Updated May 29, 2025 at 1:30 p.m.
Travelers had to find a different way home early Tuesday after the Regional Transportation District paused A Line train service and apparently didn’t send enough buses for the sizable crowd that piled up on the platform. Two travelers said they were told to pay for a ride home, but RTD denies that there was a shortage of buses .
Mark Eddy and his wife arrived at the airport late Monday night after a weather delay on their flight from San Francisco. They headed to the train platform to catch the 11:57 p.m. train downtown, only to be redirected to a nearby bus platform.
“We walk around the corner and there was a line — hundreds of people — you could see the number for Platform 9 off in the distance,” said Eddy, a former Denver Post reporter who now works in strategic communications.
“And we’re thinking, ‘Well, there must be a lot of buses coming,’” Eddy added.
But a staffer started sharing bad news with the crowd soon after midnight.
“She says there are only going to be two buses, and that’s it,” Eddy said. The woman advised that anyone who could afford an Uber or Lyft should catch a ride home.
“You’ve got hundreds of people standing down there wondering what to do. Luckily, people were really well behaved,” Eddy added.
To make matters worse, the transportation platforms’ surge pricing appeared to kick in, resulting in costs between $90 and $130 for a ride downtown— more than ten times the cost of a ride on the A Line.
However, RTD later offered a contrasting story. "RTD staff was focused on assisting customers to the shuttle buses and we are not aware of anyone advising them to take Uber or Lyft," wrote spokesperson Tina Jaquez.
She said that when A Line service paused, the agency scrambled four buses and two supervisors to shuttle passengers between the airport and the 61st and Peña station. That service ran at the airport until 1:42 a.m., 15 minutes after the last A Line train would have departed.
There were no passengers left at the gate when service stopped, Jaquez said. RTD records showed buses departed the airport on a regular cadence, including at 12:06 a.m., 12:11 a.m., 12:24 a.m., 12:30 a.m. and 12:46 a.m.
It's unclear why a public employee would have told the crowd to find their own ride home, especially since several more buses would arrive in a matter of minutes. But about 50 people heeded that advice and left the line on the platform, Eddy said. He and his wife were picked up by a Lyft driver at 12:20 a.m.
"I have no idea if more buses came later. I only know they told us there would only be two buses. One came and it barely dented the line," Eddy wrote in a text to Denverite. "Then they said there [would] be only one more bus and she repeated that numerous times along with the advice to take Lyft or Uber if possible. ...She walked up and down the long line repeating the information."
A spokesperson for Denver International Airport said the agency wasn't aware of any of its employees giving that advice, either.
Bad weather contributed to the situation.
More than 1,000 flights into Denver were delayed over the holiday weekend due to storms, with an average delay of three hours, KDVR reported.
Meanwhile, RTD stopped A Line train service around 9 p.m. on Monday — Memorial Day — due to “communications issues to and from its signal equipment,” according to spokesperson Tina Jaquez. Instead, RTD dispatched buses to bridge the gap.
The result: Hundreds of travelers like Eddy were arriving much later than normal,.
“It was unconscionable that on a day that had flights delayed all day long and the train wasn’t running, that they did not just flood that area with buses,” Eddy said. “That would have taken care of the problem.”
Jaquez said RTD responded as quickly as possible when train service stopped.
“Once it was determined that the issue could not be resolved quickly, bus operations was contacted and established bus shuttles to provide customers with continued service along the A Line. This was done as expeditiously as possible,” Jaquez wrote in an email.
The lack of buses left riders without any other public transit options. Bus service to downtown had already shut down for the night by the time Eddy reached the platform and wouldn’t restart until after 5 a.m.
RTD can’t offer reimbursement to riders who may have paid for cabs or rideshares, Jaquez said. She encouraged people to sign up for service alerts and to check for disruptions via the Next Ride app or at RTD’s website.
The A Line shutdown continued into Tuesday, as did weather delays at the airport.
Editor's note: This article was updated May 29, 2025 with additional statements and information from RTD.
