Take That L: Five Points Residents, Business Owners Want RTD to Remove Light Rail

The Five Points community believes that Welton Street, the main street of the historically Black neighborhood, should be a jewel of Denver, but development on the corridor is being held back by unpopular light rail tracks on the east side of the street.

Arguing that this specific stretch of light rail doesn't serve their community, Five Points residents and business owners want RTD to take the rail lines off Welton, where they run from 20th Street to 27th Street.

At an October 23 meeting at Brother Jeff's Cultural Center on Welton, Norman Harris, executive director of the Five Points Business Improvement District, said the corridor feels like a testing ground for light rail rather than an actual investment in public transit.

RTD’s first rail line, which is now the D Line, was built in 1994. That original route went all the way to Interstate 25 and Broadway, whereas the current line merely circles around California and Stout streets, from 15th to 20th streets, before heading back to Welton. That's because the D Line was split into two routes in 2018, creating the L Line and its current loop.

“I worked in my grandfather's liquor store while this light rail was being constructed,” Harris said at the meeting. “There were days he would just look out down Welton Street and he had this dark look on his face. … Businesses on this side of the street closed due to delayed construction, and they never came back.”

Although the community wasn't always sure about rail being built on the Welton Street Corridor, at least the L Line went somewhere at first, Harris said.

Eventually, the L Line is meant to be extended to reach the A Line to the airport as part of the lagging FasTracks project that voters passed in 2004 to bring more rail lines to Colorado. However, the northwest rail line connecting downtown Denver to Boulder has priority over the L Line extension, and RTD has said that barring a change in project funding, work on that line can't be completed until the 2030s.

As a result, the Five Points community fears being stuck even longer with a rail line that goes nowhere. According to Brother Jeff Fard, the lack of progress on a connection to the A Line is a broken promise from RTD to the Five Points community.

“They're not listening,” Fard said at the meeting. “And they haven't been listening. … It's been a failed experiment.”

L Line Has Poor Ridership, Negative Business Impact

Along with a route that isn't long enough, the L Line service isn’t frequent enough to provide a good connection from Five Points to the heart of downtown Denver. At the meeting, Harris said he can regularly walk from Spangalang Brewery, his business at 2736 Welton, to the Colorado Convention Center faster than a train would get him there.

“I have long legs, but I don't think my legs are that long,” he joked. “We've got an inefficient system. … Because the light rail is cut off, what you're starting to see is reduced ridership.”

According to RTD, ridership on the L Line in 2023 was 314,000 boardings. That was by far the least-ridden light rail route that year. The R Line was next, with 985,000 boardings, but every other non-commuter light rail line had over 2 million boardings in 2023, with the E Line exceeding 3 million.

Only the B Line, the yet-to-be-completed northwest rail line, a commuter route, had fewer boardings (146,000) in 2023. (Commuter routes are heavier than light rail lines and designed to cover longer distances.) All other RTD commuter rail lines reached over 1 million boardings, with the A Line to the airport totaling over 5.6 million riders.
At the community meeting at Brother Jeff’s, none of the attendees said they ride the L Line daily or weekly despite most in attendance owning businesses or living in the neighborhood.

State Senator James Coleman and City Councilman Darrell Watson, whose districts both include Five Points, were at the meeting and committed to facilitating discussions between RTD and the community. Watson said his mother is afraid to cross the street where there are tracks, so the discussion is personal for him.

“I've been very clear as a city council member that I see no value,” Watson said of the L Line. “The evidence is there from all of the meetings that we've had in this community that this is not providing value. There are other options, and my hope is to work in collaboration with community and listening to the BID on identifying what those options are.”

Through spokesperson Marta Sipeki, RTD says it has no plans to remove its light rail tracks along Welton Street.

“The agency is aware that preliminary conversations have ensued among members of the community related to removing the light rail tracks along this corridor, and RTD staff is committed to engaging in future discussions and answering questions,” RTD says.

The agency says a change of this scope would require a full study and that the planned eventual connection to the A Line would enhance “customer mobility options and connections.”

