A Colfax-Style BRT Project Is Coming to Colorado Blvd

[00:00:00]If you live in Denver, you are probably familiar with the Colfax BRT project. It is a serious infrastructure project currently ongoing and it's basically torn up Colfax. It's a whole thing that is meant to make infrastructure improvements for buses mainly. BRT of course stands for bus rapid transit. But because of the constructions effects on the community and the long-term goals of the project, it has gotten lots of emotional reactions both positive and negative. While that project is still in process and we wait for it to finish in the next year or two, allegedly, there's another very similar project planned for another major road in the Denver area, Colorado Boulevard. And oh, by the way, there's another one planned after that, too. How similar are these upcoming projects going to be and what are they going to look like? Well, we're going to go into that in this video. It is the push and pull between trying to allow for more public transportation and also preserve and even improve the current traffic patterns by car. And if and when these things get completed, some major roads in Denver could look a lot different in just a few years. So, to start here, we go to Denverite, which we often do, one of the few outlets still doing journalism here in 2026, and it gives us an article about what's going on. BRT is planned for another Denver road. This is what we're hearing about Colorado Boulevard. So, this was initially announced to the public when the project was approved in 2024. And this particular article is about an open forum that took place in May of 2026 where people were able to come and show their support or opposition to the project. We don't need to go necessarily into that meeting at a large scale, but this does tell us a little bit about what's going on and gives us some background on the project. So, the basis is this project has been given the green light but is in the design phase. It hasn't moved forward or received funding for the construction phase yet. But what it's going to be is an overhaul of Colorado Boulevard. You can see a map here over on the right of the segment of Colorado basically between Hampden and I-70. So, the good chunk of the main artery running through the city of Denver. You know, again, if you live in Denver, Colorado Boulevard, one of the busier streets. Technically, a state highway, highway two, as it were. And so, CDOT and Denver and RTD are all working together on this project as they are on the Colfax project. But, for Colorado, they're still in the planning phases, which is why they held this open forum for the community. And at this point, the Colorado Department of Transportation has proposed four options [music] for what the Colorado Boulevard project could look like. And as we get into that, it's helpful to right now look at a current state of the Colfax project just for a refresher of what's going on there. So, if we go over to a Denver 7 article here about the Colfax BRT project. Again, this has been in the news a ton. If you've been in and around Denver, you've probably seen it going on. Colfax is completely torn up because this is a major project, a bus rapid transit project. And really, the hallmark of this project is the bus lanes are center lanes on Colfax. So, not lanes on the edges or the sides, it's the center of Colfax. That's where the buses will run. That's what makes it such a major project. This is a big infrastructure change, dedicated bus lanes in the center of the road. The other thing that makes it major is just all the construction and the impact it's had on the community. The businesses in and near Colfax, really. It's made it much harder to get to those businesses.

[00:03:13]It obviously just impacts their ability to do business while this project is happening. It's a $280 million project.

[00:03:20]The subheader here says it's expected to be completed by 2027. Here in mid-20 26, there are certain parts of the Colfax project that are opening up. But, take a drive over there right now, it's still a mess. They have a quote from the project director that say Colfax is still open even though we're working on it. We're doing a transformation of Colfax right, and we're here to make it better for everyone. He's essentially acknowledging, yeah, this is a big project. Yes, there are significant pains for the local businesses and the people who live around here while it's happening. But, hey, just give us time, it'll be better in the future. And here's a map of the Colfax project and the scope of it, which is it's huge.

[00:03:54]It's basically from downtown all the way to 225. And for the majority of this line, there will be those dedicated bus lanes. So, that gets to the heart of the issue here. These improvements are yeah, an update to the infrastructure, but they're really [music] aimed at getting more people onto public transportation.

[00:04:10]It's also aimed at improving commute times, right? By giving these buses dedicated lanes. That's the big thing.

[00:04:16]You're not sitting in traffic, you have dedicated lanes, so it's dramatically going to improve commuting times along any of these arteries that this project is being done, Colfax number one and potentially anything else in the future. But of course, to improve those commute times, you have to be on the bus. You don't benefit from it if you're not riding the thing that gets the dedicated lane, which is the bus. And many people have argued, if you are a car, if you're not a bus rider, not only will it not improve anything, it will actually make it worse because now you're taking lanes and dedicating them to buses. There are a whole group of people who are skeptical of the idea that all of a sudden you're going to convince a bunch of new people to take public transportation, particularly city buses.

[00:04:55]I have said before on this channel, I am on the side of those people. I would love to see more public transportation take foot. We do not have great public transport infrastructure here in Denver.

