First, the man sitting across from Emma Griffin as she rode light rail home moved next to her. Then he inched closer. He whispered in her ear and touched her inner thigh.
“I was thinking: I need to get off this car. Where’s the next stop?” When the train stopped southwest of downtown, she bolted. “I just ran from the area as fast as I could away,” she said.
Griffin was alone with the man on the train and figured calling police was pointless because they wouldn’t arrive in time. Besides, she feared reaching for her phone would escalate the situation.
She later used RTD’s Transit Watch app to report the March 4, 2024, incident, becoming one of the thousands of people each month who reach out to RTD about safety issues. She also thinks twice before riding public transit.
Rider concerns about safety have become a primary challenge as RTD struggles to regain passengers.
“Safety and security are by far the things I hear most,” newly elected director Patrick O’Keefe said.
But many light rail trains — 81% as of July — lack the “live-look” surveillance camera and response systems installed on buses last year using a $2.4 million Department of Homeland Security grant. (Those systems let bus drivers push a silent alarm button to activate surveillance so RTD dispatchers can see inside and quickly retrieve images for police.) State regulators have required that RTD install the live look surveillance on all light rail trains by June 2027, an agency document shows.
RTD managers have committed to hiring more police officers. They’ve deployed about 100, in addition to contract Allied Security guards who collectively provide 8,600 hours a week of coverage at stations. RTD has set a goal of deploying 150 transit police officers by the end of this year. Agency officials also are negotiating agreements with partner police forces that could speed responses on buses and trains across RTD’s 2,345 square-mile service area, which spans eight counties. About 45 staffers have volunteered to serve occasionally as “transit ambassadors” wearing bright yellow vests to deter misconduct on light rail trains where operators up front otherwise are the only RTD employees on board.
Calling for help
Yet riders remain fearful.
Over the past three years, RTD riders contacted dispatchers requesting police 130,280 times (43,106 in 2024, 45,847 in 2023, and 41,327 in 2022), according to agency records. On average last year, riders made 3,592 calls a month seeking help, contacting RTD dispatchers by voice (303-299-2911), text (303-434-9100), or using RTD’s Transit Watch app, data show. The RTD tally does not include riders’ 911 calls.
Numbers from the Transit Watch app give some insight into why riders call for help: Illegal drug use was the most common, followed by fights and disturbances, indecent exposure, non-violent sexual harassment and 11 reports of sexual assault using the app last year.
The bulk of security problems reported on the app last year occurred on light rail trains — 1,627 incidents. Buses had 203 incidents and 943 incidents occurred at bus and rail stations.
RTD officials did not provide data requested under the Colorado Open Records Act on how often police responded to calls for help. RTD general manager and chief executive Debra Johnson declined to answer questions about rider fears.
“If there’s an emergency, call 911,” agency spokesman Stuart Summers said. Police response times “depend on where you are at. You will have a response as soon as possible.”
Violence and misconduct on RTD buses and trains often spills in from surrounding streets, Summers said. “RTD cannot solve these problems alone. A lot of these problems extend beyond transit.”
Brainstorming change
Two directors on RTD’s 15-member board — Chris Nicholson and Brett Paglieri — are setting up a “welcoming transit environment working group” and planning public meetings.
“How is the RTD going to change itself over the next half decade to respond to a world that is meaningfully different than it was five or 10 years ago, especially with regard to security?” said Nicholson, who lives downtown and often rides buses and trains.
“The solution is to make RTD a space that is welcoming for customers and decidedly unwelcoming for people who would do harm. Cameras are one part of that solution.”
Grassroots public transit advocates at Greater Denver Transit said safety is essential for restoring RTD ridership, which stood at 65.2 million last year, 38% below the 2019 level of 105.8 million.
If RTD provided frequent and reliable service, public transit in metro Denver eventually could attract a critical mass of riders whose strength in numbers could help ensure civility, GDT co-founder Richard Bamber said. But, for now, better policing and surveillance is urgent, Bamber said.
When he was riding an RTD bus equipped with the live-look surveillance around 10:15 p.m. on Dec. 22 and leaning over his luggage, a man bumped him. “I’d dropped something, bent down to pick it up, and he barged past me. I said, ‘Whoa!’ He turned around and yelled at me.”
When Bamber stood, the man punched him in the face. A camera caught the punch before the man fled the bus at the stop near the intersection of Stout and 21st streets.
Bamber later obtained an image he could use to file a report with Denver Police. He declined to do so, figuring police couldn’t track the assailant. “I wasn’t really hurt,” Bamber said.
Instead, he reported the incident to RTD’s directors at a recent board meeting and showed them the photo of the man’s outstretched arm and fist connecting with his face.
GDT members looked into transit police patrols in other U.S. cities and found that a typical transit police officer in St. Louis rides on a bus or light rail train 900 times a month, compared with RTD transit police boarding trains and buses 40 times over three months last year, according to an agency document.
“We’re angry about this,” Bamber said. “There are so many incidents that put people off using public transit. For every actual crime, there are probably another 10 incidents that are threats or anti-social behavior,” he said, calculating he could have spent $9 for an Uber ride home in December instead of his $2.75 bus fare.
“Is it worth it to me to save $6.75? We want RTD to put people on the buses and trains. And any move to upgrade surveillance technology is a good one. But is the surveillance used to respond?”
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