This Colorado Visitor Was Frozen Out of Union Station. Why?

The first week of March, 63-year-old Elizabeth Woods flew from western New York to Denver to ski. She'd planned her trip meticulously: She'd take the RTD A Line train to Union Station, stay at Hostel Fish, then take Bustang, the Colorado Department of Transportation's statewide bus service, to Glenwood Springs to ski at Sunlight Mountain. On the way back, she’d do the same in reverse.

Unfortunately, her return trip didn't go as planned.

“There was something that happened at Loveland Pass, and the traffic on the highway was backed up,” she recalls. Bustang was supposed to drop her off at Union Station at 10 p.m., giving her time to shower and change at the hostel before she took the train to the airport around 3:45 a.m. to catch her early flight. Because of the delay, though, she didn't get to Union Station until almost 2 a.m.; the first train to the airport would leave at 3 a.m. Woods decided to just wait at Union Station for an hour.

“But there was a lady there to meet us, and she immediately corralled everybody — didn't ask a single question — and brought us up to this one door that was locked,” Woods remembers. “She unlocked the door and said, ‘You need to leave,’ then locked it behind us, and at that point, you're literally on the platform.”

With nowhere else to go, Woods was stuck in the cold on the train platform along with many people who clearly weren't travelers, all milling around in an effort to stay warm. She was soon approached by a man who appeared to be homeless and told her his name was Michael; he asked if she’d like him to teach her a trick for staying warm. Soon another person approached and asked if she'd use her phone to look up a car rental for him. Woods did, but Michael got frustrated with the other man and walked away, then came back.

Over the next hour, Woods saw several more altercations between people while she felt abandoned by station personnel. “I've never been to a Union Station that's closed,” she says. “That's like an oxymoron. You're supposed to go to Union Station to make a connection. You’re supposed to be able to wait in a heated room and be able to sit down on a bench and wait, but not in Denver. That's because they have a homelessness problem. I get it, but I don't think this is the solution.”

In fact, Woods says, befriending Michael was probably what kept her safe: “If I'd have been there by myself and he wasn't with me, who knows who would have approached me?”

According to both the Regional Transportation District, which oversees the bus concourse and light-rail trains going to and from the station, and Sage Hospitality Group, which manages Union Station itself, both the station and the bus concourse behind the station are closed for cleaning for several hours every night. The Union Station building is closed for cleaning Monday through Saturday from 2 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. and Sunday from midnight to 5:30 a.m., while the bus concourse is closed from 12:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. daily.

“Our facilities maintenance supervisor confirmed that we have been installing signs on the doors that indicate we are closed during that time frame,” says Tina Jaquez, public relations manager for RTD. “We keep the station open during times when there is bus service coming in and out of the station from 4:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.”

But for a traveler coming into Denver, those closures might not be immediately clear; when you search Union Station on Google, it says it's open 24 hours. “That is complete nonsense. They're not,” Woods says. “They're lying on their website, and that's one thing I really don't like. I’m not a liar myself, and so I don't tolerate it, particularly from Denver Union Station.”

According to Julie Dunn, a Union Station spokesperson, the correct hours are listed on Union Station’s website; the building is open 24 hours for hotel guests and Amtrak customers (a door is kept unlocked for them), but not for other people, she says. While the Google result doesn’t populate those details, Dunn says Union Station has asked for an update to the Google hours in order to not confuse visitors.

"As tens of thousands of people pass through Denver Union Station daily, a thorough cleaning is required nightly," Dunn notes, "and we try to minimize the disruption to guests."

Woods's trip was disrupted before she arrived at Union Station. According to CDOT, if a Bustang route can't be completed, the district will get hotel rooms for stranded travelers. But Woods's trip was completed, even if it took hours longer than anticipated.

"Generally, if a bus arrives at its destination, albeit late, the passengers are not provided with hotel accommodations," says Tamara Rollins, CDOT communications manager. "However, our goal is always to provide excellent customer service, and together with our operators, we will evaluate extentuating circumstances and do what is appropriate for our customers."

RTD has jurisdiction over the bus concourse, but no specific closure times for that facility were listed on its page for the facility until Westword pointed it out. The website has since been changed to reflect the closure for cleaning.

Still, Woods says, her experiences at Union Station didn’t match the hours on either website. When she'd first arrived in Denver and attempted to enter Union Station, a security guard told her the building didn’t open until 6 a.m.; although the guard unlocked the door at 5:57, he still wouldn't let her enter for three more minutes.

As Woods headed for the A Line after a cold hour on the platform, a conductor asked for a ticket, saying she couldn’t board the train without one. “I know I can buy a ticket on the train, and that is my intention,” she says she told him. “I am not whipping out a wallet on this platform. If you don't like it, throw me off.” She was allowed to enter and sit down, and she purchased a mobile ticket online.

Although she understands that the Union Station area has security problems, she doesn't think the restrictive solutions are helping. “We were met by a conductor, and four security guards were on the train,” she says. “My question is, why do you have four security guards on the train if there's no problem? And if there's a problem, why are you persecuting the elderly because you don't can't deal with your problem?”

RTD has been trying to deal with the problem for more than a year, after issues with crime and drug use came to a head in December 2021. In response to alarms from both the drivers' union and Mayor Michael Hancock, the Denver Police Department took action, stepping up enforcement for drug offenses. The Union Station concourse bathrooms were closed while they were renovated to provide more security; RTD removed benches and access to electrical outlets.

The bathrooms are now reopened with rules posted outside, along with a security guard: Only two people are allowed in at once, and they must first be scanned by the security guard.

Joel Fitzgerald, the new head of RTD's police force, wants to expand the number of district officers, and RTD is also examining making ongoing changes such as adding turnstiles, updating ticketing policies and making upgrades to interior and exterior lighting. “Additionally, our transit police are deployed throughout the district we serve and to the areas where they are needed the most, and that includes the Denver Union Station bus concourse and surrounding transit area,” Jaquez says.

Woods wonders how all of these supposed safety improvements would do anything to help someone in her situation, stuck with no place to go in the middle of the night. Her situation was unusual, according to RTD, because no bus routes, including Bustang's, are scheduled to come in during the time the bus concourse is closed.

Woods isn't planning to test that out. If she returns to Denver, she'll avoid Union Station. “It just really left a bad taste in my mouth,” she says. “I wish we could solve our homelessness issue in the U.S. It's really, really sad.”