It's no secret that RTD has had some difficulties in service provision and ridership post-pandemic with very uneven ridership recovery across modes. While commuter rail (A,B,G,N lines) ridership has returned to ~90% of 2019 levels, light rail (D,E,H,L,R,W) passenger boardings in 2025 sat at ~43% of 2019 boardings.

And while more temporary disruptions to the light rail network are to come due to continued work on the Downtown Rail Reconstruction Project, it's hard not to be optimistic about better transit service coming to the Denver area over the coming months and years due to new leadership at the helm.

A few highlights of planned service increases coming online over the coming months:

• Return of 15 minute headways on the G Line (June 2026)
• Return of 30 minute rush hour headways on the B Line (June 2026)
• Return of 15 minute headways on the R Line along with restoration of full route (June 2026)
  3 minute headways on 16th Street FreeRide (June 2026)
  Reinstatement of the C Line (Fall/Winter 2026)
  Extended L Line (Fall/Winter 2026)

In addition: Colfax BRT scheduled to come online in 2027 with 24/7 service and 4 minute peak headways

Lots of other good changes in the planning stages to peruse in the Board meeting packet.

Board meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwq3wheTfLM

Board meeting packet: https://rtd.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=4472&Inline=True---

Credit for this write-up goes to u/Low-Concentrate9447