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RTD's planned changes affect blind students who use system for transit training

By Jeffrey Leib The Denver Post

Posted: 10/18/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT

Updated: 10/18/2011 08:10:53 AM MDT

 

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Students Simon Jaeger, right, and Sally Friedman, back left, get instruction from Colorado Center for the Blind instructor Monique Melton on how to use

the bus and rail system at the downtown Littleton station. "The 60 is the bus that most of our students take home," Melton said. RTD wants to cut that

route. (Kathyrn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

 

To the dismay of educators and students, RTD's planned bus-service cuts in January will wipe out most of the fixed-route bus service that links the Colorado

Center for the Blind with apartments the center provides for scores of students it trains each year.

 

The Regional Transportation District is planning one of the deepest cuts in bus and rail service in decades, including eliminating all or parts of at least

three bus routes that blind students use to get from their apartments to the center, near Littleton's downtown transit station.

 

The Center for the Blind attracts students from around the country — and the world — who come to Littleton to get training in how to live independently,

including how to navigate urban transit systems.

 

"We're being disproportionately hit hard" by RTD's cuts, said Brent Batron, the Center for the Blind's youth services coordinator.

 

"We want our students in the community," and RTD's fixed-route bus system gives them that opportunity, Batron said. "It's independence, it's freedom, it's

doing what you want when you want."

 

But RTD officials say many of the local bus routes in the area west of the downtown Littleton and Mineral light-rail stations that are used by blind students

do not have enough ridership. RTD is replacing much of the bus service in the area with a new call-n-Ride operation.

 

Students at the Center for the Blind currently walk the short distance to the downtown Littleton transit station to pick up buses to get home, or they take

the light-rail train one stop south to the Mineral station, where they can take other buses to their apartments.

 

The apartments are about 4 miles from the school.

 

"We specifically chose those apartments for the reason that they were close to the Mineral and Littleton light-rail stations and that they would give students

bus and train experience," said the Center for the Blind's Stacey Johnson.

 

Among dozens of bus

1017/20111017__20111018_A09_CD18BLIND~p1_200

Simon Jaeger, left, of Canada and Sally Friedman, center, from Albany, N.Y., walk a path to the closest RTD bus and train stop while instructor Monique

Melton, right, gives them a lesson on how to get to and from the bus stop. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

routes that RTD is eliminating or curtailing is route 60, which the agency plans to do away with. It serves an area west of South Santa Fe Drive, including

the blind students' apartment complex.

 

"The 60 is the bus that most of our students take home in the evening," said Monique Melton, a Center for the Blind instructor who accompanied two students,

Simon Jaeger and Sally Friedman, as they walked from the center Friday afternoon to the downtown Littleton station.

 

Jaeger, of British Columbia, Canada, has been a student at the center for about five months and Friedman, of Albany, N.Y., for about a month.

 

RTD also plans to eliminate the portion of the route 67 bus line that now runs on Mineral Avenue, near the students' apartments, and to do away with the

segment of the route 401 bus that runs west of the Mineral light-rail station — another transit leg used by the blind students.

 

Riding scheduled bus lines helps the center's students build the confidence they need to travel the metro area, said Melton, who also is blind.

 

The call-n-Ride service — with its curb-to-curb operation — "completely changes" the transit experience for blind students, she said, adding that the "repetition

of constant trips" on the buses is "one of the things that sets our program apart from others."

 

For all commuters in an area west of South Platte Canyon Road and south of West Bowles Avenue, RTD plans to replace the lost fixed-route bus service with

a southeast Jeffco call-n-Ride operation that will have four 15-passenger buses available at peak travel times, said Bruce Abel, RTD's bus-operations chief.

 

The fixed-route service will be "replaced by a multivehicle call-n-Ride, so the mobility needs will be met," Abel said.

 

Center officials are concerned that call-n-Ride buses may be too crowded to handle the demand at peak travel times and that they will not run on Sundays.

 

In addition to the on-call service, RTD plans to operate scheduled service using the smaller call-n-Ride buses west from the Mineral light-rail station,

and those buses will be available to take blind students to their apartments, said RTD service-development manager Jeff Becker.

 

On Monday, the agency said it is adding some route 67 service back to relieve pressure on the call-n-Ride operation.

 

Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or

jleib at denverpost.com

Follow Jeffrey Leib on Twitter.