Nearly $200 million contract approved to build Denver’s first bus rapid transit line

DENVER — Construction will soon begin on a nearly $200 million project to add a center bus lane up and down Colfax Avenue, connecting downtown Denver and Aurora with a bus rapid transit line. The project will narrow Colfax Avenue to one lane of traffic moving in each direction at some points and add large bus stops in the middle of the street. There will be specific bus lanes to allow buses to move through the area without having to stop in traffic. 

“This is a project that’s been planned since 2013. It is finally coming to fruition. The shovels should be in the ground in the next couple of weeks,” Denver City Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer, whose district borders Colfax Avenue, said. 

The 15 and 15L bus lines have the most riders of any RTD bus route. The goal of the project will be to connect the Interstate 225 train station in Aurora with Union Station in Denver using the quickest ways possible. 

Construction will tear up parts of Colfax until 2027. 

“Any city construction project has unintended consequences,” Sawyer said. “We know what some of those unintended consequences are going to be. We know, for example, that the businesses are going to be impacted on either side of Colfax as this work is being done.”

The city is already preparing to give businesses money from a fund created to help stores impacted by the work. The Business Impact Opportunity Fund was started during the Central 70 Project, and then aided businesses during the 16th Street Mall construction. But there’s one big problem.

“It’s not enough money,” Sawyer said. “The proposed budget for 2025 came out last week. It’s got $1.8 million dedicated to the Business Impact Opportunity Fund. That’s not enough money.”

Sawyer is asking the mayor for an extra $1.1 million to make sure businesses don’t close.

Denon Moore is taking a more grassroots approach. The Colfax Avenue Business Improvement District will sell T-shirts at stores on the street to create an emergency fund for businesses that need it once construction starts.

“We’re grabbing for anything,” Moore said. “We are doing a T-shirt contest in hopes of creating a micro-grant program for our businesses in the event that they need emergency funding. This is just another big project coming to the corridor that creates a lot of uncertainty in a time that’s already a little challenging economically.”

The bus lines are crucial for everyone who lives and works on Colfax, but getting to the point where construction is done could make for a bumpy ride. 

“It’s important,” Moore said. “It has to be here. We need it for our businesses, we need it for our students, we need it for our community. I really am very excited to see what it does to Colfax three to four years from now. In the interim, it’s a little scary.”

Groundbreaking is set to start on the first station in the beginning of October. From there, construction is expected to continue nonstop for the next three years. A lot of businesses are weary right now about how it will impact them because construction just finished on Colfax Avenue installing new water pipes. The business district there said that cost some stores 10-20% in revenue.

Colfax isn’t the only street where this type of public transit and construction is coming. CDOT is also working on projects along Federal and Colorado Boulevard. Both of those projects would also include bus rapid transit. Still, both of those are in the design phases, and any construction, if it does happen, is still years away.