RTD

Compared to a typical weekday, about 90,000 more people rode RTD trains and buses on the Tuesday of the Broncos Super Bowl parade. Ridership ballooned 28 percent, giving Denver’s transit system its busiest day ever with 409,000 boardings. To deal with the demand, RTD added service to several rail and bus lines, but also had to detour bus routes that … Continued

You’d think the leaders of RTD would want to shepherd the Denver area’s transit system into the modern era, but RTD board member Natalie Menten would rather see Colorado transportation dollars go toward highways than transit. Menten, who represents parts of Wheat Ridge, Lakewood, and Golden, told Complete Colorado that transit doesn’t deserve the $15 million … Continued

Union Station officials estimate that 30,000 people a day will pass through the transit hub and commercial center after the A-Line to DIA opens on April 22. Problem is, the streets around the station aren’t designed to handle the influx: Drivers drop off and pick up passengers in the bike lane and accelerate through crosswalks. Unless the design is changed, conflicts … Continued

Department of Public Works crews lifted the main piece of a pedestrian bridge and set it in place yesterday near the rail station at 38th and Blake, which will open in April as the second stop on the A-Line to Denver International Airport. When it opens, the 230-foot bridge will cross train tracks that have separated Cole … Continued

It’s been a long, long time coming. We’re talking years. But today RTD announced that transit riders can finally track their buses in real time. Before you get too excited, there are some caveats. The real-time data only works on local buses; RTD will launch the service for express and regional routes later this year, said RTD … Continued

On Monday RTD offered free rides on its just-launched Flatiron Flyer bus routes between Denver and Boulder. The transit agency calls the system “bus rapid transit” or BRT, a phrase that’s been diluted with ho-hum projects in the United States. Mexico City, Bogota, Brisbane, and Curitiba in Brazil — these are the cities with BRT systems worth … Continued

Some transit systems have had smart cards — fare cards that passengers can add, store, and spend money on — for decades. Not so in Denver, where eight years have passed since the quest for modern fare-payment technology began. Drumroll, please: The wait is kind of sort of almost nearing an end. On January 1 RTD will launch a … Continued

The Downtown Denver Partnership last week released the results of its commuter survey, an annual exploration of how people get to and from their workplaces downtown. DDP polled 5,740 commuters, which is almost 5 percent of all downtown workers. A plurality of people polled, about 41 percent, said they commute via transit. That’s less than the 44 percent … Continued

“The ‘Midtown’ of Denver.” That’s how a 95-page blueprint from various city agencies envisions the area around RTD’s I-25 and Broadway Station. The plan makes some exciting promises: Walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly streets and bridges would reconnect neighborhoods divided by I-25, the South Platte River, train tracks, and wide, fast roads. And planners want to create a new mixed-use neighborhood with housing, plazas, offices, retail … Continued