Woody Garnsey spoke to the LUN board at the August board meeting requesting support of an initiative regarding CDOT’s plan to build a BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) on Colorado Boulevard. In response to Woody’s request, LUN is seeking Lowry neighbors’ opinion on Colorado Boulevard BRT (Bus Rapid Transit). As anyone knows who has driven down Colfax in the past two years, construction of a BRT impacts traffic flow, pedestrian and bike safety and businesses. What you may not have known is that, upon completion of the Colfax project, CDOT wants to start construction of a BRT on Colorado Blvd. A grassroots citizen group calling itself “Save Colorado Boulevard” led by Woody Garnsey, is asking that this plan be paused for two years after completion and full operation of the Colfax BRT, allowing time to gather data and evaluate the success of the Colfax project prior to jumping into the next one. Woody would like LUN (and all affected Denver RNOs) to sign a resolution supporting the two-year pause. The LUN board is seeking the opinion of neighbors. Let us know what you think. Should LUN support this initiative, asking CDOT to pause? Let us know here at connect@lowryunitedneighborhoods.org.
CDOT’s Proposed Colorado Boulevard BRT Project
By Woody Garnsey (Denver native and 55-year Park Hill resident)
The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) is working on a plan to buildout a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project on Colorado Boulevard from 40th Avenue to Yale Avenue. Two of its three alternatives involve eliminating one lane each way and the third alternative involve what it calls “Mixed Flow BRT” with BRT buses sharing a lane with cars and trucks.
I am working with a grassroots citizen group calling itself “Save Colorado Boulevard” which is working to have CDOT pause any further planning for a Colorado Boulevard BRT until at least two years after the Colfax BRT is fully operational. We believe that a significant decision such as a decision to spend millions of dollars and to disrupt traffic for several years during construction on a Colorado Boulevard BRT project should be made based on relevant facts regarding Actual Colfax BRT operations – not based on questionable unproven assumptions about how BRT would work on Colorado Boulevard.
In our view, the central issue regarding CDOT’s proposed Colorado Boulevard BRT project is that in a city like Denver it’s unreasonable to assume that significant numbers of car drivers would leave their cars at home to use BRT buses to and from destinations along Colorado Boulevard and/or to transfer to and from standard RTD buses in a diminished RTD system that currently faces significant cutbacks. And, without any doubt, north-south commercial truck drivers would have no choice other than to continue driving on Colorado Boulevard following completion of a BRT project.
Therefore, if CDOT’s “car-abandonment/increased-bus-ridership assumptions” are actually incorrect, a Colorado Boulevard BRT project would increase overall north-south car and truck transit times. With two of the CDOT options, cars would be forced either to cram into the two remaining lanes or adopt alternate routes on neighborhood streets or on “through streets” far from Colorado Boulevard. And commercial trucks would cram into the two remaining lanes. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars would have been spent, and we would have suffered through years of a disruptive construction process as we have with the Colfax BRT project with the end result of worse transit times for cars and trucks and relatively small numbers of increased bus riders.
We’re discussing these issues with Registered Neighborhood Organizations and Homeowners Associations whose members will be most severely affected by a Colorado Boulevard BRT project. And we’re asking them to approve a resolution seeking this CDOT planning pause. If you agree with our effort, please contact the Lowry United Neighbors Board and ask them to adopt our resolution.