Remember how Regional Transportation District officials used to call the A Line the "University of Colorado A Line," despite the fact that it was nowhere near any of the CU campuses?
CU paid RTD $5 million over five years for that privilege. The university system let that contract lapse in the spring of 2022, and RTD board member Doug Tisdale recently asked whether RTD staff had yet landed another sponsor for the train line that connects Denver International Airport to downtown Denver.
"We have lost at least $2 million in revenue," Tisdale said at a board committee meeting last week.
A 2022 review valued the naming rights at $1 million per year, RTD spokesman Stuart Summers wrote in an email.
But it appears that the market didn't agree that the naming rights were worth RTD's $1 million price tag. RTD put the naming rights out for bids in 2022 and again this year -- and didn't receive any either time.
"Staff does not foresee engaging in further solicitations in the near term," CEO and General Manager Debra Johnson said at a board meeting this week.
The A Line was a Very Big Deal when it opened in the spring of 2016. Thousands of Denverites, including me, waited in line for hours to ride that thing for no particular reason other than to say we did.
But the line soon got very bad press over repeated mechanical failures, grumpy federal overseers who threatened to shut it down, and systemic operational problems in its first few years of service. Oh, and it had to blow its horns through neighborhoods for some three years, too.
In all fairness, RTD and its commuter rail contractor, Denver Transit Partners, seem to have turned it around since then. The A Line is far and away RTD's most popular rail line, with more than 639,000 boardings in July 2023 alone -- that's more than double the next-most-popular rail line.
Collectively, the A, B and G Lines have been on time more than 96 percent of the time this year. These days, it's the light rail network that's gaining a reputation for spotty service.
So, hey -- if you're a business owner and that kind of performance has you reaching for your wallet, give RTD a call. Maybe they'll give you a discount.
