The Regional Transportation District’s no-cost shuttle service is returning to 16th Street on Oct. 5, one day after the pedestrian mall fully reopens.
The shuttle has been running on a detour since 2022, when the rebuilding of the pedestrian mall on 16th Street began.
The service runs seven days a week, from Union Station and Curtis Street on 16th Street. Once it’s fully restored, it will service the full length of the mall, a little more than a mile.
The no-cost shuttle service was rebranded earlier this year. It used to be called the Free MallRide. It’s now known as the 16th Street FreeRide.
That reflects the renaming of the street itself, which was previously the 16th Street Mall but is now just 16th Street.
The shuttle has been running since the pedestrian mall opened in 1982. Ridership fell dramatically during the years-long construction project — dropping by more than half in 2023 as years of detours and disruption began on the mall.
But it has been recovering this year as blocks of the pedestrian mall have reopened, RTD said.
