Fort Collins Mayor Wade Troxell likes the highway expansion he’s seeing on Interstate 25 near his city these days. He also likes the way he sees it — from inside a bus.

For occasional trips to Denver, Troxell has become a fan of Bustang, the fast-growing regional bus service started four years ago by the Colorado Department of Transportation — the same agency responsible for the $330 million I-25 North Express Lanes Project.

“I’ve found the Bustang to be very useful and convenient from our park-n-ride centers here,” Troxell said, and last year he was joined by more than 238,000 riders on Bustang’s core routes north, south and west of Denver.

Get ready to see more of those purple-and-black coach buses. The addition of new Bustang routes — to ferry late-summer tourists to Estes Park and skiers to several resorts this winter — is just one transit-expansion strategy emerging in the early days of Gov. Jared Polis’ administration. The state also is kicking off a long-in-the-works feasibility study for a potential Front Range rail line.

More than ever, CDOT under the Democratic governor is embracing a “multimodal” focus that puts as much emphasis on buses, the potentially costly train route and other forms of transit as it does on highway expansions. Though that shift began under his predecessors, it has the potential to be legacy-making for Polis.

Now at the helm of the strategy is Shoshana Lew, CDOT’s new executive director. She joins Polis in extolling the potential environmental benefits of the evolving transit strategy while arguing Colorado’s rapid growth has made it impossible to solve gridlock by widening roads alone.

She’s a rising star from a politically connected family and was financial chief of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the Obama administration, then served as chief operating officer of Rhode Island’s transportation department. On a statewide listening tour this summer, she has talked about her goals of greater road safety, improving the system’s state of repair — and, yes, offering more alternatives to driving.

“As that population density increases, almost out of necessity it pushes people and the market to think about more choice,” Lew said in an interview. “As the cities along the north Front Range and south Front Range grow, you start to think about things differently.”

Troxell is among local officials who are optimistic about the possibilities.

But CDOT’s refocus also is spurring questions from Republican lawmakers and from local officials frustrated that amid starved resources, long-delayed road projects are still sitting on CDOT’s shelf. Voters so far have declined to kick in more money, most recently last fall when they overwhelmingly rejected two transportation measures.

“The big concern is that they put in trains and other stuff, and we don’t see any relief on the highways,” said Sen. Ray Scott, a Grand Junction Republican. “People love their cars. People love the freedom of an automobile. To think you can just pull that away from them through a government action is just a dangerous place to go.”

Transit advocates argue that given viable options such as Bustang, many Coloradans have proved willing to change their habits.

“I’m optimistic that CDOT and Gov. Polis will continue to head in the right direction, but I’m nervous that it won’t be fast enough,” said Danny Katz, director of the Colorado Public Interest Research Group in Denver. “Six hundred people die on our transportation system each year, and more cars and more driving equals more air pollution and worse congestion.”

A network of “mobility hubs”

Lew’s lieutenants in the newly created Office of Innovative Mobility are still fleshing out CDOT’s transit-related plans.

Years from now, if their work is successful, Coloradans moving between cities — or tourists headed for mountain destinations — will have a much larger network of buses and destinations to choose from. Along the major interstates, regular “mobility hubs” will provide places to connect between state and local buses, rail lines and ride-share services.

It’s all conceptual right now. But CDOT’s plans call for mobility hubs or stations roughly every 10 miles along I-25 and every 30 miles along I-70, created by working with local or private partners.

“We’re starting to think strategically about how can we put a literal stake in the ground for people to know they can catch transit or other modes of transportation,” said Sophie Shulman, CDOT’s chief of innovative mobility. “This is long term, and something we want to start thinking about and planning for now.”

At a Colorado Springs military roundtable last month, Lew talked about the potential for new Bustang routes to ferry veterans from rural Colorado to medical appointments in major cities.

That option is already taking shape, in fact, with CDOT’s less-frequent Outrider routes going to places including Lamar, Alamosa and Durango. Hundreds of riders board those routes each month.

But it’s the demand for Bustang’s main routes — from Denver to Fort Collins, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction — that have earned the biggest attention. Ridership has more than doubled since 2015, with much of the increase coming in just the past year. July set a new monthly record, with 22,382 boardings.

