AURORA | Denver city officials are nearing the end of a years-long study to add bus rapid transit to the 10-mile strip of Colfax Avenue from the Auraria Campus in Denver to the Anschutz Medical Center in Aurora.
And this time, Aurora city officials say they are on board to make changes to the route, which has the the highest bus ridership of all Regional Transportation District routes, according to RTD.
The plan, proposed by Denver city planners and transit groups by way of the Colfax Corridor Connections study, calls for new buses and dedicated travel lanes for east and westbound traffic during peak travel hours from Broadway Street to Syracuse Street along Colfax Avenue.
From Syracuse through the remaining Aurora portion of the corridor to the Anschutz Medical Campus, there would be no dedicated bus lanes, but all of the improvements that come with updating to bus rapid transit. Those improvements include stop enhancements, signal priority, off-bus ticketing, and real-time travel info, said Miles Graham, a spokesman for GBSM Inc., a consultant that is part of the study.
That’s a change from the plan proposed as part of the study two years ago, when Aurora city officials were concerned about BRT lanes being constructed for the entire corridor. Aurora planners at the time were quick to point out that the dedicated lanes would not work in Aurora as they would in Denver.
“Our portion within the corridor on Colfax is different in context, particularly in terms of street system and layout and availability of parallel facilities,” said Mac Callison, Aurora’s transportation planning supervisor. Callison said that 13th and 14th avenues, as well 17th and 18th in Aurora, were not configured to serve the additional traffic that would be diverted from the dedicated lanes in the same way that Denver’s would.
Though Denver planners are still looking for funding — between $125 million and $135 million — to construct the BRT lanes, improvements to Route 15L bus stops will begin later this year and be made in phases through 2019, according to Graham. Those improvements will include increased security and safety (cameras and lighting), curb extensions where feasible and new shelters, he said.
Lacy Bell, a planning project manager with RTD, said the improvements are being funded by a federal transportation grant.
“We are initiating a shelter design process to come up with a unique design for shelters along Colfax that can eventually be incorporated into the longer-term BRT project,” she said.
Denver city planners chose BRT following the $3-million study of the corridor as a way to decongest what often ends up being buses stacked on top of one another as they trail each other down Colfax Avenue. That study was funded by the City of Denver and the Federal Transit Administration.
The study also looked at modern streetcars as a potential transportation solution and found BRT could serve double the number of people who ride the Colfax buses today at about a quarter of the cost of a modern streetcar, which would cost $400 million, according to the study.
A meeting held at North Middle School in Aurora in January to address concerns residents have about the plan was the fourth since Denver began studying the Colfax corridor for traffic solutions.
Meetings have also been held in Denver, where residents are concerned traffic would increase with fewer lanes on Colfax and further congest already-busy nearby residential streets.
The BRT for the Denver portion of the corridor would be similar to what exists on Broadway Street and Lincoln Street in Denver, with a flashing signal that would designate when the lanes would be bus-only.
According to Denver planners, the proposed BRT system on Colfax would reliably operate buses every five minutes, and RTD would continue to provide local Route 15 bus service.
RTD anticipates the 22,000 people who travel the corridor by either catching the 15 or the 15L to double in the next two decades, along with the number of residents living along the 10-mile stretch.
Learn more about the project at www.colfaxcorridorconnections.com.