Regional Transportation District officials plan to expand bus and train service in 2025.

A shortage of drivers has prevented RTD for years from resuming bus and rail service, which it had drastically cut during the pandemic. Now RTD officials say they have increased the number of bus drivers enough that they plan to resume a “tangible” level of service for the first time since 2021.

“I can’t give you a percentage, but I would say it will be noticeable,” Chris Deines, RTD’s general manager of transportation, said in an interview.

RTD has also hired staff for the light rail, but not to the same extent as for the buses. Still, officials said, repairs that made the light rail system slow and unreliable this summer are progressing, and rail service is expected to resume in January.

“There is clearly light at the end of the tunnel,” said Dave Jensen, RTD’s deputy general manager of rail operations.

RTD staff will soon present a service improvement plan to the board. If approved, the expansion will go into effect in January. CPR News obtained a recording of an internal meeting in which the plan was briefly discussed. RTD also made two of its executives available for questions.

Deines and Jensen say the agency will restore service gradually. They don’t want to have to cut service months after it resumes if, for example, more operators retire than expected. They plan to continue expanding it even after the improvements in January, Deines said.

“We will remain modest until we see that the hiring trend we observed in 2024 is sustainable,” he said.

However, due to long-term budget cuts, RTD is no longer trying to become what it was before the pandemic. Instead, RTD is gradually working to implement its “System Optimization Plan,” which, while revising routes, aims to restore service to just 85 percent of 2019 service levels.

A vote this fall to fund RTD through an exemption from TABOR limits could also have significant implications for RTD’s long-term financial health.

But RTD officials say the plan to improve performance next year means the agency is on the verge of a turnaround.

“I think there is hope for the future,” Jensen said.

The number of bus drivers has increased significantly.

In May 2022, RTD employed only 750 bus drivers – far fewer than the planned number of 952. By May of this year, the number had grown to 875.

Deines said the increase is due to hiring additional recruiters to speed up the hiring process. Recruiting new applicants at career fairs has also been successful recently, he said. Bus stands are now over 90 percent full, although some of the new hires are still in training and won’t be ready to run their routes full for several months.

One candidate for the new drivers’ deployment location is the popular AB bus line between Boulder and Denver International Airport.

“I LOVE the AB bus line to the airport. The problem is, everyone else does too!” one passenger wrote to RTD in June, describing standing-room-only rides.

Deines said authorities also hope to restore lines that were completely shut down during the pandemic and increase the frequency of services on the reduced lines.

RTD plans to hire 20 drivers to expand service in January 2025, Deines said. Others will be needed to keep the buses running when existing drivers retire, go on vacation or are otherwise absent.

“Just because I have a hundred more than a year ago doesn’t mean the net number will be a hundred,” Deines said, adding: “We want to be careful not to overextend ourselves.”

The increase in personnel on the light rail is not quite as strong, but things are improving here too.

Staffing levels in rail have also improved in recent months. In May, nearly 170 of a total of 202 positions were filled. The number of light rail training classes is limited, Jensen said, which limits staffing levels.

Light rail operations have suffered in recent months not because of a lack of staff, Jensen said, but rather because of the combination of three very disruptive maintenance projects. One of them is nearing final completion: RTD will complete repairs to retaining wall caps on its routes parallel to Interstate 25 by Labor Day.

“This is a huge deal for us,” Jensen said, because the work required trains to use only one track on some sections of the line, adding to delays caused by other projects.

The downtown rail reconstruction project will be temporarily paused this fall so that trains can return to downtown until the project resumes next summer.

Workers are also making progress on the third project. Earlier this summer, RTD introduced a more stringent track inspection system that uncovered more problems and caused trains to slow to as little as 5 mph in some sections. Last week, two new slow-speed zones were established in the southern Denver metro area, but Jensen said any new restrictions “should be minimal.”

“I think we’re probably 85 percent through the entire system,” Jensen said.

RTD disappointed riders and transit advocates when it scrapped a plan to return the E and H lines to 15-minute service in the fall, instead moving trains to every 30 minutes. But Jensen said his goal is to get the system’s infrastructure and staffing in place to return to 15-minute service in January – and keep it there.

“That has yet to be decided,” he said. “But that is our goal and what we are working towards.”

Jensen said he knows how difficult it has been for riders to cope with the cascading impacts of all the maintenance projects, adding that it makes the system stronger and more resilient. Maintenance workers and operators are also overwhelmed, Jensen said. And Lance Longenbohn, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1001, said it is affecting morale.

“The operators are being put under a lot of pressure, especially when it comes to light rail. It’s just a nightmare for them,” he said.

Jensen also said that RTD’s only company-owned commuter rail line, the N Line, is mostly at full capacity and that the contractor that operates the A, B and G commuter rail lines also has “no problems” finding employees.