AURORA | Aurorans and others in the metro area will be able to take a ride on Regional Transportation District buses and trains for free next month, thanks to a proposal by the agency that Aurora’s City Council formally endorsed Monday.
“I think this is extremely important for the city given that we have a number of people, quite a few people, that are reliant upon mass transportation,” Mayor Mike Coffman said of RTD’s Zero Fare for Better Air program. “We have a number of transit-oriented developments that are also reliant upon light rail.”
As the name suggests, the fare-free promotion is meant to cut down on the state’s ozone emissions, as well as boost ridership levels that sagged during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Colorado’s General Assembly has voted for the state government to backfill the revenue lost by RTD during the month of August.
Council members Alison Coombs and Juan Marcano in particular said they supported the program and urged the public to take advantage.
“Tell your friends. Make sure that the other folks around you also are aware and have the opportunity to really use this fare-free month so that we can show, (not only) what kind of ridership we can generate, but also what kind of impact we can have on our climate by reducing the number of cars on the road,” Coombs said.
Also on Monday, the city council:
- Appointed Ahja Fox to serve as Aurora’s new poet laureate, succeeding Assetou Xango.
- Facilitated the swearing-in of interim Aurora Fire Rescue chief Allen Robnett by municipal judge Shawn Day.
- Voted unanimously to finalize a $2 million restaurant aid program funded with federal COVID-19 aid money, which will be used to match up to $300,000 of repairs and renovation work to help local bars and restaurants move into vacant spaces.
- Voted along party lines to approve a rezoning that will allow a Kum & Go gas station and convenience store to be built on the southwest corner of East Mississippi Avenue and South Kenton Way. Coombs, Marcano, Ruben Medina and Crystal Murillo cast votes in opposition, with Coombs and Marcano mentioning the number of existing gas stations in the area.
- Approved an intergovernmental agreement with Arapahoe County to add three new voting centers for the 2022 general election at the Beck Recreation Center, Aurora Center for Active Adults and Murphy Creek Golf Course.
Why is not the RTD a private enterprise rather than another government rathole down which taxpayers’ hard earned buck$ disappear &/or are unaccountably wasted?
If their mission/job/statement of work was publicly available as an RFP, perhaps we would see some innovative proposals to operate at a profit rather than out of taxpayers’, who may or may not want to ride it, pockets?
Because fares would be $22 .
Everybody benefits from RTD, even the people who don’t ride the bus. Busses and trains mean less people on the road, so even if you never get on the bus yourself because you only drive everywhere, you get less traffic, cheaper road maintenance costs, cleaner air. You also get the benefit of people around you having transportation, especially poorer people – and you might not think about it all the time, but you need poor people to be able to get to get to their jobs so that they can make your food, run your stores, etc; and so that they can buy things and engage in the economy that also supports you. You also benefit from the safety net – you may not ride the bus today, but if something in your life changes and you temporarily don’t have access to a car, you’ve got options available to you that you wouldn’t have without RTD existing. You pay a teeny tiny amount of taxes for these advantages – people who use the bus pay those taxes PLUS some of the highest fares in the nation, so THEY are actually subsidizing YOUR advantages, too. It’s not unfair for you to pay a much smaller amount than regular riders to have the advantages of a robust public transit system in your area – you’re actually getting a really good deal.
Excellent, really excellent….
“Voted along party lines to approve a rezoning that will allow a Kum & Go gas station and convenience store to be built on the southwest corner of East Mississippi Avenue and South Kenton Way.”
Gas at COSTCO, one at Mississippi and Havana, Peoria and Mississippi and the maverick Potomac and Mississippi. So WHY???? At Mississippi and Kenton???
Because the developer makes money on building the gas station, regardless of whether or not that has station is necessary or will be successful after it is built. The developer doesn’t care if it’s a good idea, they just care if they get paid. Developers buy mayors and city councils with dark money during elections, and then city councillors reimburse the developers by approving deals for them to build useless crap wherever they want.