CO: CDOT plans to tap interstate express-lane tolls to help fund Bustang

Scrambling to rescue Colorado’s beloved Bustang intercity bus service, state transportation officials plan to tap revenues raised from vehicle drivers whizzing along tolled express lanes on interstates 25 and 70.

Those toll revenues — about $62 million a year from I-25 and I-70, not including fines paid by violators caught crossing double white lines — have been earmarked mostly for highway construction projects over the next decade. The projects include the overhaul of I-70 west of Denver and the proposed expansion of Interstate 270.

But the Bustang “has become a backbone of the state’s transit operations along the interstates,” giving Coloradans “more transportation choices to get where they need to go,” Colorado Department of Transportation Director Shoshana Lew said Friday.

The Bustang service at current levels costs $50 million a year, and keeping the state’s fleet of 80 buses rolling over the next five years otherwise would require annual deficit spending of around $30 million, CDOT officials told state transportation commissioners at a workshop session on Wednesday.

Colorado lawmakers’ initial grant funding to support the service as an experiment runs out in July.

Bustangs run as frequently as every 45 minutes on I-25 and I-70, and on numerous “Outrider” routes around Colorado. Fares for riders boarding at Denver Union Station range from $10 to downtown Fort Collins, $12 to Colorado Springs, $28 to Glenwood Springs and $43 to Grand Junction (a 230-mile route).

This week, Lew told the state transportation commissioners that CDOT can tap “excess toll revenues” from I-25 express lanes to pay for the I-25 Bustang service. CDOT can do the same along I-70, though the high cost of the Bustang service linking Denver with Grand Junction likely will also require other funds, she said.

A 2009 state law allows the use of express lane revenues for public transit, in addition to road construction projects, along the interstates.  However, the Funding Advancements for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery Act restricts the use of the revenues to projects along the roads where the tolls were collected.

Drivers in Colorado take more than 34 million express lane trips a year, according to a CDOT report.

Sustaining Colorado’s intercity bus transit is “a top priority,” Lew wrote in a letter to commissioners. Bustang provides “vital connections across our state. …a national model of success,” she said.

Over the past two months, CDOT leaders have been meeting with city and county officials, and business groups, along I-25 and I-70, looking for ways to sustain Bustang. Lew told commissioners most would support using toll revenues “as long as there was a commitment that the capital projects in the 10-year plan would get built.”

Bustang has been expanding. CDOT officials last year added a second daily run between Denver and Crested Butte. They launched a Bustang Outrider route linking Sterling in northeastern Colorado with  Denver International Airport.

A state transit connections study is exploring possible new routes, such as service between Gunnison and Montrose in southwestern Colorado; Limon and Denver; and Salida and Colorado Springs.

Statewide, Bustang ridership has tripled since 2019 – a counterpoint to the lagging ridership on Regional Transportation District buses and trains within metro Denver — with 385,248 intercity bus boardings in 2025, up 24% from 2024, CDOT records show.

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