The Regional Transportation District’s board of directors will vote Tuesday on a new set of performance goals and metrics for General Manager and CEO Debra Johnson.
Johnson’s new proposed short-term goals are more directly tied to top-level performance metrics, like ridership and reliability, than they were last year. Board chair Julien Bouquet, who was recently re-elected, said those goals reflected what he and other board members have heard from the public.
“We heard from constituents that we need better on-time performance, we need more ridership, and quite frankly, we want a better sense of personal security when we're riding on RTD,” Bouquet said in an interview.
The short-term goals will help determine Johnson’s raise in 2026. Her annual salary is now $421,878.
But several newly elected directors who have expressed displeasure with RTD management say they want the new goals amended before Tuesday’s vote to make them more ambitious. More than a half-dozen members of the public, many associated with the advocacy group Greater Denver Transit, also told a board committee last week they wanted to see loftier goals.
“We're lagging behind our peer cities, and frankly as constituents, we deserve better,” Michael Farrington told the committee. “I would encourage this body to reconsider the goals and set goals that aspire to be a world-class transit agency.”
Johnson’s proposed new goals were hammered out in private
Board members, with Johnson’s input, drafted short-term goals over the last few months that include a 1.5 percent increase in on-time performance for bus and rail, a 3 percent increase in boardings across the system, and a 4 percent jump in customer survey scores on safety and security.
Seven new directors, however, were sworn in earlier this month and now sit on the 15-member board. Several of them have drafted last-minute amendments that would raise many of those bars higher and create new goals altogether concerning improving safety and reducing fare evasion. Other amendments may be introduced during Tuesday’s meeting, too.
“It's our duty as representatives of the riding and tax-paying public to really risk erring on the side of too high expectations for improvement,” Matt Larsen, who represents parts of Denver and Aurora, said during a committee meeting last week.
Johnston told the board committee that she does not shy away from challenges but said “expectations need to be managed around what can be done.”
“If I'm not meeting expectations, I would encourage this body to get somebody in the job that can,” she also said.
In an interview with CPR News, Johnson said she was “not seeking anything actively” regarding new professional opportunities. In December, the old board in December extended her contract through May 2027.
Johnson also said there’s more to success than ridership figures
She has long hesitated to judge RTD’s success by the raw number of boardings in a given year. In 2022, for example, after the agency saw a ridership bump during the state-sponsored “Free Fare for Better Air” promotion, Johnson commented that she’d “rather focus on value over volume.”
More recently, Johnson sent a letter to new board members shortly after the election last fall that said, in part, that RTD and its peers “continue to shift the conversation regarding the ultimate measure of transit system performance, away from ridership and toward the value provided to the communities we collectively serve.”
In an interview, Johnson said she’s “not adverse” to growing ridership, but wants the focus to be on the discrete steps it takes to get there. The agency, for example, is pushing for bills that would toughen penalties on people who assault transit workers and for permanent state funding for its Zero Fare for Youth program.
“If I had the authority, I could make the system free [for everyone]. So that would yield greater transit utilization. But is that what we're actually seeking?” she said.
It’s becoming increasingly clear, however, that greater transit utilization is exactly what state leaders, as well as more members of RTD’s own board, want to see from the agency.
This may be the last time the CEO’s goals are set this way
Currently, the board sets short-term goals for Johnson after it has reviewed and approved the next year’s budget. Chair Bouquet said that should be flipped so goals are established first, which would in turn shape the budget.
“That's going to be the best practice going forward,” Bouquet said. “In all honesty, I think a lot of the frustration is with the current timeline and the short-term goal-setting process. I'm not necessarily sure if it's frustration with the goals themselves.”
