Every year, Thanksgiving kicks off the holiday travel season. This year, Thanksgiving travel is projected to be the busiest in more than a decade, according to AAA.

Each year, RTD honors its employees through an annual Employee Awards Celebration. These employees are proud to serve the Denver metro region by working for RTD and the agency recognizes them for their efforts.

Here are the categories and what they mean.

No one likes to sit in traffic, whether you’re on Colorado Boulevard heading to the store, sitting in your ski gear on I-70 anticipating fresh snow, or waiting on the tarmac for your flight to take off for a dream destination. Traffic is a drag.

If you were near our 61st and Peña commuter rail station earlier this year, you likely spotted it: a sleek, rectangular shuttle quietly circulating along a predetermined loop near the University of Colorado A Line, making four stops every 15 minutes. If you stepped aboard, you saw firsthand what made RTD’s Route 61AV unlike any other: The vehicle assigned had no driver.  

After being incarcerated for 25 years, Robert Wardell was released from prison last May. Now that he’s free, he’s taking his second chance for all it’s worth.

Visit Union Station nearly any day at any time, and you’ll find the place abuzz with activity. In the summertime, children laugh and play on the splash pad outside, while in the winter, shoppers hunt for gifts at the annual holiday market.

Picking someone up from Denver Union Station can be a bit of a production. Are you meeting on the Wynkoop or Wewatta side? Are you meeting closer to 16th Street, closer to 20th Street, or right in front where 17th Street ends? But if you were a Denverite in 1875, you’d also...

The word “sustainability” means different things to different people. At its core, the term means keeping things manageable so they can continue.

It’s been two years in the making and I’m happy to announce that the opening for the G Line is April 26. 

On behalf of the RTD Board, the hard working employees of RTD and our concessionaire Denver Transit Partners, I am incredibly excited about this announcement.

Opened in March, 1983, Market Street Station, designed by Johnson Hopson & Partners, consisted of two levels. Above ground was a bustling plaza where riders could hop on a MallRide shuttle or await their bus transfers in the shade of ash, oak, and locust trees.

On Mondays, Patricia Murphy catches a Route 8 bus from Thornton to Broomfield, where her granddaughter Madeline attends preschool at the Mamie Doud Eisenhower Public Library. Around 9:30 a.m., a FlexRide shuttle stops at Madeline’s house and drops them off at the library 15 minutes later. At 11:40 a.m., they catch another FlexRide shuttle back to the child’s home.

Bird of prey sightings are common in the Denver metro area, where bald eagles roost in our parks and greenways for the winter, and where a hawk once took up residence in a Thornton Costco. But District Shops parts clerk Ethan Daigle got more than a sighting a few weeks ago when a routine parts run turned into a dramatic raptor rescue.

Walter Palmgren is a light rail train operator and instructor at RTD. He’s worked at the agency for three years and four months. He wrote the following on RTD’s LinkedIn page: "I am truly blessed and honored each and every day to do the job that I do; to provide the service to the public that I do. I stand proud every single day to wear the uniform; to share with others about who I work for and the job that I do..."

A friendly feud brews between Terry Vicek and Bob Brewster over who has been employed at RTD the longest.