his comments at the June 10 OSSC meeting directly -- but first, let me share the broader context I believe this Board needs to hear.<o:p></o:p></p><p>I have been following this process closely since April. I have read the board packets, attended the committee meetings, reviewed the transcripts, and done my own research into how peer agencies across the country have handled the same challenges RTD is facing. I am not writing to alarm you or to pretend that RTD's financial situation is not real. It is real, and I respect the difficulty of what you are being asked to decide. But I believe the Board is being presented with an incomplete picture, and I want to offer what I hope is a more complete one.<o:p></o:p></p><p>ON THE BUDGET -- DIRECTOR BENKER HAS SHOWN THERE IS ANOTHER WAY <o:p></o:p></p><p>Director Benker's independent budget analysis, submitted for Tuesday's meeting, demonstrates something important that has been missing from this conversation: a comprehensive alternative to large-scale service cuts that still closes the entire $215 million deficit. Her Option 1 -- combining $119.2 million in revenue measures with labor savings, contract reductions, advertising revenue, and just 5 percent in service cuts -- generates a $6.7 million surplus. Not a shortfall. A surplus.<o:p></o:p></p><p>I am not saying 5 percent service cuts are painless. They are not. But they are a fundamentally different proposition than 15, 17.5, or 20 percent cuts. Before this Board authorizes staff to model cuts at those levels, I would respectfully ask every director to read Director Benker's two-page presentation and answer one question: why is her Option 1 not sufficient?<o:p></o:p></p><p>The argument that has been made -- that RTD must model aggressive cuts to satisfy bond rating agencies and demonstrate fiscal seriousness -- is not wrong on its face. But there is a meaningful difference between demonstrating seriousness and committing to a path before the full range of alternatives has been exhausted. The Board adopted its own December 2025 resolution requiring that it identify in advance the revenue enhancements and expense reductions needed to balance the budget. Director Benker's presentation shows that resolution can be honored without decimating service. The Board should take that seriously.<o:p></o:p></p><p>ON THE BALLOT MEASURE -- THIS IS THE ENDGAME, AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT <o:p></o:p></p><p>RTD is going to ask voters for money in 2028. Management has said so. The Board has discussed it. It is not a secret. The only real question is what kind of organization makes that ask.<o:p></o:p></p><p>I have spoken to riders, neighbors, and community members throughout this process. What I hear consistently is that people want to support RTD. They want good transit. They understand that the agency needs resources. But they will not vote to give more money to an agency they no longer trust -- an agency that cut their bus, eliminated their paratransit eligibility, and told them there was no other choice when there was.<o:p></o:p></p><p>The $227 million in unrestricted reserves exists for exactly this kind of situation. Using a portion of it as a bridge to a 2028 ballot measure -- combined with the revenue measures, labor savings, and modest service adjustments in Director Benker's analysis -- is not financial recklessness. It is the kind of strategic decision-making that preserves the agency's standing with the public while pursuing a permanent solution. Cutting 20 percent of service, going to voters two years later, and asking them to fund the restoration of what was taken -- that is a much harder sell.<o:p></o:p></p><p>ON ACCESS-ON-DEMAND -- A MESSAGE TO MY OWN DIRECTOR <o:p></o:p></p><p>At the June 10 OSSC meeting, Director Guzman said, on the record, that monies being used for nonrequired programs are "the first ones that need to be chopped." As one of his constituents -- as someone who relies on Access-on-Demand to get to work, to medical appointments, to participate in community life -- I want to address that argument directly, because I believe it gets the financial reality exactly backwards.<o:p></o:p></p><p>AOD was created in 2019 because Access-a-Ride was failing. It was too expensive, too slow, and unable to meet the needs of a significant portion of its riders -- specifically those who don't use mobility devices and don't need door-to-door, lift-equipped service. RTD recognized that people with cognitive disabilities, autism, learning disabilities, and other non-mobility impairments were being routed through a system designed for a different population, at a cost of over $100 per boarding. AOD offered those riders a faster, more flexible, more dignified service at a maximum subsidy of $20 per trip.<o:p></o:p></p><p>If RTD eliminates AOD, those riders do not disappear. They go back to Access-a-Ride. And Access-a-Ride -- which already saw its on-time performance drop from above 90 percent to 83 percent between June and August of 2025, before absorbing any additional load -- will absorb thousands of additional trips at five times the cost. That is not savings. That is a budget disaster wearing a cost-cutting disguise.