RTD’s Access-a-Ride customers can now pay their fares with mobile tickets
Starting this week, RTD customers who use Access-a-Ride, the agency’s complementary paratransit service, will be able to purchase their fares wherever RTD mobile tickets are sold.
Access-a-Ride fares are now available on RTD’s Mobile Tickets app, as well as on the Uber, Lyft and Transit apps. As with all mobile tickets, Access-a-Ride tickets can be purchased for immediate use or future travel. Pre-purchased tickets remain valid for 45 days after purchase. RTD fares are the same price whether paying by cash, paper ticket or mobile ticket, and they are available at Local, Regional and Airport fare levels.
To this point, Access-a-Ride fares could be paid only in cash or with Local 6-Ride Ticket Books, the latter available at RTD sales outlets, participating King Soopers and Safeway stores, or online. Enabling individuals to purchase Access-a-Ride tickets from a smartphone provides them with the same convenience customers experience on RTD’s fixed-route bus and rail services.
“This is about equity,” said Paul Hamilton, RTD’s Senior Manager of Paratransit Services. “Mobile ticketing gives customers one more option, it brings them into the 21st century and it ensures that they are treated the same way we would treat any of our customers.”
Individuals qualify for travel on Access-a-Ride by being unable to access a bus stop or a lift-equipped fixed-route bus by themselves, or by having a disability that prohibits independent travel on a fixed-route bus, criteria set forth in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). New customers interested in using Access-a-Ride service can sign up by filling out an application on the RTD website or by calling 303-299-2960. From there, they must provide a medical verification form and complete an in-person interview and transportation assessment.
RTD has more than 14,700 active Access-a-Ride customers, nearly 1,000 of whom are new to the service within the last year. As of the fourth quarter of 2021, reflecting the most recent data available, an average of 39,179 Access-a-Ride trips were taken each month during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frequent travel destinations include medical offices, dialysis centers, day programs and workplaces. Access-a-Ride also offers its customers grocery delivery and pickup, a service that debuted in March 2020.