As residents and commuters get their first look at how the Regional Transportation District’s Bus Rapid Transit project has narrowed East Colfax Avenue east of downtown, Denverites seem to be flashing a caution light about any further expansion of BRT to other city arterials.

That’s according to a newly released study by the Colorado Polling Institute, which found that almost half Denver voters are now wary of how BRT will work out in the city.

Losing support

In 2025, CPI’s survey showed that a slim plurality of voters, 39%, were optimistic about the BRT project and its potential benefits, as opposed to 38% who expressed concern.

Now, 47% of voters are more negative about BRT, while the percentage of those enthused by its prospects has fallen to 36%.

The RTD and Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure BRT project on East Colfax created a dedicated bus lane in each direction down the middle of the heavily used east-west corridor.

City officials say “the project will provide more reliable and frequent bus service, arriving every 4.3 minutes during the day, reduce transit travel time by 15 to 30 minutes,” according to the project’s website.

The nonpartisan CPI study is based on telephone interviews with 400 likely voters, conducted in early August. The sample group was chosen with respect to representative demographics including age and gender, the institute said in releasing the data. The survey had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.9%.

Meanwhile, the driverless rideshare service Waymo, which launched service within a 60-square-mile area of Denver Tuesday, still has an uphill task ahead in gaining the favor of potential customers.

A majority of those surveyed by CPI said they would wait-and-see before hailing the autonomous vehicles. Just 32% of voters considered themselves likely to use Waymo in the future.

Those included 10% who reported already having tried a robotaxi elsewhere, and another 11% who said they were “very likely” to hail one soon.

In contrast, some 58% of voters said they were “not likely” to use the new rideshare service, including 36% who described themselves as “not at all likely” to ride a Waymo AV.

East Colfax narrowed

The BRT project, which is being carried out in partnership with DOTI, is already highly visible along East Colfax between downtown and Colorado Boulevard.

In that stretch, drivers can experience the narrowed-down traffic patterns that resulted in single lanes of traffic east and westbound. The other lanes that had long served East Colfax are being repurposed to create bus-only lanes and center station platforms for riders.

Those are just part of planners’ intentions for BRT along the arterial. The broader plan calls for a $280 million, 10-mile BRT corridor extending between downtown’s Union Station and I-225 in Aurora. That broader plan has an announced completion date of 2028.

“Once completed, BRT is expected to save customers up to 30 minutes in travel time,” an RTD promotional statement said.

But BRT is also being promoted to transform two other major Denver arterials. Plans currently call for a 9-mile BRT stretch along Colorado Boulevard, from I-70 all the way south to East Hampden Avenue and along Federal Boulevard for an 18-mile span from West 120th Avenue in Westminster, south to West Dartmouth Avenue in Denver.

A Denver neighborhood association has already issued its opposition to the project in its current form, and the city council in Glendale, which adjoins the project to the east of a key portion of South Colorado Boulevard, has called for a complete stop to the project.

Scooters and e-bikes

Another transportation innovation is receiving a warmer reception from voters, the new CPI study said.

Some two-thirds of voters see advantages to Denver’s shared electric bike and scooter program, which is already providing short-term rentals in partnership with the provider Veo. The program is more broadly favored by surveyed voters in Southwest Denver and in Central Denver, close to downtown, the survey said.

Support for the rental program was lowest in Southeast Denver, where just 55% of those surveyed saw more benefits than downsides to the rentals. Some 45% of Southeast voters surveyed saw more problems than advantages.

Among those generally supportive of the scooter and bike rentals, voters saw convenience and less reliance on car transportation as advantages of the program.

Those surveyed who tended to oppose the rentals mentioned reckless drivers and other dangers to pedestrians, as well as improper parking of bikes and scooters, as the chief negatives.