DIA officials are rethinking their Peña Boulevard expansion project and will consider public transit as part of the solution to congestion on the road.
Outbound traffic along Peña Boulevard near Denver International Airport on Friday, March 28, 2025. officials have broadened their approach to dealing with the worsening traffic congestion along Peña Boulevard.
Beyond widening the roadway, they’ll consider expanding public transit as an alternative. It means travelers in the future might be able to rely on better train and bus service to get to DIA. The shift occurred last month as a required federal review began for the project to fix Peña Boulevard, the mostly two-lane freeway linking Denver with the airport and booming northeastern suburbs. Funding remains uncertain for the project, expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.around metro Denver that could worsen air pollution — including DIA’s planned widening of Peña Boulevard. They argue that road expansions provide only a temporary fix and, in the longrun, draw more traffic. “Are we really going to just keep on widening roads for vehicles?” Green Latinos director Ean Tafoya said. “Don’t people care about the air emissions?”— combined with construction of bus-only lanes for faster bus access, will now be evaluated as a core alternative, airport planners told the Denver Post. “Rail expansion and other transit alternatives are under consideration,” DIA project manager Danielle Yearsley said in an emailed response to questions. “A full range of alternatives is being considered through the National Environmental Policy Act review process, including alternatives that the previous Peña Master Plan screened out.” Dealing with traffic congestion on Peña has become a headache for air travelers and nearby residents. Vehicle traffic increasingly backs up along the road, which runs 11 miles from Interstate 70 to DIA’s main terminal. The average drive time, once eight minutes, has tripled to 24 minutes. Unpredictable jams and rear-end accidents sometimes hang up drivers for more than half an hour.runs trains along its 23-mile A Line linking Denver Union Station with DIA at “the highest frequency possible” — every 15 minutes, an agency spokeswoman said. The ride costs $10 one-way and takes about 37 minutes with trains reaching speeds of 79 miles per hour. But the frequency decreases to around half an hour in the evenings and early mornings. Buses to and from DIA often run only once an hour. The A Line commuter trains, powered by overhead electrical lines, typically include two 91-seat cars, and can carry more than 300 passengers, according to RTD’s. That means the A Line theoretically could move 60,000 people a day to and from DIA. But the average daily ridership has decreased from 24,000 in 2019 to about 20,600, agency records show. In August 2025, 650,000 riders boarded the trains, down from 744,000 in August 2019. Meanwhile, Peña Boulevard carries an average of 187,000 vehicles a day, according to airport data. Denver councilman Kevin Flynn questioned rail expansion as a viable alternative, pointing to excess capacity on the A Line and raising concerns that trains aren’t accessible for some metro residents. “Transit improvements that serve the whole of the metro area would be a valuable addition to the Peña Boulevard study, and express bus service from points around the vast airport travelshed not served by the A Line would make excellent use of a managed-lanes expansion,” Flynn said. “The unfortunate reality is that expansion of the A Line could never be financed while the trains are still running far below their existing capacity.” When Denver built the airport and Peña Boulevard around 1993, the FAA provided airport improvement grant funding in 1989 and 1996 to help acquire land. In accepting those funds, Denver agreed to conditions that included following FAA rules for acceptable and prohibited uses of airport revenue. Then, over three decades, Denver and Aurora promoted residential, commercial, and industrial warehouse development in the area, increasing truck and other traffic on Peña Boulevard, complicating access to the airport. Denver Mayor Michael Johnston’s administration will “continue to support development around Denver International Airport,” mayoral spokesman Jon Ewing said, adding that “public transit will always be something we explore.” Given DIA’s role as “the largest economic engine in the region,” Ewing said, “it is paramount that any changes to Peña Boulevard reflect our needs today as well as our needs 50 years from now, and we expect the study currently underway to inform any decisions.” Passengers board the train at the 61st and Peña Station on the A-Line on Aug. 8, 2023. Adding an additional track to the existing route is one option under consideration to alleviate traffic along Peña Boulevard. FAA officials this week reiterated their position that their agency “will not fund any portion of the Peña Boulevard project” because “the road is not a dedicated airport access,” agency spokeswoman Crystal Essiaw said. However, “the FAA agreed the airport can use airport revenue to fund part of the Peña Boulevard expansion project,” Essiaw said.Send the RTD board packing … to Canada A petition from Greater Denver Transit advocates, Green Latinos, the Sierra Club, Denver Bicycle Lobby, and SWEEP proposes the creation of a large parking lot near RTD’s 40th & Airport station, close to the I-70 interchange where Peña Boulevard begins. Airport travelers could take the A Line from the lot for the final stretch to DIA. Public transit advocates also have called on RTD to establish new bus routes along the E-470 beltway linking Highlands Ranch and Parker with DIA, similar to the “Across the country, it’s been demonstrated that widening roads does not resolve traffic congestion over the long term,” Greater Denver Transit co-founder James Flattum said. “If we make the A Line more frequent, we can eliminate that inefficient step for travelers of waiting around in a parking lot for a diesel shuttle, and drivers to the airport can skip Peña traffic congestion,” he said. “We want to make transit competitive with driving for getting to and from the airport.”Asking Eric: Mother resents children who rescued her from financial ruinDenver cannabis lounge fined $10,000 for unlawful activity during special eventsAsking Eric: Relatives refuse to go one holiday without drinkingFormer Cherry Creek superintendent to be paid $164,000 for sick, vacation leave
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