The Denver Gazette editorial board is warning that Colorado Boulevard may become the next battleground in Denver’s ongoing push to remake major roads around transit, bikes, scooters, and planner-approved virtue signaling. The editorial focuses on CDOT’s consideration of a bus rapid transit project along Colorado Boulevard, one of Denver’s already jammed major corridors.
The piece argues that proposals such as dedicated bus lanes, center-running bus lanes, or hybrid configurations could take road space away from drivers on a state highway that already struggles with congestion. The Gazette notes the project is still in planning, with construction not expected until 2030, but frames the broader issue as a familiar one: government agencies making driving harder while insisting the resulting pain is progress.
This is not “cars good, buses bad.” It is reality good, fantasy bad. Working families, tradesmen, delivery drivers, seniors, parents, and anyone whose life does not fit neatly inside a transportation-department slideshow still need roads that move.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Colorado Boulevard is already “almost synonymous with traffic jams,” according to the Gazette. So naturally, the planning class looked at the mess and said, “What if we removed capacity?”
- CDOT is studying bus rapid transit options for the corridor, including side-running bus lanes, center-running lanes north of Alameda Avenue, and mixed-flow lanes with no dedicated bus lanes. That last one sounds suspiciously like someone in the room briefly remembered traffic exists.
- The Gazette points out that Colorado Boulevard is part of Denver’s “high-injury network,” with major roadways accounting for 50% of Denver traffic deaths. Safety matters. But safety should not be used as a magic wand to justify every lane-grabbing experiment.
- The editorial argues that road diets can push congestion onto nearby residential streets. Translation: the traffic does not disappear. It just goes looking for your kid’s crosswalk.
- The Gazette also cites falling RTD commuter share, dropping from 4.8% before the pandemic to 3% in 2025, while vehicle miles traveled returned to pre-pandemic levels. That is an inconvenient little pothole in the “if we build it, everyone will ride” sermon.
My Bottom Line
Colorado’s governing class has developed an allergy to reality. Take one of Denver’s most congested corridors. Remove capacity in the name of transit virtue. Then act stunned when regular people sit in worse traffic, businesses lose access, emergency vehicles get squeezed, and neighborhoods inherit the overflow.
This is what people mean by a “war on cars.” Not some black-helicopter theory. Just observable policy preference. Make driving harder. Starve roads. Rebrand congestion as climate policy. Then tell the plumber, the nurse, the single mom, the UPS driver, and the senior heading to a doctor’s appointment that their frustration is just a failure to appreciate urbanist jargon.
Bus rapid transit may sound tidy in a consultant memo. Fine. Prove it. Show the ridership assumptions. Show the cost. Show the emergency access plan. Show the business impact. Show what happens when traffic diverts into neighborhoods. Show how this helps the overwhelming number of Coloradans who still rely on personal vehicles because life is not lived between two transit stops.
Before CDOT or Denver planners sacrifice pavement on a major artery, taxpayers deserve more than renderings, slogans, and the usual incense cloud of planning-department self-congratulation. Mobility is not a moral defect. Roads are not a luxury. And working people should not have to beta-test another ideological transportation experiment cooked up by people who probably do not have to live with the consequences.
Source: The Denver Gazette
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