page_title: Regional Transportation District
section_title: Downtown Express
hierarchical_section_title: Regional Transportation District / Projects / Past projects / Downtown Express
caption_attribution_description: English: Union Station in Denver, Colorado
context_page_description: The Regional Transportation District, more commonly referred to as RTD, is the regional agency operating public transit services in eight out of the twelve counties in the Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area in Colorado. It operates over a 2,342-square-mile area, serving 3.08 million people. RTD was organized in 1969 and is governed by a 15-member, publicly elected Board of Directors. Directors are elected to a four-year term and represent a specific district of about 180,000 constituents.
  RTD currently operates a bus and rail system that has a service area of 2,342 square miles. It employed 2,888 people and reported 97.6 million boardings in 2018. It had a $675.5 million operating budget for the year of 2018. Google has RTD schedules attached to its trip planner, and 3rd party mobile applications are now available for the iPhone and other platforms.
  RTD is constructing the voter-approved FasTracks transit expansion that will add 122 miles of new commuter rail and light rail, 18 miles of rapid transit bus service, 21,000 new parking spaces at rail and bus stations, and enhance bus service across the eight-county district.
context_section_description: This project added HOV lanes to I-25 north of downtown Denver.  It also added several dedicated slip ramps for RTD buses to access several Park-n-Ride stations directly from the highway.  At the south end of the HOV lanes, buses had direct routes into Union Station or Market Street Station. The HOV lanes extended from I-25 to US 36, allowing regional and express routes running along US 36 to downtown Denver to bypass congestion around the Turnpike Tangle.  This project was completed in September 1994.
  In 2006, the Downtown Express was renovated to include a toll lane, thereby converting the HOV lanes into high-occupancy toll lanes. This allows single-occupancy vehicles to pay a toll to use them. It was built to increase the overall usage and efficiency of the highway's HOV lanes. The project was completed on June 2, 2006.
caption: Union Station
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