Relief for the always-crowded free 16th Street Mall shuttle service in downtown Denver is a main goal of an upcoming study. The study will focus on another free circulator route that city and Regional Transportation District officials think could be pulling more weight.

The two entities are poised to approve an intergovernmental agreement that would call for the city to pay up to $1.5 million for the study, design and implementation of improvements to the Free MetroRide, which runs from Union Station to Civic Center Station on Broadway, Lincoln, 18th and 19th streets weekdays from 5 to 9 a.m. and 2:30 to 6:30 p.m.

RTD would reimburse the city, with the money coming from the initial route project that was completed under budget due to cost savings from an RTD bus purchase and reserved for future improvements, RTD Manager of Corridor Planning Lacy Bell recently told the City Council’s Land Use, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The agreement still needs City Council and RTD board approvals and would run through the end of 2020.

The metro ride serves an average of 3,000 boardings a day, compared to the mall shuttle’s 45,000 boardings a day, said Ryan Billings, urban mobility manager for the city public works department.

“What we see is the Free MetroRide is not running as fast as maybe it should,” he added. “The mall shuttle is more reliable because it’s more frequent.”

The agreement calls for RTD and the city to consider improvements to the Free MetroRide, which may include changes to curb line, signal and transit operations. Other potential improvements could be a transit-only lane on Broadway, design changes on 18th and 19th streets could include bus bulbs, floating bus islands, a protected bike facility and a peak period transit-only lane.

The project could improve travel times and reliability for the Free MetroRide, which would help improve first and last mile connections for transit in the downtown area, Billings said.

Bell said most of the Free MetroRide’s passengers are downtown workers, along with some parents who use the bus to take their children to school and pick them up in the afternoon.

The goal of Free MetroRide is to provide faster service through downtown than the Free MallRide, but with increased congestion, Free MetroRide is no longer faster or more reliable than Free MallRide, especially during the evening peak hours, Billings noted.

With two additional commuter rail lines beginning service by 2018 (G and N lines), Billings added there is an even greater need to circulate those passengers and relieve pressure on the mall shuttle.

RTD’s 2004 FasTracks plan included a circulator route for downtown to complement and relieve pressure on the mall shuttle. Between 2006 and 2014, planning and design determined the route should be fare-free; have dedicated, enhanced stops and some dedicated lane features, such as bus, pedestrian, bike and high-occupancy vehicles on 19th Street.

The route began service in 2014 and was originally envisioned to serve the Golden Triangle, but funding constraints limited service between Union Station and Civic Center during weekday peak periods, with 6-9 minutes between stops. Last year, service hours were expanded in peak periods and the time between stops improved to 4-6 minutes.

The metro ride offers multiple door boarding on uniquely branded 60-foot, low-floor articulated buses, a shared bus/bike/HOV lane on 19th Street, bus bulbs on 18th Street between Curtis and Wynkoop and dedicated and enhanced stops.

The schedule calls for the feasibility analysis and design to be completed this year, followed by additional design and implementation in 2018-2019.

Ball noted an RTD survey of shuttle riders found 80 percent transferred to or from another RTD service, “so there’s really no need to charge for the mall shuttle. It’s the same with the metro ride.”

“We’ve also heard that we have too many shuttles on the mall already,” she added, “and adding more cars to the shuttles means less frequency.”

Billings said mass transit in downtown areas does not usually include “front door” delivery, and models show that by 2030 or 2035, RTD and other transit options will be used by more people due to traffic congestion.

“The mall ride as we currently have it will be overwhelmed by that time, so reducing the frequency is not something we want to see,” he stated.

Councilman Wayne New called the metro ride a “piecemeal kind of system,” but that when funding and ridership warrant, “we should be ready to make this a full-day route and expand to the Golden Triangle.”

“There are thousands of apartments being built in the Golden Triangle and that will affect ridership,” he added.

Councilman Albus Brooks said downtown ridership numbers include tourists, something that is often overlooked.

“We can have 5,000 people come to downtown at any one time for special events,” Brooks added. “And with the way we’re growing, we need to be thinking outside the box” about the Free MetroRide and other transit services.