As violence and drugs spill onto RTD’s buses and trains, agency works to make transit safer

The public transit perils Angelo faces are becoming common in metro Denver and for city dwellers across the U.S. as riders who lack other mobility options grapple with volatility and violence spilling into spaces that once were safer.

Passengers on RTD’s buses and trains were assaulted or threatened at the rate of one per day over the last three years, according to agency records obtained by The Denver Post. RTD drivers also are assaulted regularly — more than 100 times a year on average since 2019, records show — as they work amid crime and antisocial behavior, including riders using illegal drugs and unhoused people who sleep in station elevators and on climate-controlled buses and trains.

The violence has spurred RTD’s directors to double the district’s police force, ramp up armed patrols and install protective barriers between drivers and passengers.