<o:p></o:p></p><p>The peer agency data is unambiguous. Washington DC's WMATA pays an average of $24 per trip through its Uber partnership versus $135 for traditional paratransit -- more than 80 percent lower. New York's MTA saved $102.7 million in a single year by shifting eligible riders from traditional paratransit to on-demand alternatives. Boston, Chicago, and New Jersey Transit are doing the same thing. The industry is moving decisively in this direction because the math is undeniable.<o:p></o:p></p><p>Director Guzman, I understand your concern about spending money on programs that are not federally required when the agency is under severe financial pressure. That is a legitimate instinct. But I would ask you to look at the data from your own agency and from peer agencies across the country. AOD is not a luxury add-on. It is a cost containment tool that is already saving RTD money every single day compared to what those same trips would cost on Access-a-Ride. Eliminating it would not save money. It would cost more.<o:p></o:p></p><p>What RTD should be doing is the opposite -- actively identifying Access-a-Ride riders who don't need door-to-door service and transitioning them to AOD. That would reduce costs, improve AAR's performance for those who genuinely need it, and preserve independence for thousands of riders who have built their lives around a service that finally works for them. I am one of those riders. I know what AOD means to people, and I know what losing it would mean.<o:p></o:p></p><p>ON THE INDEPENDENT PARATRANSIT STUDY -- HONOR THE LAW YOU HELPED ENACT <o:p></o:p></p><p>RTD is required by SB 26-150 to commission an independent third-party study of its paratransit system by December 31, 2027. That study exists because the legislature recognized that major decisions about paratransit should be informed by independent, objective analysis -- not by the same staff whose budget pressures create an incentive to cut the programs they are being asked to evaluate. Our coalition -- the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, ADAPT Colorado, Atlantis Community, and the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition -- has formally asked the Board to maintain existing paratransit service levels until that study is complete. Making permanent cuts to AOD before the study is done would undermine the very purpose of the law that was just enacted. I am asking you not to do that.<o:p></o:p></p><p>ON GRANDFATHERING -- THIS IS A SIMPLE ASK WITH A CLEAR ANSWER <o:p></o:p></p><p>If service cuts reduce the ADA-mandated paratransit coverage area, people who are currently eligible for Access-a-Ride will lose that eligibility through no fault of their own. They will have built jobs, medical routines, housing choices, and daily lives around a service that will no longer cover them. Chair O'Keefe has expressed support for grandfathering existing riders. I am asking the full Board to make that commitment explicit on Tuesday -- not as a general principle, but as a formal policy directive to staff that no existing eligible rider will lose eligibility as a result of service changes.<o:p></o:p></p><p>ON PUBLIC PARTICIPATION -- THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO BE QUIET <o:p></o:p></p><p>The Board voted in March to cap public comment at one hour per meeting. I understand the operational rationale. Long meetings are genuinely difficult to manage. But this is not an ordinary moment in RTD's history. The decisions being made in the next several months will affect tens of thousands of riders for years to come. The disability community, low-income riders, seniors, workers who depend on transit -- these are people who have very little power in most policy arenas. Public comment is one of the few tools they have. I am asking the Board to suspend the one-hour cap for all meetings related to the service change and budget process, and to expand opportunities for meaningful public participation before any final decisions are made.<o:p></o:p></p><p>IN CLOSING <o:p></o:p></p><p>I have spent months studying this situation. I have read every board packet, attended every relevant meeting I could, coordinated with peer disability organizations, and researched what other transit agencies across the country have done in similar circumstances. I have done all of that because I believe RTD is worth fighting for, and because I believe the riders who depend on it deserve an agency that fights for them too.<o:p></o:p></p><p>The decisions before you on Tuesday are not final. They are directional. But direction matters. The direction you set Tuesday will shape what staff models, what gets presented to the public in September, and what the full Board votes on in December. I am asking you to set a direction that takes seriously the alternatives to large-scale service cuts, that protects the riders who have the most to lose, and that positions RTD to make a successful case to voters in 2028.<o:p></o:p></p><p>You have allies in this community who want to help you get this right. We will be in that room on Tuesday, and at every meeting that follows. We are not adversaries. We are partners in a transit system that, at its best, makes this region more connected, more equitable, and more livable for everyone.<o:p></o:p></p><p>Please make it the best version of itself. <o:p></o:p></p><p><o:p> </o:p></p><p><o:p> </o:p></p><p><o:p> </o:p></p><p>Respectfully submitted, <o:p></o:p></p><p>Tim Keenan <br>State Transportation Chair <br>National Federation of the Blind of Colorado <br>Access-on-Demand rider, RTD District C <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>