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

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.

It’s an expensive proposition, too: “‘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.”

I knew it was bad but I didn’t know it was that bad.