Is RTD Too Tough on Travelers? Service Alerts Can't Always Be Counted on

The one good thing that history traditionally says about Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is that he made the trains run on time. And that's one more issue facing the United States (as though we needed one more): even though we're suffering through a national descent into ignorant fascism, we still can't get mass transportation to stick to a schedule.

And what's worse, Service Alerts about delays and cancellations apparently only come through during certain hours. Which isn't exactly helpful if you happen to experience a delay outside of RTD's Customer Care’s Digital Customer Relations Liaison team's operating hours.

I recently ran into this very problem not once, but two weeks in a row, and on the same train — an important set of tracks to Denver residents — the A Line to DIA, the one thing that keeps your friends and family from having to trek out to almost-Nebraska to get you to a flight.

The first week, I was headed to the airport to do a signing for my new book Escaping Denver. There was a train that was supposed to leave the 38th and Blake station at 10:34 a.m. All good. I got there at 10:28, only to see the train pulling away. Was that a very late train from 10:19? Or for some reason did the 10:34 train leave more than five minutes early? Whatever the case, the schedule was clearly off; I waited for the next one, which did not come at 10:49 as scheduled, but a couple of minutes shy of 11. No Service Alert at all, but okay. Small hitch, right?

The next week, on August 18, I was heading to Tucson for a funeral. This time, I was planning to catch the 5:34 a.m. train from the same station. And again: nothing. The digital display at the stop claimed the next train was arriving on time, and then blithely slipped to the next scheduled time as though the train had come and gone as it should have, which it most definitely hadn't.

The guy next to me with four suitcases and two kids in tow was not happy. "Every damn time," he said, along with some expletives, and then he gathered himself and sighed out his anger before telling his kids with false confidence that it was no problem, and another train would be along soon.

I kept an eye on the Service Alerts page on RTD, expecting some kind of explanation about the missed train. Nothing. I kept refreshing the screen, thinking if there was an issue, surely something would be posted so we could all call someone — friends, family, an Uber — to help us make the flight that was now, suddenly and unexpectedly, in jeopardy.

Because this wouldn't have been my first encounter with the A Line breaking down completely. About a year ago, there was an issue that prevented the trains eastbound, and everyone aboard had to disembark at the Peoria station to wait for RTD buses to come get us. That day, I was lucky enough to barely make my flight. Others I'd been waiting with hadn't been so lucky.

And it's not just the A Line. Two summers ago, my son and I got trapped in an RTD fucktangle at the Fiddler's Green stop for nearly an hour waiting for a train, and then it took that train two full hours of stopping and starting to make it back to Union Station. 

So back to that early-morning train...it finally came at 5:58 a.m., almost exactly when the Service Alert finally hit the RTD website, informing us far too late that the 5:30 a.m. train out of Union was "canceled today due to excessive delay." Yeah, no kidding.

Turns out that at 2:30 that morning, "the crossing gates at northbound and southbound Quebec were not working as intended," according to RTD Senior Specialist in Public Relations Tara Broghammer. These are some of the same crossings that RTD had such issues with back in 2017, resulting in it having to station human flaggers 24/7 at each one to ensure safety. "In the interim of the repair, travel time was added to multiple A Line trips that had to go through the crossings," Broghammer added. "Some trips may have been canceled for other A Line trips to depart at their scheduled departure times."

That comment, while it essentially and somewhat frustratingly boils down to explaining how time works, suggests some other questions. One, what's up with the technology at those crossings that this happened at all? Two, why was the Service Alert so late in coming, especially given that the problem had existed for over three hours by then? And three, if RTD has digital signage at every stop, why does it not reflect real-world arrival times?

"During the RTD Board of Directors' Operations, Safety, and Security Committee meeting on May 14, 2025, staff gave an overview presentation about real-time information, service alerts, digital signage, mobile applications, and other customer-facing communications," Broghammer said in an email. "The presentation materials start on packet page 1,166."

As one might imagine from being sent an over 1,200-page document in response to a few simple questions, this was less than helpful. But Broghammer attempted to clarify: "A recording of the meeting is also available online," she offered, though that link just goes to a page full of other links to the entire slate of 143 meetings over calendar year 2025.

But wait, Broghammer finally does provide some specifics before signing off and inviting me to pretend like this has answered all my questions! "RTD is in the process of reviewing how service alerts are managed across the entire agency to ensure best practices are developed, adopted, and followed," Broghammer said. "As part of an initial assessment, the agency identified an opportunity to expand its hours of operation for the team of employees who provide customers with real-time information. That change was implemented two weeks ago, and more information about the expanded hours is available online on RTD's News Stop page. Additional enhancements to RTD’s digital signage are also slated to be adopted in Q4 of this year."

The change that Broghammer points to began August 4, expanding coverage of RTD's Customer Care’s Digital Customer Relations Liaison team to 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays, as well as "certain holidays when RTD services are running on a regular schedule," according to the article.

None of which would have helped at 5:30 a.m. for any of us trying to get to the airport on time. Or anyone trying to take a train at night or anytime on Sundays.

It's great that RTD has expanded its hours for customer care. But the question remains: shouldn't RTD staff someone responsible for Service Alerts at all times when trains are running? Yes, it's an expense, but it seems like an important one. And it's also great that "enhancements to digital signage are slated to be adopted in Q4," but why has this taken so long to address? Travelers have been complaining about information not being posted in real-time for years. Denver commuters don't need to know what should be happening with the trains; they need to know what is happening.

RTD faces some real challenges with its public image, and has for years now. But issues of declining ridership are no mystery: it's a public service that isn't fully geared for public service. Not yet. It could be. It should be. Mass transit is important. It should also be dependable and responsive to public needs.

Broghammer included in one of her emails the following statistics: "Overall, for 2024, 98.1 percent of RTD’s A Line trips operated at regularly planned service," she wrote. "For May 2025, commuter rail lines A, B and G operated with service availability of 95.22 percent and on-time performance at 95.59 percent."

Okay, great. But Service Alerts aren't for the 90-something percent of the trains that do what they're supposed to do. They're for the single-digit percentage of trains that don't. And when a Denver RTD passenger is the one in a hundred people who don't make it to their destination on time? It doesn't matter to them in that moment that 99 of their fellow travelers did.