It currently runs 86 local, 23 regional, 14 limited, and 3 skyRide bus routes plus some special services.

[4] Google has RTD schedules attached to its trip planner, and 3rd party mobile applications are now available for the iPhone and other platforms.

In 1969, the Colorado General Assembly created the RTD to provide public transportation to five additional counties in the metropolitan area.

In October 1970, RTD established a Northern Operations Group (NOG) to provide service to Boulder and Longmont.

It acquired privately owned companies, improved service frequency, and expanded to routes that commercial carriers previously operated such as airport buses.

Later that year, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) selected RTD to develop PRT as a demonstration project.

In 1973, residents voted for a sales tax of 0.5% over the six counties served by RTD for ten years; 20% of the funds would be used for expanded bus services and the other 80% was earmarked for PRT construction, although that project was later scrapped.

[10] RTD also acquired the privately owned Denver-Boulder Bus Company, which ran airport buses.

RTD reached a record number of weekday passengers in 1980, the same year it expanded the Park-n-Ride system and acquired 216 new buses, 89 of which were articulated.

[11] In September 1994 Downtown Express/High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes were opened to buses, and to carpools a year later.

[13] RTD began planning for a light rail in the mid-1980s, after the successful opening of the San Diego Trolley in 1981 and amid a surge in light rail construction in mid-sized cities nationwide (Buffalo, Portland, Sacramento, and San Jose also built systems at the same time).

[18] In 2003, the downtown portion of the original line between Speer Boulevard and 14th Street was realigned as a result of construction of the Colorado Convention Center.

Workers walked off on April 3, shutting down the light rail system and decreasing bus service to about 45% of its normal capacity.

[19][20] The 19-mile (31 km) Southeast Corridor, a component of the Transportation Expansion Project, opened on November 17, 2006, along I-25 to Lone Tree and a branch along I-225 to Parker Road.

After the A Line opened between Denver Union Station and Denver International Airport, it experienced a series of issues related to having to adjust the length of unpowered gaps between different overhead power sections, direct lightning strikes, snagging wires, and crossing signals behaving unexpectedly.

[28] In response, Denver Transit Partners, the contractor building and operating the A Line, stationed crossing guards at each place where the A line crosses local streets at grade while it continued to explore software revisions and other fixes to address the underlying issues.

On January 28, 2019, an R Line light rail train derailed the junction of East Exposition Avenue and South Sable Boulevard (between Aurora Metro Center and Florida stations) due to excessive speed.

One woman's foot was amputated by the train wheels after she was ejected from the car during the accident, eight other passengers were also injured.

Video showed the train approaching the turn at high speed, although as of September 29, 2022[update], no cause has been officially released.

[40] Additionally, all stations include works of public art as part of RTD's art-n-Transit program.

In 2014, RTD began to receive New Flyer Xcelsior low floor buses for the free MetroRide and other routes.

RTD also offers daily passes: Local ($5.50) and Regional/Airport ($10) which allow unlimited travel at the chosen fare level until 2:59 a.m. the day following the purchase.

In 2006/2007, RTD worked with the city of Boulder, the University of Colorado, and real-time bus-tracking outfit NextBus on a GPS-based system to help riders with bus arrival information at selected high-traffic stops, but the experiment proved to be unreliable and was discontinued.

[53] Several years later, RTD started making its bus location and route data available to third-party developers.

It also added several dedicated slip ramps for RTD buses to access several Park-n-Ride stations directly from the highway.

The HOV lanes extended from I-25 to US 36, allowing regional and express routes running along US 36 to downtown Denver to bypass congestion around the Turnpike Tangle.

An 8.7-mile (14.0 km) light rail line, the route runs from the terminus of the Central Corridor at I-25 & Broadway to Mineral Avenue in Littleton with five existing stations.

This project built a light rail line from I-25/Broadway south to Littleton/Mineral alongside existing freight tracks used by BNSF and Union Pacific next to Santa Fe Drive.

[64] About $1 million from the T-REX contingency budget was dedicated to art projects at each of the 13 new southeast corridor light rail stations as part of RTD's art-n-Transit program.

[65] Design team artists who worked on windscreen benches, railings, bike racks and canopy columns at all stations were Susan Cooper and Rafe Ropek.