Downtown Denver’s 16th Street FreeRide service is a staple. In fact, more than 2 million people hop on every year. Now, the service could be in jeopardy as RTD tries to figure out ways to fix its $200 million budget deficit. 

“The demand for the FreeRide is at the highest level it’s been since the pandemic, and it’s the cheapest service that we run in terms of per passenger cost,” RTD board member Chris Nicholson said. 

Nicholson was shocked when staff made budget suggestions that would end the FreeRide service, one of the highest ridership lines in the system. 

Not to mention, 70% of RTD’s budget comes from sales tax, and downtown Denver is one of the biggest economic engines in the district.

“We are so caught up in the conversation about cuts across the entire region that that opportunity for conversation with the downtown community really didn’t get the chance to happen, and a lot of people were surprised to see that in there,” Nicholson added.

For him, the proposal is personal. Nicholson says he uses the service daily. 

“When I need to go up to Union Station, when I need to go to meet somebody for coffee, when I need to get groceries,” Nicholson said. 

CBS Colorado took a trip using FreeRide to hear from passengers. 

“Gone out drinking, out eating, back and forth from the hotels,” said one passenger visiting downtown for a work conference. “So yeah, it’s been useful for that.”

While some riders use it for leisure, others say they depend on it. 

“I use it for transportation to Union Station to get to and from doctor’s appointments to and from work is actually one of the reasons why I chose to live downtown,” downtown resident Jovelle Brown said. 

And with millions of riders, the numbers speak for themselves.

“I’ll be at City Hall fighting against the proposal,” Brown added.

“We need to look at this from the perspective of the communities we operate in, and I think that those communities made their voices heard on this one,” Nicholson said. 

A spokesperson for Mayor Mike Johnston’s office told CBS Colorado, “We are deeply sympathetic to RTD’s budget situation, but cutting a popular service used hundreds of thousands of times a month and millions of times a year isn’t the answer. As RTD itself noted recently, the 16th Street FreeRide is vital to supporting downtown and fills a crucial need in helping people navigate between Civic Center Station and Union Station at no cost. It’s the kind of thing we need more of if we want people to use public transportation, not less. 

“We know RTD shares in our affection for this service as well as our belief that Denverites and visitors alike deserve cost-efficient and safe public transportation, and we look forward to working together as this process unfolds.”

Denver police arrested two boys on suspicion of first-degree murder after detectives said they shot and killed a 33-year-old man in Sunnyside.

Investigators believe Christopher Nabors confronted the boys, who are 12 and 14 years old, after he found them either breaking into or trying to steal his vehicle in the 4300 block of North Pecos Street on June 30.

The boys, who have not been publicly identified because they are juveniles, were arrested by Denver Police Department officers on July 1 after police spotted them in a stolen vehicle and they fled when officers tried to pull them over.

Denver police also accused the 14-year-old of being involved with a shooting about 15 minutes before the Sunnyside shooting, when the teen and two other juveniles shot a fourth juvenile near Park Avenue and East 20th Avenue. The juvenile victim was injured but survived, agency officials said.

Detectives are still investigating a homicide that happened under the same circumstances in the 15000 block of East Olmsted Drive in the early hours of June 24.

DENVER — Dr. Justina Ford’s name adorns plaques and statues across Denver, where she delivered more than 7,000 babies as the city’s first licensed Black woman physician. Now, an affordable housing building in Five Points, the neighborhood where she lived and worked for 50 years, bears her name.

The newly christened Justina at Five Points, formerly Brunetti Lofts, offers a rare commodity in Denver’s housing market: family-sized affordable housing units.The 23-unit building, built in 2005, has 19 three-bedroom units. Rents range from $840 to $1,893 per month. Residents must make between 30% and 60% of Denver’s area median income, and specific income requirements vary depending on the unit.

“I do believe that in the last, five, ten years, maybe a little longer, housing here in Colorado has just gone crazy. I mean, I have a little two-bedroom townhouse, and I can’t afford to move back in the neighborhood I grew up in because of the pricing. And it’s just crazy,” said Daphne Rice-Allen, chair of the board at the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, which is housed in Ford’s historic home in Five Points.

Rice-Allen grew up in Clayton, which is northeast of Five Points. This cluster of neighborhoods in north Denver — Five Points, Cole, Whittier and Clayton — were among the areas deemed “hazardous” and “definitely declining” on the city’s 1938 “Residential Security Map,” which redlined neighborhoods with Black, Mexican and lower-income residents.

At that time, Five Points flourished as a cultural and entertainment hub, known as “the Harlem of the West” and serving as “the seat of Denver’s African American community.” Black social clubs, such as the Owl Club, emerged. And Ford, who arrived in Denver in 1902 and was not allowed to work in a hospital, continued to provide medical care out of her house and deliver babies at her patients’ homes. 

“This was a family neighborhood, Rice-Allen said about Five Points during that period.

“There were a lot of families that lived in the area and lived in the neighborhood.”

But Five Points’ demographics have changed a lot since Ford died in 1952. About 30% of households in the neighborhood were families in 2020. By 2024, that percentage dropped to about 20%. 

The neighborhood experienced a drastic shift in racial demographics as well. In 2000, about 27% of the residents were white, 26% Black and 43% Hispanic. The 2020 census told a different story: 64% white, 10% Black and 17% Hispanic.

What was once a Black cultural hub is now a majority-white neighborhood, which raises concerns about gentrification and displacement of long-time residents. Despite the large supply of affordable housing units in the area — 2,796 in 2024 — about half of renters in Five Points are cost-burdened, meaning they spent more than 30% of their income on housing.