{"id":1319320,"date":"2020-04-06T21:24:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T03:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=995330"},"modified":"2020-04-06T21:24:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T03:24:28","slug":"city-council-votes-in-favor-of-allowing-rfta-to-continue-service-to-glenwood-springs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/city-council-votes-in-favor-of-allowing-rfta-to-continue-service-to-glenwood-springs\/","title":{"rendered":"City Council votes in favor of allowing RFTA to continue service to Glenwood Springs"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/RFTA-GPI-040720-1024x768.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/RFTA-GPI-040720-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/RFTA-GPI-040720-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/RFTA-GPI-040720-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/RFTA-GPI-040720-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/RFTA-GPI-040720-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The Glenwood Springs City Council voted 4-3 Monday night to allow the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority to continue operating in Glenwood Springs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>After RFTA\u2019s board of directors elected to stick with the bus system\u2019s \u201cbare bones\u201d level of service last week, council agreed to meet Monday night to consider an emergency order that would have terminated RFTA service in Glenwood Springs altogether.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Jonathan Godes was joined by councilors Steve Davis and Rick Voorhees in voting to suspend RFTA Service.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Pro Tem Shelley Kaup alongside councilors Paula Stepp, Tony Hershey and Charlie Willman voted against terminating RFTA temporarily.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/pi-banner-paypal.jpg)\" class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/donate\/?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=donation&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=mid-article\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cYou can be sure that somebody we know, somebody we love is probably going to be intubated and may not make it out of the ICU,\u201d Councilor Rick Voorhees said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to tell myself after I\u2019m off council\u2026that I didn\u2019t do everything I could.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Rifle\u2019s city council approved its own emergency order to temporarily suspend bus service to and from Rifle.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Subsequently, RFTA temporarily ended its service to Rifle on April 4.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs riding RFTA in its present form where ridership has dropped by 90%\u2026is that any riskier than going to the grocery store right now?\u201d Mayor Pro Tem Shelley Kaup said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Currently, RFTA limits its bus capacity to 10 passengers and routinely fogs and sanitizes buses in an effort to protect its drivers and riders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are people who rely on our services to get to food and doctors,\u201d RFTA CEO Dan Blankenship said. \u201cI hope you just take that into consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Based on a survey of 27 riders conducted between April 1 and April 3, 48% of respondents said they utilized RFTA to get food and 33% said they rode the bus to get to work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have some real concerns about this concept of shutting down RFTA,\u201d Glenwood Springs resident Russ Arensman said at Monday\u2019s meeting. \u201cI think is going to be an unequal impact on different slices of the population.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Council will likely revisit the issue, again, at a meeting later this week.<\/p>\n<p>Councilor Charlie Willman said he wanted RFTA and the city to work together on additional safety measures before voting to suspend service altogether \u2014 a sentiment shared with others.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow many lives could be lost by keeping it running for the convenience of some?\u201d asked Councilor Steve Davis. \u201cHow many lives are acceptable? I can\u2019t think any.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a>mabennett@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/city-council-votes-in-favor-of-allowing-rfta-to-continue-service-to-glenwood-springs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Glenwood Springs City Council voted 4-3 Monday night to allow the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority to continue operating in Glenwood Springs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. After RFTA\u2019s board of directors elected to stick with the bus system\u2019s \u201cbare bones\u201d level of service last week, council agreed to meet Monday night to consider an emergency [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1319320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-05 02:58:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}