The Denver Post, in a report by Bruce Finley, says CDOT is preparing to use express-lane toll revenue from I-25 and I-70 to help keep Bustang running. The article frames Bustang as a popular intercity bus service that is financially underwater, with state officials now looking to toll revenue as a rescue line once the original grant funding expires in July.
Finley reports that Bustang currently costs about $50 million a year to operate, with an annual shortfall of around $30 million if service levels stay where they are. CDOT Director Shoshana Lew told transportation commissioners the department could tap what she called “excess toll revenues” from I-25 and use them to support the I-25 Bustang service, with a similar idea floated for I-70, though that corridor may need other funding too.
To the article’s credit, it also notes the legal and structural tension here. A 2009 state law allows express-lane revenue to be used for public transit along the interstates, but the FASTER Act restricts that revenue to projects along the roads where the tolls were collected. That little detail matters quite a bit when the state starts acting like every pile of money is just sitting there waiting for Denver to repurpose it.
The Bullet Point Brief
- CDOT wants to use toll money from I-25 and I-70 express lanes to help subsidize Bustang, because apparently the answer to one transportation funding problem is to create another one.
- Bustang is popular by public transit standards. Ridership has tripled since 2019, and the article says there were 385,248 intercity boardings in 2025, up 24% from 2024. Good. That still does not change the math problem.
- The service costs about $50 million annually, and CDOT says it faces roughly a $30 million yearly gap going forward. So yes, Bustang may be the least financially stupid transit option on the menu. It is still a subsidy sandwich.
- Lew told commissioners CDOT could use “excess toll revenues” from I-25 for Bustang on that corridor, and possibly do the same on I-70. That phrase, “excess toll revenues,” is doing some very aggressive work here.
- The article notes that toll revenues are already earmarked mostly for highway construction projects over the next decade, including I-70 west of Denver and the proposed expansion of I-270. In other words, the state is eyeing money that already has a job and trying to pretend it is lounging around unemployed.
My Bottom Line
Let me start where I always do on this one. I support Bustang. Of all the public transit options Colorado has stumbled into, Bustang is the one that makes the most sense. It is scalable. It uses infrastructure we already have. It can actually help people build a transit habit without demanding we light another mountain of taxpayer cash on fire chasing the governor’s train fantasy.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Even the North I-25 route, Bustang’s most successful line, only recoups 31% of its operating costs. That means the people footing the bill are overwhelmingly not the people riding the bus. It is still subsidized transit. It is just the least absurd version of subsidized transit currently available.
What I do not support is this slick little shell game from Director Lew and the Polis administration. There is no such thing as “excess” toll revenue on I-25 when the corridor is not finished. The Environmental Impact Study shows that corridor should ultimately be four lanes in each direction, not three. Until the build-out is done, talk of excess is just bureaucratic poetry written to justify raiding roadway money for something else.
And that something else matters legally and practically. Toll revenues sit inside an enterprise structure with serious restrictions, and even this article acknowledges the FASTER-related limitation that the money is supposed to stay tied to projects along the roads where it was collected. CDOT can dress this up as multimodal vision all day long, but it still looks like robbing Peter to pay Paul. They should be investing in lane miles, capacity, and real congestion relief. Instead, they are chasing an echo chamber, freezing out voices that know this corridor, and leaving Colorado drivers with the same old result: less capacity, more congestion, and a transportation establishment that keeps congratulating itself while the public sits in traffic.
Source: The Denver Post
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