🚄 RTD votes to cut service by 10%

🚄 RTD Votes Against Price Hikes, Cuts Service by 10% Instead

After months of discussion over how to address a $200+ million budget deficit, the RTD Board of Directors voted Tuesday night to reject any fare increase but cut service by 10% next year. This move will heed community calls to preserve ticket prices and save the agency $20 million.

• What services will be cut? The board hasn’t made any decisions on specific lines yet. Tuesday’s vote merely established a goal to guide the debate on specific service reductions. In some budget models, RTD staff have suggested eliminating the 16th Street FreeRide, which saw 2.3 million riders in 2025. That could save RTD more than $9 million annually, but they must still find a way to recoup millions.
• What’s the big picture? Tuesday’s vote reflects a compromise on strategy. Some directors supported deeper service cuts and fare increases to balance the budget. Others see service cuts as a political liability if the agency wants to ask voters to approve a tax increase that could support increased service in the long term.
• What happens next? The agency says any service changes should be in place by June 2027. [Denverite]

🌳 Tensions Flare Over Lawn Watering as Drought Wears On

Denver Water has received more than 4,000 complaints since they launched their “waste water” tip line in May. At the same time, Denver residents had only reduced water consumption by 5 percent as of mid-July, significantly below the targeted 20% reduction. [Denver Post 🔐; Washington Post 🔐]

📜 City Council Considers Expanded Acknowledgement Practices

City Council member Shontel Lewis, who is also a 2027 mayoral candidate, is proposing the addition of a “labor acknowledgement” to City Council meetings. She is hoping to bring awareness to people forced into slave labor while recognizing the lasting legacy of inequality in Denver and the United States. Some council members expressed support for Lewis’ idea, and some asked for revisions to make the acknowledgement even more inclusive of other groups.

• This would expand upon the existing land acknowledgement practice City Council started in 2020 to recognize Denver as the former home to Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho communities. [Denver Post 🔐]

✈️ Are ICE Airport Arrests Becoming a Pattern?

Chantal Alejandra Morales Rojas, the woman taken into ICE custody from Denver International Airport earlier this month, could soon be released after a judge set her bond at $3,000. She is now just one of three women ICE officers have arrested at U.S. airports in the past week.

• In a separate incident, ICE officers arrested a woman from Belarus, who currently lives in the Denver area, at the Miami airport. Like Rojas, the Belarusian woman had a legal work permit. ICE has reportedly argued in cases like this that work permits do not equate to legal citizenship. [9News]

🏚️ Who Profits Off Denver’s Neglected Buildings?

Developer Brian Toerber, who recently led the $22 million renovation of the All Inn Hotel on East Colfax, is now setting his sights on the beautiful but neglected Spanish revival building at the corner of 19th Avenue and Grant Street in Uptown. The former high school opened in 1921 and served as a convent and shelter before falling into disrepair, leading to complaints from the community. Toerber reportedly hopes to convert the building into a new hotel. [Denver Gazette]

• How many other diamonds are waiting in the rough? Last week, we shared the Denver Post’s story about local investor John Crays, who is capitalizing on a legal loophole to buy up abandoned and derelict properties around the city. Learn more about why it’s so difficult for the city to do anything about neglected properties in this classic City Cast Denver podcast episode 👇