Stupid Parking Lot Bastards

The RTD strike is still on and in force. Honestly, though it is inconvenience to us, I do believe that the workers deserve more than a $1.80 raise over a 3 year period. Especially knowing that RTD gave each executive a $9,000 raise, it just doesn't make sense. These people have families to support and people to keep safe on their drive every day. I would hate to think of the type of drivers that they would get at such a crap wage?!? We have several bus drivers in particular that we like. The one in the morning always looks down the street for us when we are not at the stop. There have been numerous days that I have run full throttle the entire way to the bus stop, with purse, gym bag, and in full winter regalia only to make the bus because this man saw me 1/2 a block away and stopped. For public transportation, this really is special treatment.

I started taking the bus years ago for a number of reasons, but one was that my car got broken into downtown twice in one year and had the cd player ripped out. $500 later, each time, I stuck to my bus schedule. DG and I work in separate parts of downtown and we have so far been taking turns driving in. But the parking lot ogres downtown have decided to capitalize on the strike by raising the rates in every parking lot downtown by upwards of $2 a day. Today when I came in, it had gone up another $1! I could go back to a cheaper lot (where my car was broken into), walk further, and raise the risk of getting my car broken into, but instead I suck it up and pay the $8 a day to park. This means that exactly 7 days of parking equals 1 month long bus pass.

An offer was made and we could have bus service as early as next week. Here's keeping our fingers crossed that RTD dug a little deeper in their pockets.