RTD has had private contractors running many of their routes since May 1988. The legislation requiring this was originally sponsored by Bill Owens, before he was elected Governor of Colorado. Ostensibly, it was supposed to make RTD more efficient by adding competition to the bus lines. What it really did was to eliminate Union jobs and move that money to foreign corporations, paying much lower wages to the workers.

I am the first to admit that any company that exists without competition needs to have outside action to shake them up every so often. That applies especially to a bureaucracy, it even applies to a Union. I know this sounds vaguely Republican, but it is true. The problem lies in just what the results of the action are. If the desired action of the privatization law was to lower the wages of bus drivers, then it has succeeded. If the desired action was to make bus service more efficient in Denver then it has failed.

Efficient bus service means buses on time, serving the needs of all the public, and providing a pleasant trip for all. The RTD mission statement is "To meet our constituents' present and future public transit needs by offering safe, clean, reliable, courteous, accessible and cost-effective service throughout the district."

Statistics on the private contractors are very hard to come by. We do not know how RTD decides or counts the complaints or problems that exist. When asked, the management line is that private contractors provide service very comparable to RTD routes. The statistics they release show that private contractors are only slightly worse than in-house routes.

But as one who takes the complaints over the phone, I can tell you that the private contractors are much worse for running on-time, bus break-downs, driving incidents, and courtesy. I personally think that if RTD were to treat their divisions as they treat private contractors, then they would have better statistics to report.

The riding public is aware of the differences. They report "that bus is always late," meaning any time of the day or night. On some routes, people have quit complaining because it just never changes. Recently, RTD has been providing the private contractors with newer buses (apparently because newer contractors were smart enough to insist). That has improved matters greatly, since they do not have to rely on their underpaid mechanics to maintain the buses.

One of the public's biggest complaints is that "the drivers don't speak English." Bus drivers are required to call out the stops where another bus is connecting, and to communicate with passengers on ADA issues, etc. RTD assures us that all contractors are required to hire only drivers fluent in English for this reason.

There are not many private contractors running our fixed-route buses. There are only three companies that are able to run the routes, and historically each company before them has gone away, often because of their own management problems. There don't seem to be any other companies anywhere in the US who can take over the routes, so it isn't really free competition to speak of. The current companies running 50% of RTDs routes are:
... Laidlaw: Originally a Canadian Company, Laidlaw emerged from a bankruptcy in 2003 as Laidlaw International. Now listed on the New York Stock Exchange, They own Greyhound.
... First Transit: First Transit is owned by FirstGroup plc, a British Corporation. They are the United Kingdom's largest bus operator.
... Veolia: Currently changing their name from Connex, they are a French company. Since their acquisitions of Connex and ATC, they have become the largest private transportation company in the U.S.
... I will have more about these Contractors later.

Cal Marsella, RTD CEO, has stated several times recently that he would like to privatize more of RTD, including the Light Rail. When you think about it, what he is really saying is that he does not want to run transportation services. He wants to only run the administration services. In fact, he could privatize administration services too; that might be more to the point of privatizing. I guess that would put him out of a job too, though.

an old Denver Tramway Corporation Bus, circa 1958. Photo from RTD.