Case Study - RTD

On December 18th, 2025, I planned and took an RTD bus to my dentist on 74th and Federal Blvd. I took the same route I planned out and the last stop for the route was on 74th and Federal Blvd. Given that I am legally disabled by the State of Colorado and the Federal Government, I always pay close attention to the actual stopping point of the route because a block to me, with my disability, is like a mile or more and the weather that day was biting cold and windy.

Towards the end of the route, every other passenger, other than me, got off the bus on Federal and 70th. There it was, just me and the driver of the RTD bus. At 72nd and Federal, the Northbound lanes we were in were squeezed down to only the right lane and the bus driver saw this and I saw him look around and he made a left on 72nd because there was no light and there was a break in traffic so the driver took the left on 72nd because he clearly didn't want to sit in traffic for 2 blocks to the end of his route; he called an audible.

 The driver went about 2 blocks in and he started yelling to me. I was wearing headphones, so I couldn't hear him but I could clearly see him talking to me. I took my headphones out and walked to the front of the bus to talk with him because he had stopped the bus in a totally random spot and there was no bus stop where he stopped. I started listening to him and he was telling me to get off here. I instinctively pulled out my phone and started recording video. This is a 36-second video that has the RTD bus driver, in uniform flat-out refusing a disabled person service to the final stop. I asked him directly the questions of why were we stopping, why I had to get off and how I am supposed to get to 74th and Federal. The driver got very upset and squirmy, demanding I get off and I refused. He started driving again with me standing right there at the front of the bus, basically in his face with a camera. This was extremely dangerous and I have all of this on 4k video and reached out to RTD even and there is a person that I am emailing back and forth with and he made attempts to get me to send him the video. I told him that he will see the video in discovery and it's every bit as bad as he can imagine.

An RTD bus driver, refusing service to a disabled person on camera. This is more evidence of lack of accountability through these large companies and industries. We are not humans, we are numbers.