The Denver City Council took a definitive step on Monday toward making the construction of the East Colfax Avenue bus rapid transit project a reality — one that will completely reshape Denver’s best-known east-west arterial street.
The project will stretch from Denver’s Union Station east to the Regional Transportation District’s rail station near Colfax and Interstate 225 relying on a network of high-frequency, quick-loading buses to increase mass transit reliability along the busy corridor. Between Broadway and Yosemite, buses will take over two dedicated center lanes on Colfax, with new, specially branded bus stations in the middle of the roadway to facilitate speedy loading and unloading.
On Monday evening, City Council members unanimously approved the $197 million contract with general contractor Kraemer North America, which would last through Aug. 30, 2028.
Construction on the first segment — which starts at Broadway and goes east — will upend the intersections of Colfax with Pennsylvania Street, Downing Street and Park Avenue. The project is expected to get underway in October, according to Jonathan Stewart, the project’s director in the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.
Work on that first segment is projected to stretch into late 2025 and overlap with the start of work on the project’s second segment, which will cover Colfax between Williams and Monroe streets. The project is anticipated to be completed, and RTD is expected to launch revenue-generated bus operations, in 2027, according to a presentation that Stewart gave to the council’s Land Use, Transportation & Infrastructure Committee in August.
“We now have construction plans that are signed and sealed and ready to be built,” Stewart said at that committee meeting.
When the project is fully operational, buses are expected to come every four minutes and 20 seconds, Stewart said.
Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer, whose east Denver district is bordered by Colfax between Colorado Boulevard and Quebec Street, has voiced concerns about what the construction — and the finished bus rapid transit product — will mean for traffic on other streets near Colfax.
But Sawyer’s biggest concern about the current state of the project is the amount of money that’s been earmarked for grants to support businesses along Colfax impacted by the construction.
“We are in a tight budget next year. We have to fund these businesses appropriately,” Sawyer said on Monday.
She temporarily delayed the vote on the construction contract last week because she remained unsatisfied with the city’s approach to the Business Impact Opportunity Fund.
Joanne Greek, with the Denver Economic Development & Opportunity office, said the city has set aside $1 million so far to aid affected Colfax businesses through the support fund. However, by Sawyer’s count, Denver is millions of dollars short of where it needs to be to deliver what she considers a sufficient level of support.
On Monday, she outlined her plan to ask Mayor Mike Johnston’s office for the funding, adding that she hopes to see results next month. If not, she said she’d continue to push for more money in the business impact fund in the 2025 budget, even if it required passing a budget amendment through the council.
Next year’s budget must be finalized and approved in November, per the city’s charter.
Still, Sawyer ultimately backed the project alongside the other council members. “We are ready to move on this construction,” she said.
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