I-25 Central through Denver offers the perfect chance to expand options and put Colorado on a better transportation path

I-25 from Santa Fe to 20th Street

In its Planning and Environmental Linkage (PEL) document, CDOT describes the I-25 Valley Highway or I-25 Central boundaries as Santa Fe/US 85 in the south to 20th Street in the north. 

This stretch of I-25 cuts through the heart of Denver. It connects the whole region (and state) to downtown, our major sports stadiums, the Aquarium, Elitch Gardens, museums, parks, and the hundreds of businesses and tens of thousands of people that live, work and play along it.

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CDOT PEL study limits, page 10, screenshot

It is also the main, and really only major, high-speed road that runs north/south in the area.

And if you’ve driven this stretch of I-25, you know it’s not reliable nor safe. 

It’s not just the predictable traffic that is so bad on this part of I-25 - the kind you expect at 8am or 5pm on a work day.     

I find the weekend congestion the most infuriating. Like 3pm on a Saturday, when I often ask myself “who are all these people and why are they driving now” (as I sit behind my wheel adding another car to the cacophony of traffic). 

There’s also the “9pm-there’s-no-way-there-would-be-traffic-oh-no-I-forgot-about-the-game” delays. 

Then there’s the crashes. According to CDOT’s PEL, there is a major event or incident like a crash that requires a full or partial closure once every three to four days. Yikes.  

Imagine if there were better transit and other options along this stretch - not just commuting options in those 8am and 5pm times but late into the night and on the weekends. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

The Last Thing We Need Is More Cars

As one of the fastest growing states in the country, Colorado’s current transportation system is under a lot of pressure. But the last thing we need is more cars. 

We don’t need more tailpipes spewing more pollution into our polluted air. 

We don’t need more cars competing for limited space and parking in downtowns, main streets, or our favorite recreation areas (or worse yet, forcing communities to build expensive parking structures that undermine the character and take away space from the things that really build our quality of life like outdoor dining and breweries).

We don’t need more vehicles speeding through our neighborhood streets where our kids play. 

Unfortunately, for decades, our main transportation strategy has been to widen highways so that we can fit more cars there.

There is a lot of research (and local experience) that shows highway expansion results in only 5-10 years of congestion relief, if that.

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From CoPIRG/SWEEP report: Colorado's Transit, Walking, Biking Needs Over the Next 25 Years

As RMI pointed out in a recent blog entitled If You Build It, the Cars (and Pollution) Will Come, “On balance, the congestion benefits of road expansions ultimately cancel out because travel demand increases proportional to the new capacity—drivers respond to the newly open road space by engaging in more frequent and longer trips.”  

Since highways don’t operate in a vacuum, more cars, driving more and/or longer trips adds additional pressure and congestion to the rest of our roads from highways to our neighborhood streets.  

Besides failing to solve congestion, the main problem it’s supposed to solve, traditional road expansion and the thousands of additional cars it attracts result in more air pollution that fuels ozone days and climate change. 

Oh yeah, and it’s really expensive, costing hundreds of millions to billions for a few miles of work. 

We need to use our limited dollars better by giving people real transportation options. 

I-25 is the perfect project, in the perfect place to do exactly that.

Bus Options along I-25

I-25 is bordered by a number of major urban arterials that are positioned well to offer fast, frequent, reliable, bus-rapid transit (BRT) to a lot of people, enabling them to skip the drive on I-25. 

This map of transit capital investment in the Denver Moves Transit plan, lays out a great vision just in the City and County of Denver. But many of these roads are critical connectors into the neighboring cities and counties, so this transit plan can be a foundation for the region. 

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Denver Moves Transit Capital Investment Corridors, screenshot

Let’s look at a few of them.

Federal Boulevard is already home to one of RTD’s two most utilized bus routes that serves approximately 26% of the residents of Denver and cultural gems like the Little Saigon neighborhood. 

The key to a cleaner, healthier future in the region is significantly upgrading Federal’s transit options - that means adding fast, frequent, reliable buses that come every 5-10 minutes so people can spend less time driving and more time living. 

Reliability and speed depend on having dedicated lanes.  

Without dedicated lanes, a key piece of bus-rapid transit, the bus is stuck in congestion and is slow and unreliable. Unreliable means people avoid transit for a car. That brings more cars and more congestion. The cycle repeats. 

Federal Boulevard is a state highway so any new bus lanes require the active support of CDOT.  

Significantly better transit on Federal is not just a benefit for people along Federal - it is an important solution for I-25. 

An incredible transit option so close to I-25, and taking people to the places that they are trying to access when they drive I-25, should be a top priority for the I-25 Central strategy. 

But wait…there’s more. 

Broadway and Lincoln are also listed in Denver Moves Transit as a high-capacity transit corridor. Those roads run right into the heart of downtown Denver and pass along Santa Fe in the south. 

The city and transit leaders have put a pinky toe in the transit water along these two streets with some dedicated bus space. But add in high frequency service, good bus shelters, and the first and last mile connections (like sidewalks, bike lanes, and car and bikeshare services), and you can recruit a lot more people to ride and leave the car at home. 

Colorado Blvd is another high-capacity transit corridor, which is also a state highway and needs CDOT involvement. While it is miles east of the I-25 Central stretch, Colorado runs right into I-25 when the interstate makes its big turn down south by the University of Denver.

Colorado offers another point to reduce the pressure on I-25. If there were great transit service and dedicated lanes along Colorado Boulevard, this corridor becomes a real transit option for a lot of places including the Denver Zoo, Museum of Nature and Science, and Cherry Creek’s shopping and parks.  

Sheridan and Wadsworth offer yet even more transit corridors that can reshape the area and add to the options above.

I live between Federal and Sheridan Blvds in northwest Denver. But to go south or southwest from my house to places in Lakewood, it is usually 2x-3x quicker to drive down I-25 and connect to Highway 6 then it is to try a transit route. 

So even though Sherican and Wadsworth (also state highways, which need CDOT’s support) are over a mile away from I-25 Central, their ability to move people without needing a car for every trip should be part of the I-25 solution. 

Colfax Boulevard is another I-25 solution. While it runs perpendicular to I-25, it offers a critical east/west connection that can add value to riders and potential riders of the north/south routes.      

Fast, frequent bus service on Colfax (as well as the other east/west high transit capacity route along Speer/Leetsdale) connecting to fast, frequent bus service on Federal, Broadway, Lincoln, Colorado, Sheridan, and Wadsworth, creates a regional network of options and a larger area accessed conveniently by transit.

For every one of these great transit corridors, we also need to add in sidewalks, safety improvements and bike infrastructure so people can access the bus stops and the final destinations. 

Federal is a good example. It is a classic “main street,” with businesses on nearly every block. Unfortunately, the street has been designed to move cars through at the expense of other basic infrastructure like sidewalks and safe ways to cross the street. 

If people feel uncomfortable accessing businesses by foot, bike or getting to the transit stop for a bus ride, a lot more of them will drive, even if the trip is less than a mile. 

Our major transit corridors need a complete makeover, turning them into the thriving main streets they should be, where people feel comfortable walking, rolling and living their lives at outdoor coffee shops or the parks that line the road. 

The ability to walk and roll fuels the ability to ride transit and increases the likelihood more people can and will use the new fast, frequent, reliable service. 

CDOT, in partnership with many local governments, has a great nation-leading Main Streets makeover program already happening - we just need to invest more to get to every main street.

Combining a great regional bus network on these major roads with a great Main Streets program that CDOT launched to ensure the state highways that also act as our region’s main streets are safe and people-friendly when you get on and off the bus, opens up a whole world of non-driving options around I-25 Central.