RTD's rendering shows the look of the new bus service called the Flatiron Flyer that it proposes to serve the Denver-Boulder corridor. (Courtesy RTD)

BOULDER — The Boulder Chamber is urging its members to protest a proposed Regional Transportation District fare plan for bus service to Denver that the Chamber sees as “inequitable.”

“This is an issue that’s critical to our economy. It’s mobility for our workforce,” said John Tayer, Boulder Chamber president. “We want to make sure RTD is maximizing the benefits of the investment and providing that service equitably.”

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The action coincides with RTD’s observance of “Stand Up 4 Transportation Day,” including a march and rally on Thursday in downtown Denver.

RTD has been holding public hearings in the Boulder Valley to discuss the district’s new bus rapid transit service between Boulder and Denver along U.S. Highway 36, scheduled to begin in January, as well as proposed changes to the system’s current fare structure.

The U.S. 36 service plan includes consolidating the various “B” regional routes and serving them with “Flatiron Flyer” vehicles. The plan would mean a 10.7 percent increase in service hours and 16 percent increase in the number of trips. Under the fare-restructuring plan, fares for the Boulder-Denver regional service would rise from $5 to $5.50.

Referring to a park-and-ride facility in southeast Boulder and the downtown Denver transit hub, the Boulder Chamber told its members in an email that “we feel it is inequitable for riders traveling from Table Mesa to Union Station to be charged more than twice the $2.50 fare that riders from Lincoln Station pay for a comparable distance on what is considered a premium service.”

Lincoln Station, along Interstate 25 in Douglas County just south of the C-470 beltway, is the current terminus of southeast light-rail service from downtown Denver. Light-rail commuters travel 18 miles between Lincoln Avenue and Union Station. Meanwhile, riders travel 24 miles between Table Mesa and Union Station on buses, not trains.

Tayer said members of the chamber’s advocacy team and “a number of members who support our positions” often attend RTD hearings. “They are great partners with us,” he said of RTD, “but at times it’s important for them to understand when we have concerns – and this issue has widespread interest in our community. Regardless of the modes, riders should have comparable rates.

People protesting the district’s plan for system-wide fare increases held signs Wednesday night outside RTD headquarters in Lower Downtown Denver before a hearing on the plan, and again today at the rally at Union Station. Most RTD officials attended the rally and were unavailable for comment.

When district voters approved RTD’s FasTracks plan in 2004, it included a Northwest Rail Line, a 41-mile high-capacity, fixed-guide-way transit project between Union Station and Longmont, passing through north Denver, Adams County, Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville and Boulder. However, the plans were stalled by the recession and costs for obtaining right-of-way from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad that far exceeded expectations.

The first 6.2-mile segment of the Northwest Rail Line – from Union Station to 71st Avenue and Lowell Boulevard in Westminster – is funded as part of the Eagle P3 project and is scheduled for completion in 2016. RTD’s proposed “Flatirons Flyer” bus rapid transit system is meant to substitute for that service until the promised rail line eventually is completed.