Tickets typically cost $9 to $12 on the Front Range lines and up to $43 to go all the way to Grand Junction. Riders paid 53 percent of CDOT’s costs for contract operators last year, more than double the Regional Transportation District’s rate of farebox recovery.

CDOT is in talks with ski resorts as potential partners to pick up the rest of the tab for the coming “Snowstang” service, which will cost $25 round trip, while the $10 Estes Park bus, connecting with Rocky Mountain National Park’s shuttle, will be a pilot in late August and September.

The state doesn’t lack money to try out new ideas for bus routes and mobility hubs, since lawmakers dedicated extra one-time money to transit, in addition to existing funding. A recent memo to the Colorado Transportation Commission said $94.2 million remained uncommitted.

Still, just $7.7 million is budgeted toward Bustang in the 2019-20 fiscal year as part of $73 million set for all multimodal plans, which include grants to local governments. Multimodal accounts for only about 4 percent of CDOT’s $2 billion budget.

A push for “bigger, bolder steps”

Katz is among transit advocates who want, as he put it, to see “even bigger, bolder steps” that “provide millions of rides — not hundreds of thousands.”

They’re eagerly watching the work of the Southwest Chief & Front Range Passenger Rail Commission. It’s charged by the legislature with studying the potential for rail along 173 miles of the Front Range, where 85 percent of the state’s population lives. Under Polis, CDOT has partnered on a more robust study.

But a significant hurdle is the cost, which CDOT has estimated at anywhere from $5 billion to $15 billion for a full system.

“There haven’t been any decisions made about the specifics of the project yet,” Lew said, but the potential corridor could include existing freight rail or some state-owned right-of-way along I-25.

Sen. Larry Crowder, R-Alamosa, is a rare fan of the study in his caucus. Because his district lacks easy access to airports, he said, a rail system could be a key connection.

“What I’m talking about is using existing rail,” he said.

Added Bill Thiebaut, the transportation commission’s chair and a former state legislator from Pueblo: “We probably should’ve studied it years ago. … We can’t say no. We have to say, ‘Why not? Why can’t we do this?’ ”

Big questions and competing needs

But until the big questions about Front Range rail are answered, it remains a pipe dream. And, for some, it threatens to distract from the state’s more pressing needs, though Lew has said she doesn’t anticipate drastic diversions of money for transit investments.

Local governments, including Douglas County, increasingly are working on plans to seek local transportation taxes.

Douglas County Commissioner Roger Partridge says he sees a role for more transit, including a requested Bustang stop in Castle Rock. But he and others in the fast-growing county still are pressing for improvements on other state highways that pass through, including Colorado 83, following work that’s wrapping up on C-470 and underway on the I-25 South gap.

Polis, in an interview, highlighted a recent legislative deal that boosted transportation funding by an extra $100 million. He agreed with the need for more road relief at the July groundbreaking for a new I-70 westbound express lane in the mountains. CDOT also is making plans to expand the I-25 North expansion project.

But he suggests there’s a limit.

“We have to do the most with what we have, and absolutely, that includes cost-effective measures like Bustang … while we invest the resources that we have in lane and road expansion,” Polis said in the interview, while cautioning: “We know that lane expansion alone is never going to be enough.”

Among his fellow Democrats, who hold majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, there is wide support for more transit.

“I don’t see it as a competing option,” said Sen. Faith Winter, who chairs the Senate Transportation & Energy Committee. “I look at it as: How do we reduce congestion? Sometimes the best way to reduce congestion is multimodal. Sometimes it’s road improvements. And sometimes it’s technology improvements. Sometimes it’s all three.”

Timeline: CDOT’s foray into transit

2008: Colorado completes its first state-level Intercity and Regional Bus Network Plan, since updated in 2014.

2009: The General Assembly creates the Division of Transit and Rail in the Colorado Department of Transportation to plan and operate a system and coordinate with other transit providers.

2015: CDOT begins offering Bustang express bus service through a contracted operator.

2018: CDOT adds “Outrider” service to the main Bustang routes, serving several smaller communities in southeast and southwestern Colorado.

2019: CDOT joins with the Southwest Chief & Front Range Passenger Rail Commission to begin a study of the feasibility of a rail system in the I-25 corridor, including potential routes, technology alternatives and costs.

Source: CDOT’s Division of Transit & Rail.

Staff writer Anna Staver contributed to this story.