RTD’s institutional racism on display with subsidized transit ‘equity’

By Jon Caldara

I assume you felt the magic in the air a couple Tuesdays ago. We all did. There’s only one day of the year children get more excited than Christmas morning. And that, of course, is Transit Equity Day!

As in most American homes, we hung up Transit Equity decorations as the kids helped with baking equity cookies. I had a Dickens of a time getting the little ones settled into bed on Transit Equity Eve.

In the morning, we all ran to the nearest bus stop, singing songs of civil disobedience. The children wiggled in anticipation, waiting for the local bus to lumber near. And, oh, the joy on their little faces when they hopped on that belching, bumbling bus. They squealed with delight, for that morning the bus ride was free, 100% paid for from your tax money.

Transit Equity Day is an invention of the Biden administration for yet more virtue signaling to the identity politics crowd. But it can serve a bigger purpose — highlighting that public transit is truly and viciously racist.

There’s no ‘free’ ride

Transit Equity Day is Feb. 4, Rosa Parks’ birthday, the brave civil rights icon who wouldn’t give up her bus seat. To signal their virtue, the Regional Transportation District (but not those cheap bigots at the Colorado Springs’ transit agency) now gives everyone free fares on Feb. 4.

But, but Rosa Parks didn’t ride for free.

In fact, that was the whole point. She paid full price and, therefore, had a legal right to the same level of service as anyone else.

You can tell how successful all RTD’s “free” bus days and months (yes, months) are because of the eerily empty roads throughout the Denver metro area on those days. Masses of commuters abandon their cars to huddle on some crime-filled, dawdling, rolling homeless shelter of a bus or trolley.

The Montgomery bus boycott Rosa sparked was successful because it took away a massive amount of revenue from the bus company. That couldn’t happen today. RTD riders only pay 5% of what it costs to provide their ride.

“Free” rides don’t improve ridership because RTD is already nearly free, 95% government subsidized. Said differently, a $5.50 “all day” ticket actually costs $110 in expenses, with taxpayers picking up the difference.

Imagine if, instead of charging $5.50, RTD offered its riders $103.50 (one less dollar than the real cost) not to ride the bus. Who wouldn’t take that deal? And RTD would save money in the process!

Instead of “free” fares on Transit Equity Day, RTD should charge full fare without subsidies, the full $110, and educate the transit dependent how little service they get for the money spent in their name.

Racism on display

Like most transit agencies formed and funded under the “war on poverty,” RTD’s mission was to serve those who couldn’t afford a car. The mission was never to disproportionately tax the poor, via sales tax, to subsidize white suburbanites who have cars but wish to avoid paying for parking at Nuggets games.

If there is such a thing as systemic racism, governments like Colorado’s Regional Transportation District are the greatest oppressors. They build systems designed to guarantee people with money are free to go places where the least among us can’t follow.

Without mobility to bring you where you need to be, when you need be there, you will forever be a second-class citizen. You won’t have the opportunities for employment, housing and education someone with the most run-down car will have. You’ll be forced to live and work on a bus route, and you better have your family, friends, medical care and churches on that route, too.

Don’t believe me? Go a month without a car.

If RTD’s elected board of directors weren’t the racists they are, if they weren’t beholden to crony business interests, if they cared more for the transit dependent they were entrusted to serve than their own empire-building, they would immediately take their 95% tax subsidy and give it directly to the transit-dependent poor in the form of mobility vouchers.

Let them ride taxis, Ubers, have a friend drive them or, heaven forbid, buy their own used car.

But they don’t wish to give the poor real transit equity. They wish to force the poor to live as they dictate. They will never give up their power over people of color.

What would Rosa Parks do?