[00:05:05]So, that's what they're trying to do, to improve this. At the same time, we're so far off from it and it is such a car-centered community in a car-centered country with a car-centered culture, it seems like a leap to me to say, "Hey, we made bus travel better on Colfax and potentially Colorado, now everybody's going to ride the bus." It's just ingrained in our heads that we're used to getting places by driving on cars.

[00:05:28]The other thing, if you're not within walking distance, convenient walking distance of one of these stops, you're probably not going to take the bus.

[00:05:35]You're not going to drive to get on it.

[00:05:36]It's just a reality. So, I don't know.

[00:05:39]I'm open-minded to the idea. It will be interesting to see how it works. If this can improve ridership and makes public transportation easier and better to the point that a significant percentage of people start to use it. That's great.

[00:05:50]That's good for everybody. My other question with this, and I don't see this mentioned anywhere online, cuz I've looked for it. The Colfax project in particular, and yes, we're getting to the Colorado one. But when this is done, are normal everyday people going to want to ride the bus on [music] Colfax? I know things are going to look different, but if you've been not to, but just by a bus station on certain parts of East Colfax, a good chunk of it, many people are going to go by those. Just a general look at the surroundings doesn't make lots of normal everyday people comfortable. I don't think that this is a controversial thing to say at all. I think a lots of East Colfax bus transit right now, one of the reasons it's not utilized for commuters, for kids going to school, for those everyday reasons, isn't just because it's inefficient, and now it's becoming more efficient, it's because they feel uncomfortable or unsafe. There have been plenty of instances in the past of publicized issues with drug use and violence on Denver public transportation. I do believe that's gotten better. Still, of all places, Colfax, maybe this is the thing that makes it better, and makes it safer, and makes it more accessible for more people. We'll see. So CDOT has said, "We are planning to do a similar project on Colorado Boulevard. We have four options." And here they are. Option one is all the way to the right here.

[00:07:08]It's called the no build option. It's actually nothing. So truly, there are three options. Option one is keeping everything exactly as it is, doing nothing. Maybe they'll make minor improvements with sidewalks, something else, I don't know. Then the first true option of a change is all the way to the left here on this little diagram, mixed flow. Basically, it just means mixing buses in with the other traffic, keeping the lanes essentially as they are, which means three lanes on either side of Colorado Boulevard. Not a big change, but just updating the bus routes and the stations and the stops for a apparently heavier and more efficient bus flow. I don't know. Then alternative two is the middle one, side running BRT lanes, bus rapid transit lanes, which means they're only used for buses or turning or, you know, accessing local businesses or something like that. Normal cars can still get through them, but they're not allowed to take them as a main route.

[00:07:57]Those two side lanes, one on each side, are dedicated for buses. This is sort of the middle option because it's less restrictive than doing the center lanes for buses. It's easier access for everybody, but it also restricts the lane for normal car travel, taking it from three lanes on each side to two.

[00:08:12]And then the final option is the center running BRT. This is the option that mirrors Colfax and has those two dedicated bus lanes in the center of Colorado Boulevard. But, let's take a pause here because just about a week after these options were announced, there was an interview with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and he essentially ruled that final option out. You can see it here. We're back on Denverite in the subhead. There's a quote from Mayor Johnston, "I'd be surprised if we ever did a center running bus rapid transit again." What Johnston's saying here is, "Hey, we're listening to people. We're listening to the response from Colfax.

