After RTD's Chaotic Summer, Downtown Light Rail Lines to Be Restored

On Saturday, September 29, the Regional Transportation District’s fall service changes will go into effect, marking a return to normal for most rail lines in downtown Denver after construction closed or limited them this summer.

As part of RTD’s project to restore rail lines after thirty years of use, the agency completely shut down the L Line downtown and rerouted the D and H lines to Union Station instead of their usual routes through the Central Business District.

Starting September 29, those routes will return to regular operations> The downtown loop is ready for passengers again after RTD redid five intersections of track over the summer.

Construction actually wrapped up early, but RTD said it could not resume rail operations until this weekend because of employee scheduling. The operators' union said it was not asked if it was possible to change worker schedules.

“That is a very good use of available resources,” resident Keith Brooks said of the reconstruction at a September 24 RTD board meeting. “What's not so good is before we heard about that, the first thing we hear is a statement that the reason trains can't start running again until three weeks later, despite the project being finished, was because of the unionized light rail operators. That is an excuse we have heard a lot. … Please stop pulling defeat from the jaws of victory.”

Completion of the downtown rail reconstruction will also impact free bus services downtown, with the Free MetroRide being discontinued starting September 29. The MetroRide, which shut down in 2020, was briefly reinstated this summer to make up for the D and H line detours. That route ran between Civic Center Station and Union Station along 18th and 19th streets, with seven stops in each direction.

To save money, RTD had cut the frequency of the Free MallRide that serves the 16th Street Mall from once every five minutes to every ten minutes. Along with these service changes, the MallRide will once again run every five minutes.

The MallRide currently runs along 15th and 17th streets because of 16th Street Mall construction. The route will return to its usual path from Union Station to Curtis Street in the second half of October, and operators are training now to prepare for the adjustment. The MallRide will remain on 15th and 17th from Curtis to Civic Center Station until the required phases of mall construction are completed.

RTD had also upped service on the 0L bus route, which goes from Broadway and Interstate 25 through downtown Denver, to run all day, every day instead of only during peak periods on weekdays during construction. Starting September 29, that bus will once again only run during peak periods.

This summer, RTD was also restoring coping panels on its Southeast Corridor, which comprises twenty miles of track along Interstate 25, from Lone Tree to Denver on portions of the E, H and R lines. That project is complete, so the E and H lines will once again run every thirty minutes instead of every hour.

However, transit advocates worry that those frequencies may not be accurate, as RTD has been dealing with unexpected safety issues on those rail lines that the district must immediately repair, creating slow zones. Currently, there are slow zones on the E, H, R and D lines because of safety maintenance, according to the RTD speed restrictions dashboard.

Richard Bamber, co-founder of Greater Denver Transit, an advocacy group focused on providing technical expertise to urban public transit discussions around the city, testified at the board meeting that many GDT members were experiencing twelve-to-sixteen-minute delays in slow zones.

“Riders can take late trains, riders can take the reduced frequency, we can't take both,” Bamber said. “The trains are going to continue to be late. … People are still going to have a negative view of RTD.”

Bamber suggested that saying the trains will come more frequently, only for them to still only come once an hour, could confuse and frustrate riders. He encouraged RTD to publish a live schedule of when trains will come amid the slowdowns rather than trying to institute a consistent schedule that doesn’t hold up.

One line that hasn’t been impacted by construction is the W Line to Golden. That line will increase to fifteen-minute frequencies from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., up from thirty-minute frequencies, as part of the September service changes.

RTD also made minor seasonal adjustments to the 11, 20, 24, 30, 51, 65, 73, 204, 225, DASH, JUMP, NB and SKIP bus routes, largely to account for the school year starting. Bus route 40, which runs along Colorado Boulevard, will increase to fifteen-minute frequencies from 6 a. m. to 6 p.m., up from thirty-minute frequencies.

Finally, bus route 0, which runs along Broadway, will be split into two separate services. The new route 0 will run from Union Station to Englewood along Broadway, while route 0B will pick up in Englewood and run to the Highlands Ranch Town Center station.