East Colfax Avenue Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) — Denver, CO
Client
- Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI)
Project Value 
$255M
Market
Transportation
Services
Design And Urban Planning, Engineering
The East Colfax Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor will link Denver Union Station, Downtown Denver, adjacent communities, transit routes, and the Anschutz Medical Campus. This is a key east-west transportation route, and the implementation of BRT will promote faster, reliable, safer, attractive, and efficient transit operations.
Our Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Services
Our experts are providing design and engineering services for this project. After more than 10 years in various planning stages along with other stakeholders, we have advanced the project between 2020-2023 by completing the following:
- Finalization of the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA)
- Extensive stakeholder and community input
- Traffic analysis and ridership forecasting
- Corridor safety analyses and improvements
- Preliminary engineering (30% design plans)
- Station area planning and innovative canopy/shelter design plans
- Streetscape/landscape concepts
- Pedestrian access plans
- Multimodal integration
- NEPA evaluation
- Title VI Equity Analysis
- Detailed financial plan
- FTA Capital Investment Grant Small Starts rating application for federal funding support
- BRT naming/branding
- Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure Envision Certification
- Pedestrian access plans
Paving The Way For BRT
A key distinction for the East Colfax BRT project is not only its innovative, state-of-the-art planning approach and iconic design concepts, but also its development of a pragmatic, achievable benchmark for future BRT corridors across the Denver metro area. The project team incorporated best practices and lessons learned from BRT projects across North America and developed innovative concepts tailored specifically to the East Colfax Avenue corridor. The project will also include the following:
- 5.5 miles of dedicated center-running bus lanes and 4.5 miles of side-running bus operations
- Innovative canopy/shelter design with an iconic look and level boarding
- Streetscape/landscape design to enhance the entire corridor
- BRT naming/branding for Colfax and all subsequent Denver-area BRT corridors
Achieving Success In Denver
The final design phase of the project, which we are also leading, kicked off in 2023. We will support DOTI and the Construction Manager/General Contractor (CMGC) team led by Kraemer North America through final design to achieve BRT revenue service in 2027 – 15 months earlier than previously estimated.
Project Award: Innovative Transportation Solution
The East Colfax Avenue Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project was named most “Innovative Transportation Solution of the Year” in 2024 by the WTS (Womens Transportation Seminar) Colorado Chapter. A total of 43 female professionals were involved in the project from initiation to completion in 2023. This included public sector and private sector staff. Their roles ranged from planning to environmental analysis, architectural design, and engineering.
