"We all in the neighborhood agree that Colorado Boulevard is old, a mess, needs to be fixed, needs to be changed," Hilltop Neighborhood Association vice president Michael Atkins told reporters this spring. The question, he said, is "what about it needs to change."
That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. Nobody in Hilltop is defending Colorado Boulevard as it exists today: eleven lanes at its widest point, stretches with no buffer between moving traffic and a narrow sidewalk, and a spot on Denver's High-Injury Network that state officials cite as reason enough to act. The disagreement isn't over whether the boulevard needs work. It's over which fix determines how much of that traffic ends up rerouted through the residential streets that sit just east of it, streets like Holly and Monaco Parkway that most Hilltop residents drive, walk, and let their kids bike on without a second thought.
Three Designs, One Real Variable
The Colorado Department of Transportation has spent the past two years studying Bus Rapid Transit for the nearly seven-mile stretch of Colorado Boulevard between 40th Avenue and the Southmoor transit station near Hampden. CDOT frames BRT as light rail on wheels: dedicated lanes, faster boarding, fewer stops, more reliable timing. The agency's own numbers say the corridor's population could grow 52 percent by 2050, which is the case for doing something rather than nothing.
But "something" comes in different shapes, and each one trades a different amount of car capacity for bus speed. At an April community meeting hosted at Graland Country Day School, CDOT laid out the tradeoffs the Hilltop Neighborhood Association later summarized for residents:
| Design | What Changes | Transit Speed Gain | Effect on Drivers | Estimated Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mixed Flow | Buses share existing lanes with cars | Up to 25% faster than doing nothing | About 5% slower travel times | $200 million to $250 million |
| Side-Running | One dedicated bus lane, two through lanes remain | Up to 30% faster than doing nothing | Up to 1.4 times longer travel times | Not yet finalized |
| Center-Running | Dedicated center bus lanes, fewest general lanes | The design transit advocates favor most | CDOT's own analysis flagged unacceptable traffic impacts | Higher construction costs, per CDOT's analysis |
Read the middle two columns together and the pattern is plain. Every mile per hour of bus speed CDOT buys comes from a lane it takes away from cars. Mixed Flow barely touches drivers because it barely touches capacity. The side- and center-running designs deliver real gains for the roughly 2,800 people who ride the corridor's buses each day, a number CDOT forecasts could climb toward 6,000 under a built-out BRT system, but they do it by shrinking the boulevard for everyone else.
One modeled configuration combining center- and side-running lanes would double the full corridor's southbound drive time, from about 25 minutes to roughly 50, according to CDOT data reviewed by CBS Colorado. That is not a rounding error. That is the kind of slowdown that changes how people plan a Tuesday commute, and it's the exact mechanism the Hilltop Neighborhood Association pointed to when it released a formal position paper on June 23 opposing the project's current form.
Where the Traffic Actually Goes
"The success of this project should not be measured only by bus ridership," HNA president Courtney Mamuscia said this spring. "It should also be measured by whether nearby neighborhoods remain safe, livable, and protected from cut-through traffic."
The association's June position paper is specific about which streets it means. It names Monaco Parkway and Holly Street directly as the routes most likely to absorb regional drivers looking for a way around a slower Colorado Boulevard. Both run through the heart of Hilltop's residential grid, not along its edge. A driver facing a commute that runs up to 1.4 times longer, or double under the more aggressive design, has an easy substitute two blocks over on a quiet parkway that was never built to carry through-traffic at volume.
This is the part of the story that gets lost when the debate is covered as a citywide transit question. Denver as a whole benefits from a corridor that moves buses faster. Hilltop's exposure is narrower and more specific: it's whichever side streets sit closest to whichever lane configuration CDOT eventually picks. That is why the neighborhood association's opposition isn't a blanket "no" to transit improvement. Atkins has said the opposite, that Hilltop wants Colorado Boulevard fixed. It's opposition to the two alternatives that buy transit speed by shrinking the boulevard enough to push drivers into the grid.
Glendale Said No Outright. Hilltop's Position Is More Conditional.
Hilltop isn't the only neighborhood weighing in, and the contrast is useful. Glendale, whose city limits include about one mile of the corridor, had its city council vote unanimously for a "no build" resolution, rejecting every BRT alternative CDOT presented. City Manager Chuck Line argued that prioritizing green lights for north-south bus traffic would mean longer red lights and backups on the east-west streets that feed Glendale's business district, a tradeoff he said risked real harm to local commerce.
Hilltop's position is narrower. The neighborhood association isn't asking CDOT to walk away from the corridor. It's asking for a design that fixes Colorado Boulevard's real safety problems, the missing and non-compliant sidewalks CDOT itself has documented, without triggering the kind of drive-time increase that sends regional traffic looking for a bypass through a residential street grid.
Whether CDOT can thread that needle with Mixed Flow, the design that delivers the smallest transit gain but also the smallest driver penalty, is the open question. Denver Streets Partnership, the advocacy group pushing hardest for dedicated lanes, has argued publicly that anything short of a true bus-only lane isn't real BRT at all. CDOT's own analysis, meanwhile, has flagged the center-running design specifically for unacceptable traffic impacts and higher construction costs. The agency is caught between two constituencies asking for opposite things, and Hilltop's stake in the outcome has nothing to do with which side wins the argument on paper and everything to do with which design actually gets built.
The Deadline That Already Passed
Here is the part worth knowing if you live near the corridor and haven't been following the process closely: CDOT told residents at that April meeting it hoped to settle on a Locally Preferred Alternative, the design that guides everything after it, by summer 2026. Summer just ended. As of the most recent reporting, no final design has been selected and the project remains in its alternatives analysis phase, with construction not expected to start before 2030 under any scenario.
That gap between the promised timeline and where things actually stand isn't unusual for a federally reviewed transportation project, but it does mean the window for resident input hasn't closed. It also means the numbers describing public engagement so far are worth sitting with. Only around 90 people submitted written comments through CDOT's official online feedback tool, even though whichever design the agency eventually picks will affect tens of thousands of people who drive, ride, or walk the corridor every day. A small, motivated slice of the public is currently doing most of the talking on a decision that will shape traffic patterns on Hilltop's side streets for decades.
What This Means If You're Not Going Anywhere
Construction sitting five years out and a final design still unpicked can make a project like this feel abstract, something to check back on later. But the design CDOT eventually recommends is being shaped right now, in the gap between a missed summer deadline and whatever comes next, and the neighborhood streets named in HNA's own position paper are the ones with the most to gain or lose depending on which lane configuration wins. If Colorado Boulevard matters to your daily routine, whether that's a school run down Holly Street or a walk to Cranmer Park that crosses Monaco Parkway, this is the year the decision that shapes the next decade is actually getting made, even if it doesn't feel like it yet.
None of this changes what makes Hilltop worth living in day to day. It does mean the neighborhood's quiet streets are more directly tied to a state transportation decision than most residents probably realized, and that's worth knowing before the next open house, not after.
If you're weighing a move within Hilltop or elsewhere in south and southeast Denver and want a read on how a project like this could shape a specific block or property, Casey Perry Properties tracks these local questions as closely as the market itself. Reach out to request a private consultation.
