Posted by As much of a public transit advocate as I have been throughout the years, my wife is very much a car person. And yet she is the reason I truly understand those who don’t often ride transit or use alternative transportation. Amanda is clear that she would like transit to be a good option, but being a woman, the experience is often very different. Couple that with the fact that she has always equated the car with freedom, since she grew up in a rural suburb of Rochester, New York, where a car is the defining difference between having options and having none at all.
That being said, Amanda supports my advocacy because she knows that, while American transit is grossly inadequate, she would like to see more sustainable and equitable mobility become a priority in our country.
So when my wife texted me from Denver where she was attending a conference and informed me that she and her co-workers wanted to take the train from their hotel to downtown, I immediately hopped on the internet and began planning their route. Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) boasts an amazing 113 miles of rail service, and I quickly found a station that was a 5 minute Uber from their hotel. Dry Creek Station was on the E-line, which would take Amanda and her co-workers directly into iconic Union Station in Downtown Denver.
I texted her all the information, including the app to download and purchase tickets, arrival times (trains on this line depart every 44 minutes after the hour from Dry Creek Station) and even what to look for on the digital display on the train as it arrived (Union Station, not Peoria).
I was overjoyed, hoping to provide a conduit to a positive transit experience for a small group of people who might otherwise have chosen a different option. So when Amanda sent me a photo from the station platform, I was borderline giddy.
Knowing it would bring me joy, she even took video of the southbound train to Peoria arriving at the station. The Northbound train to Union Station was due to arrive just moments later. According to the board, the northbound train to downtown Denver was just minutes away on the other track.
And then came the texts:
I frantically checked the schedules that I had so thoroughly researched. I checked for service disruption notifications. I pulled up the live RTD metro tracker, only to find no northbound train on the map. Furthermore, when I logged on to the tracker, a pop-up stated that not all trains would appear on the tracker. Not much help there. The texting continued:
It was in the mid-90s outside with little-to-no cover. I was so frustrated for my wife and her colleagues. And while it was frustrating for them, concert-goers waiting on the platform were encouraged to skip the traffic and save money by taking the train when they purchased their tickets. Now, they were going to be late.
No announcements, no information on the arrival board. Just a group of people who tried to give public transit a shot, only for it to fail as only American mass transit can.
In Japan, trains have a dauntingly high on-time rate. And if a train is a mere 5-minutes late, a certificate is printed for each passenger to show to their employer. While visiting Inverness, Scotland for our honeymoon years ago, we noticed that the city of just 23,000 residents featured 40+ train departures per day. There are thousands of examples of why American transit, especially rail, falls horrifyingly flat compared to nations who’s GDP is microscopic in comparison.
Back to my wife and her colleagues, the next text I received was from her in an Uber. They made it to downtown, but they did so much later than originally planned. Many of the shops and boutiques had closed for the weekday evening and instead of using their pre-purchased $2.75 train tickets, they spent $75 on an Uber.
Because my wife knows me, she will no doubt give public transit another shot in the future. She supports my advocacy, because she wants to see practical improvements as well. Though after our previous experience in Cleveland, and now this one, I can’t help but put myself in her shoes and see that the car is almost always the better option in the U.S.
This is not an indictment of the RTD. Rather it’s an example of why people in the U.S. choose driving over public transit, even when the transit option is less expensive and far more convenient. When transit agencies across the country are fighting for scraps of funding just to provide sub-standard service, something is very very wrong. We build and maintain unimaginable miles of roads, bridges and highways, but God forbid our trains and buses run with any kind of frequency, run on time, or run at all. Something has to change.