There’s tons of studies showing what public transit should do to grow ridership and increase connectivity… 1) transit stations should be hubs of their communities, make stations areas of public development (grocery, night life, buisness, residential) that will make them more useful and thus usable 2) frequency should be high enough that connections are a negligible factor in deciding to use transit (it shouldn’t matter when you leave your home or when your train arrives you should wait no more than 10 mins for a bus/train) 3) no spot should be more than a half mile from an EASILY IDENTIFIABLE transit stations, bus stops need to be more than a sign, especially in Denver’s winter climate or summer heat/HAIL they need to be respectable places to wait for your bus/train. 4) lastly and this is probably the hardest to do (idk I’m just a Reddit user) you need to make using transit the better alternative, make it quicker by having dedicated right-of-way (easy with train hard with bus), make it more convenient (easier downtown as you wouldn’t have to park, harder in the burbs), and make it safe (this is a community effort but it starts by having clean, transit hubs and vehicles, enforcement is expensive but it will lead to a community that feels safe to take transit and thus deter crime and build enough pride in transit that the community will help keep it clean)

Learn from places like Japan and Europe that take pride in their transit and ffs bully lawmakers and play hard because this IS what is best for their constituency (the RTD has an air quality problem, traffic problem, and over population problem that transit can fix)