Nietfeld, who is blind and has a rare neurological disorder, used RTD’s Access-on-Demand program to order an Uber from her workplace to his school, and then another to the hospital.
“That would not be possible with the traditional Access-a-Ride program,” she says.
Rides through the Access-a-Ride program cannot be made day-of and must be scheduled one to seven days in advance, according to RTD. However, Access-on-Demand is a supplemental service where customers eligible for Access-a-Ride can use third parties such as rideshare and taxi services up to sixty times per month, with RTD providing $25 toward the cost of each ride.
“This service provides so many of us with real-time transportation to live the lives that we want to live, go the places that we need to go, and dependably, reliably allows us to contribute fully in society,” Nietfeld says.
But that might change as RTD re-examines funding for its paratransit system. According to the public transit authority, the demand and costs of the service have grown at an unsustainable rate.
The National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, along with other local chapters of the NFB, are concerned that a service that has helped so many people could become less effective, but RTD says the program now costs about $12 million per year to administer.
While Access-a-Ride is required by the Americans With Disabilities Act to supplement services for those who live or travel within three-quarters of a mile of RTD bus routes or rail stations, Access-on-Demand is a supplementary program beyond the requirements of the ADA and can be used throughout the entire RTD service area. Access-on-Demand also runs 24/7 compared to Access-a-Ride, which only operates within usual bus and train hours.
In February, RTD general manager and CEO Deborah Johnson asked the American Public Transportation Association to conduct a review of RTD’s paratransit services. The review came up with three main recommendations, one of which was overhauling the Access-on-Demand program. Suggested changes include charging a base fare for trips, disallowing rides that cost over a certain threshold, capping monthly trips at thirty to forty, and decreasing the program’s boundaries and hours to match those of Access-a-Ride.
Access-on-Demand Might Be Too Popular
“When the Access-on-Demand program was first initiated, the monthly cost of operations was roughly $75,000,” Fred Worthen, assistant general manager of bus operations for RTD, said at a September 24 RTD board meeting. “The program has grown to over $1 million in monthly expenses.” In 2022, RTD paid $10 per trip on average, but the agency pays $16.50 per trip on average today, Worthen added. That is still less than the cost per trip of Access-a-Ride, according to Worthen, but he added that RTD did not intend to create a new group of users with Access-on-Demand, which was founded to take pressure off Access-a-Ride. Instead, 35 percent of RTD’s paratransit customers now only use Access-on-Demand, compared to 15 percent that use both Access-a-Ride and Access-on-Demand.
Though Worthen didn’t share whether that 35 percent is made up of new paratransit users or users who switched from Access-a-Ride to Access-on-Demand, he said that RTD sees 63,000 trips through Access-on-Demand per month. Additionally, the program is projected to cost $1.2 million per month by the end of the year.
Potential cuts and changes aren’t intended to eliminate the service but preserve it, he added.
“We see the value of this,” Worthen said. “We see what it does provide for individuals, so we're trying to find that balance where we're providing services that meet a majority of our consumers’ needs but, again, are equitable and fiscally sustainable and operationally sustainable.”
During the September board meeting, several Denver-area residents expressed concern about possible cuts to Access-on-Demand. They asked for more data about the program’s current operation and how much money RTD would really save with the proposed cuts.
“There are challenges and barriers that we deal with on a daily basis due to our disabilities, and this is something that has really allowed us to bridge that disparity that we have with other parts of the general public,” Chaz Davis, director of youth services for the Colorado Center for the Blind, tells Westword.
Davis says that by cutting the stipend program for rideshare and taxi service, RTD would be “pulling the rug from underneath us" and leave "us on our backs.”
Through its short existence, Access-on-Demand has undergone several changes without much notification to those who use the service, according to the NFB. The biggest and most upsetting change was ending the ability to book multi-stop trips through the program. According to RTD, however, that feature was never supposed to be available.
Davis used the function to take his children to daycare and ride to work with one booking. Now he has to arrange for two separate rides. Advocates say many users found out about the change through warnings from the Access-on-Demand program that they would be suspended if they continued to book multi-stop trips.
According to Worthen, only Uber allows multi-stop trips, so the service isn’t equitable. Uber also can’t remove the option from its app just for RTD Access-on-Demand users, so RTD has to manually monitor rides to make sure customers are complying with the no-multi-stop policy.
Right now, RTD spends around $300,000 each month on administrative costs for the program, a portion of which goes to monitoring rides to identify disallowed multi-stop trips, he added.
When RTD board chair Erik Davidson asked whether multi-stop rides were inequitable to companies other than Uber that may not offer such rides or to the people using Access-on-Demand services, RTD staff asked to take the conversation offline or discuss those intricacies at another time.
CEO Johnson noted that because many Uber and Lyft vehicles are not wheelchair-accessible, the Access-on-Demand program created an inequity in the RTD system, which is otherwise entirely wheelchair-accessible.
The lack of notification about cutting multi-stop trips along with other lapses in communication between RTD and paratransit users has advocates concerned that paratransit users won’t be considered enough in RTD’s discussion of possible changes.
Access-on-Demand Supplements for RTD's "Depleted" System
National Federation of the Blind of Colorado president Jessica Beecham says the high usage of Access-on-Demand is in part because Access-a-Ride has more restrictions and hasn’t been reliable in the past. Plus, Beecham adds, RTD’s fixed-route bus and rail system has been inconsistent since the pandemic, so riders are looking for other options. “It's no surprise that new people signed up for a system that actually works,” Beecham says. “When you deplete a fixed-route system that used to allow people to navigate with some ease around the city and you make it almost impossible to get from place to place, you're certainly going to have a lot more people jumping ship.”
Additionally, Beecham says, the review of RTD’s paratransit services lacked clarity about whether proposed cuts would save RTD a significant amount of money.
Worthen said Access-a-Ride was considered on-time for around 70 percent of trips in 2023, but as of March 2024, the agency has adopted new software that brought the number of punctual pickups up to 90 percent.
According to Johnson, the review was meant to garner recommendations that RTD would study and gather feedback on, so it is a starting point, not a final determination.
To get feedback, RTD has rolled out a paratransit customer survey asking about the district’s two main offerings and how much people would be willing to pay for potential levels of service after RTD implements changes. RTD has also sent a survey to other transit agencies to see how they operate their paratransit programs.
According to Stuart Summers, chief communications and engagement officer for RTD, findings of both surveys and other public feedback will be shared with the RTD board in November. Summers said RTD plans to host several meetings with stakeholder groups in October. The goal is for the board to consider changes in November, with updates implemented as part of RTD’s May 2025 service changes.
Beecham says the timeline for public engagement isn’t long enough.
“I really wish that instead of rushing through a decision, they would take some time to be really thoughtful and thorough,” she says.