[00:08:44]We're learning from what happened to Colfax." Forget the fact that that project's not even complete. We have enough information to know that, based on the response we've gotten so far. As he says, there are some lessons we're going to learn from Colfax. The center running bus rapid transit lanes, he says, "That's what caused the massive impact on construction cost, timing, digging up streets." So, what Mayor Johnston's saying for the center running lanes, even though specifically for bus transit purposes, when they're finished, they are the ideal option, the construction and the impact it's had, not worth it. Now, important thing to note, and the Denverite article does mention this, too, is that this Colfax project was planned before Johnston took office. So, there's a political consideration here, not for him to talk down to it, but he doesn't have the political attachment that, "Hey, this is something that my administration green-lighted." Essentially, he doesn't have to pretend that everything's great if everything's not great. In a way, this gives him a little more flexibility to truly look at [music] the response and the results of this and move forward based on what's best. So, if we go back to the options for Colorado Boulevard, alternative three as it's mentioned here is essentially out, at least according to the mayor of Denver who doesn't have complete carte blanche over this, but he does have a say in what happens. Worth noting too that the city of Glendale, which is a Denver neighborhood kind of but also technically it's own city, so it has its own city council, that city council voted unanimously to recommend against that center lane option for Colorado Boulevard as well. Glendale is right on Colorado Boulevard, so it matters to them. How much sway that has, who knows, but I think we can probably effectively rule out another center lane BRT option on Colorado Boulevard, so it won't look exactly like the Colfax option. That takes us back to doing nothing, which also seems unlikely considering the project is underway and there's money earmarked for it. So then we're looking at the mixed flow option, which buses just work in with normal cars, which is sort of how things work now anyway, or the side running BRT option, bus lanes on the outside, sort of a middle ground. Apparently improves bus transportation times because they have dedicated lanes, but not as restrictive as tearing the whole thing up. And oh, by the way, I mentioned a third project when this was being planned as well. Yeah, Federal Boulevard. They are planning a similar system on Federal. And going here back to Denver 7, there's an article about it. They mention here BRT will add a dedicated curb side lane for buses except between one stretch of Federal where buses would share lanes with other vehicles. So the Federal project has essentially already been decided. And in their case, they're going for the side running BRT option, the middle ground option, which based on what we've seen so far regarding the Colorado project, that would make sense for Federal and probably is going to make sense for Colorado as well. On the Federal project, there's a note that BRT will also introduce bus stations instead of stops to improve safety and shorten travel times. That goes back to my question comment about Colfax. Who's going to be riding, what's going to make everyday commuters feel like they want to get on board and make this part of their commute? This, I believe, is a nod to answering that question on Federal.

[00:11:41]And regarding the Colfax project and the disagreements about that, how it's going, how it should go, the plusses and minuses, Westword did a good write-up where they are just aggregating comments about it, but this gives us a window in the mind of consumers, riders, residents about this Colfax project, yes, specifically, but any of these RTD projects in general that's going to introduce new BRT bus lanes. Because with this, sometimes it's hard to find out, okay, what's the actual argument for and against? And while we don't need to put too much stock into online comments, a curated list of them can be helpful to understand why people are in favor or not in favor. So, these comments are in response to an editorial of two people involved in the Colfax project telling Westword essentially why the project is great and why criticisms are essentially invalid. Their names are Jill and Frank. So, this first comment says, "I wonder Jill and Frank have actually frequented Colfax lately.

[00:12:32]Article's propaganda." This person's talking about working at a bar, the challenges that businesses on Colfax are having right now. Some are saying as a result of this BRT project, it's actually worse than what they were going through during COVID. This next comment talks about, "I live too far from Colfax to walk to the bus to go a few blocks to the businesses, so I must drive." That's what I was talking about earlier. If you don't have a convenient access to one of these bus stops, you're probably just not going [music] to use it. Says here, "The proponents of BRT somehow imagine it will decrease car traffic in a city that is not designed for public transportation, hence the ever decreasing use currently of RTD. All this does is increase traffic jams and pollution and waste commute times."

[00:13:09]Because that's the big thing with any of these projects, if we're taking lanes and we're dedicating them to buses, unless we're widening these streets, which they're not significantly, well, that's taking lanes away from cars.

[00:13:20]That's the big, big gamble here that the public transportation sector is making or the city's making a gamble on the public transportation sector that it will convert enough drivers to riders to make it worthwhile. Because if you don't do that, you have created a major problem. You will lose that that big because you're going three lanes on each side in the case of Colorado to two lanes on each side for motorists.

[00:13:42]Colorado Boulevard, the reason this is coming up is a thoroughfare where commuting already isn't great. There's already significant congestion. So if you're going to take those lanes from three to two and it's the same number of cars, I don't need to tell you where that ends up. Someone here says, "I think the BRT project is a good thing.

[00:13:57]We shouldn't forego doing big things for the future because it may cause temporary disruption." Fair point.

[00:14:02]Here's another one that talks about speaking as someone who actively eats and shops at the businesses on Colfax, [music] owners say this is worse than COVID and their sales are down in a truly devastating way. It would be hard if you go to Colfax, if you drive Colfax through it or past it right now, it would be hard not to believe that comment. It is so discombobulated, it's a challenge to get anywhere and the general reaction is I just need to get out of here. Now, again, short-term problems, however serious the problems, for potential long-term progress and success. But what does that long-term progress and success look like? That's the big question. We're going to start to find out on Colfax, hopefully 2027, and then we're going to find out Colorado and federal after that. I say it all the time, but this is one place where if you do have comments, I would love to hear them. I'd love to read them. I'd love for you to weigh in below. So please do that. I want to know what others are thinking. Otherwise, love you. Thanks for watching.

[00:14:53]Talk soon.