The Regional Transportation District (RTD) is offering incentives, including a $4,000 signing bonus and a starting pay of $25 per hour, to attract new bus and train drivers. This comes after recent incidents of assault on RTD drivers, highlighting the challenges they face in their jobs.
Annette MacNeal, left, who has been with RTD for 28 years, speaks to a group inside a bus parked outside the Crowne Plaza Denver Airport Convention Center where RTD is holding a RTD career fair in Aurora, Colorado on March 28, 2024. RTD officials aim to attract new bus and train drivers with incentives including a $4,000 signing bonus and a starting pay of $25 per hour.
“Would you want to work for an agency where, as an operator, you have to smell meth on your train? People have a choice in where to work. Nobody wants to work where they might be assaulted and have to smell meth,” RTD board member Paul Rosenthal said, referring to a bus driver who’d been exposed to drug fumes and needed medical treatment for headaches.
The abuse “is definitely a contributing factor” causing driver shortages, Longenbohn said. “It is not getting better.” But bus drivers say the violence has intensified over the past five years. A 60-year-old passenger whose leg was blocking an RTD bus aisle was fatally shot inside the bus on Jan. 27. A 13-year-old boy has been charged with murder in that“I’ve been assaulted twice physically. I’ve been verbally assaulted. One time a guy told me if he had his gun he would shoot me,” RTD bus driver Jerry Jimenez, a military veteran, said.
The RTD pay scale offers wages higher than those at metro transit agencies in Los Angeles and other large cities, starting at $25.96 an hour, increasing to $31 after four years, with a signing bonus of $4,000. RTD pays double for voluntary overtime work, up to 30 hours each week, agency recruiters said.
The five listened and asked questions. The urine test for drugs was mandatory, Blunt said, adding that “if you ever fail a drug screen, you cannot apply to RTD for two years.” The agency receives funding from the federal government and must adhere to federal drug laws. Fellow applicant Rob Potter, 51, a former business manager who also had been driving for Uber, said “inconsistent hours” looked daunting and that “fair and friendly managers” who would respect his needs would be a high priority.
RTD Bus Drivers Train Drivers Incentives Signing Bonus Starting Pay Assault Challenges
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