Transit use is on the rise in cities across the country as commuters respond to higher gasoline prices, but not in metro Denver, where sagging ridership has helped prompt RTD to dust off an old ad campaign to promote more bus and light-rail use.

For all of 2010, total transit ridership for the Regional Transportation District was down about 1 percent from 2009, and in January, bus and light-rail boardings declined 2.5 percent from January 2010, according to RTD data.

Agency officials say the area’s high jobless rate and RTD’s recent fare hike most likely contributed to a drop in ridership.

“While you might expect a slight increase in ridership from higher gas prices, we feel that unemployment and a fare increase in January 2011 have offset the increase,” said Terry Howerter, RTD chief financial officer.

The average Colorado price for a gallon of regular gasoline Friday was $3.45, up 23 cents from a month ago and 74 cents from a year ago, according to AAA.

A recent American Public Transportation Association study of transit agencies across the country found that high gas prices contributed to strong ridership growth in many cities in February, including a 10 percent rise in Philadelphia; a 19 percent increase at the Tampa, Fla., regional transit agency; and a 22.8 percent increase at Triangle Transit in the Raleigh, N.C., area.

The association said if regular gas hits $4 a gallon, it could lead to an extra 670 million passenger trips by transit users nationally, bringing the total to 10.8 billion trips a year.

As high as gas prices are in metro Denver now, they still were lower last week than in nine other cities, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and Seattle, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Return to “Drive less”

RTD is reviving its “Drive less. Ride more.” ad campaign from three years ago, when transit ridership in metro Denver jumped 10 percent in reaction to near $4-a-gallon gasoline.

The agency will be marketing the benefits of riding RTD, in part “as a way to battle high gas prices,” said spokesman Scott Reed.

To promote more transit use, RTD in coming weeks will be putting ads on buses, wrapping a light-rail car with a promotional message, erecting banners at stations and other locations, and running direct mail and newspaper advertisements, Reed said.

The program will be low cost, he added, since RTD will be using its own vehicles and locations, as well as “media trade agreements,” for much of the advertising.

With such agreements, RTD trades its bus and rail ads for radio, television or newspaper advertisements, he said.

A number of RTD users on Friday said rising gas prices are only reinforcing their decision to stick with transit.

“I don’t drive downtown so I can avoid the cost of parking and wear and tear on my car; now, it’s also gas prices,” said Rob Allen, who was boarding the HX bus to Superior/Louisville after work.

Light-rail rider Doug Bottlemy said he has already noticed the impact of rising gas prices on his daily commute.

“It’s more crowded on the trains and harder to find parking,” said Bottlemy of Englewood, who was boarding a train at 16th and Stout streets in downtown Denver. He parks near the Oxford station on the Southwest Corridor line.

Like Bottlemy, Milla Crichton of Aurora is a regular rail commuter.

“You have to budget for gas because it is such a huge portion of your income,” Crichton said, before boarding her train to the Nine Mile station.

Ways to lift revenue

RTD is facing a $22 million deficit in its operating budget next year, and the agency’s board of directors has convened a “fiscal sustainability” task force to propose revenue-boosting and expense-reduction measures that might help close the budget gap.

The fare hike this year was the third in the past four years at RTD. The other increases were implemented in January 2008 and January 2009.

It is not yet clear whether another fare increase will be among the recommendations aimed at erasing the deficit that the task force will make to directors later this year.

Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com