Imagine All The People...

RTD is asking to raise taxes again.

I may have supported raising fares because that caused those who actually use RTD to pay for their service but I can't quite find the justification to get my support for raising taxes to the general public.
Keep in mind, statistics show that 40% of folks who live in this country don't even pay taxes.
That means the rest of us pay for services that we probably don't use, so that those who don't pay for it, can use it.

RTD reports that there were 97 million "boardings" in 2010.
That means that one passenger could have been jumping on 11 thousand times an hour last year.

LOL - more likely not but hey, it coulda happened!

Here's an example:
RTD (not including the private companies running RTD routes) has more than 400 routes/runs a day.
We'll use 400 to be conservative.
Most RTD buses (that RTD uses - not the privates who use RTD buses) have more than 40 seats but we'll use 40 as a conservative number.
Most routes have more than one run back and forth but to be conservative, let's just assume each only goes once per day.
We've all been on the bus at least once when it's packed full and many buses do that several times a run: take the 122X or 120X as examples.
So if each of the 400 runs fills up once with 40 people that's 16000 passengers each day, times 365 days is 5,840,000 a year.
The average passenger has to take at least one transfer to get to their destination each day so that's 4 boardings per passenger a day making it 23,360,000 boardings a year.

So you can see how only 16,000 "regulars" can account for 25% of the 97 million boardings a year, using conservative numbers.
And we didn't take into consideration the Mall Shuttles, the Light Rails and all the other packed full runs on each route, not to mention the weekend & holiday hordes that pack buses until folks are hanging out the windows just to fit in!

All that to say, there could be only 65 thousand people using RTD on a regular basis, many of whom get discounted prices, have employers who pay for their fares, or who don't pay the fares at all - and the tax payer is shouldering the burden of financial support.
The Front Range boasts more than 2,195,000 tax payers.
Potentially that's only 3% of the population riding what the rest pay for.

All these numbers are not exact but mostly just conservative guestimates to make a point.

Don't get me wrong, this is my job: Driving for even just 65,000 people a day every day of the year.
And I LOVE doing it.

But I don't believe RTD should raise taxes on the rest of the people to support the few who use it.
I believe that the services should be supported by those who use them.

Then again, that's just me and I'm sure I only represent a tiny percentage of the population who feels this way.
I'm just some guy who drives a bus.

As Always, "Welcome aboard that bus, find your seats - Let's Roll!"