That’s what community members said they wanted during the October meeting, but they're not willing to wait it out anymore. Harris said businesses regularly report extra costs to build on the east side of the street where the rail tracks run because plumbing or electrical lines must be dug under the rail, which goes deeper than a regular street.

Additionally, the rail line limits patio and greenery options, as the sidewalks on the east side of the street can’t be activated and trees aren't allowed to extend over the light rail tracks. Harris used the revitalization of the historic Rossonian Hotel at 2650 Welton as an example.

“One of the impacts is that instead of having the main door of the Rossonian be here [on Welton], it's not safe, so the main door of our most historic, cultural icon in the Five Points neighborhood actually has to be on Washington Street because of how this train was built.”

Richard Lewis, who runs a business in the Five Points Community Center at 29th and Welton, said he hopes to show the city and RTD that economic development would increase without the light rail tracks.

“Somewhere in their minds, they were thinking that this would bring economic development to the area,” Lewis said.

This isn’t the first time a major change for Welton has been contemplated. In 2011, the Five Points Welton Street Marketplace Vision Plan suggested replacing light rail lines with two-way traffic, more parking and extra cycling and pedestrian infrastructure. Other reports, including one by the Urban Land Institute, have concluded that the light rail isn’t supportive of revitalizing Five Points.

Denver’s Complete Streets Guidelines classify Welton as a Main Street, which calls for active street-level uses.

“Sidewalks are generally wider with fewer driveways to prioritize people walking or rolling,” the guidelines say. “Consistent street trees, streetside planters, cafe seating (sometimes within the street), bump-out stormwater planters, and ultra-urban green infrastructure facilities provide a buffer between people walking or rolling and traffic.”

Calls for Two-Way Traffic, Parking and Greenery on Welton

The Five Points BID argues that the light rail currently prohibits Welton Street from taking advantage of its size as well as its history.

“It seems like now a good generation has been saying, ‘This isn't working for us,’” Harris said. “There's been a number of different planning efforts by wide parts of the community who came out and said, ‘We deserve something different. This isn't safe. This isn't working for our businesses. This is preventing us from advancing our corridor.’ But for some reason we just haven't had the ear of RTD.”

Five Points community members at the meeting were largely in favor of Welton transition into a two-way street, widening sidewalks, planting extra trees and doubling the parking options along the corridor. According to Harris, speeding is common along Welton right now despite the speed limit being 35 miles per hour.

With more activity on the street, the BID hopes speeding would be discouraged.

“We're going to get slower speeds and a safer street,” Harris predicted. “It's going to allow for more frequent public transit options. It could allow for bike and scooter lanes. It definitely would allow for wider sidewalks and for outdoor seating and an enhanced tree canopy.”

Because the neighborhood doesn’t want to lose public transit, the BID hopes RTD's 38 and 43 bus lines could be rerouted from Stout and California streets to Welton. There is also interest in a circulator bus route connecting Five Points to RiNo, Union Station and the Convention Center.

Over the summer, RTD completely shut down the L Line as the district embarked on the first full reconstruction of its rail system since 1994 by redoing five intersections in downtown Denver; next year, more construction is expected on the lines. As business owners see it, the upcoming restoration of the tracks is the perfect opportunity to reimagine Welton.

“RTD was shut down over the entire summer,” Harris said. “I don't think it had any impact on anyone's bottom line in terms of businesses. … We’re trying to get ahead of this plan and say, 'Before you go spend good money after bad, you need to actually come listen to the community and actually understand what we want.'”

According to Sipeki, RTD will continue its planned downtown rail reconstruction next year “separate to any community discussions about the long-term future of the corridor.”

There is no way to estimate what it would cost to remove the rail tracks, as a study would need to be done to determine that cost, Sipeki added.

Still, the Five Points BID plans to rally the community to push RTD to make changes. In the meantime, the BID has circulated a survey to gather more opinions on the light rail and the vision for the Welton Street Corridor.

“Our hallmark is that moving forward we stand together as a community,” Harris said. “We want to see this corridor advanced.”