An RTD bus driver navigated around gates and signs before going the wrong way on the Interstate 25 HOV lanes early Wednesday.
The driver, who has not been named, has been suspended while the Regional Transportation District investigates and decides on his future, said spokesman Scott Reed.
The driver was traveling alone about 5:30 a.m. when he headed north from the Union Station lot in the high-occupancy vehicle lanes, at a time when those lanes are designated for southbound traffic.
The bus’ first stop would have been the Wagon Road park-n-Ride at West 120th Avenue in Westminster.
He soon passed another bus headed in the right direction.
Reed said the driver of that bus notified dispatchers, and the wayward driver was ordered to pull over near the 70th Avenue exit, about 6 miles from Union Station.
“It’s very clear the bus operator did not follow the correct procedure,” Reed said. “He drove around gates that were clearly marked, signs warning him he was going in the wrong direction and HOV lanes that were clearly marked and lit.
“We’re interviewing the bus driver to find out how he missed so many warnings and see if there’s more we can do to keep it from happening again.”
Other drivers swerved to the shoulder to miss the bus, they told 9News.
“It just zoomed right by,” said commuter Holly Nickerson.
Her car-pool passenger, Carolyn Kelley, added: “I’m kind of afraid that people that are driving the buses aren’t paying attention. I’m glad I’m alive.”
Nickerson said traffic was able to merge into one of the HOV lanes to avoid the oncoming bus and that saved a head-on crash that could have killed her and Kelley.
“We would have folded up,” Kelley said. “That’s frightening.”
RTD took samples for mandatory drug and alcohol tests, but the results were not available Wednesday afternoon.
Denver police and the Colorado State Patrol received reports about the bus going the wrong way but did not reach it before it stopped.
No citations had been issued as of Wednesday afternoon.
RTD reviewed safe-driving procedures with its drivers after a series of deaths involving RTD buses in April.
An RTD driver faces criminal charges for an April 3 crash that killed two people in Denver.
Two days later, a pedestrian died when he was hit by an RTD bus in Aurora. It was later determined the man was intoxicated and may have stepped in front of the bus.
A bicyclist in Lafayette was struck and killed by an RTD bus April 6, and on June 6, an RTD bus driver hit a bicyclist on Denver’s 16th Street Mall. That driver later resigned.
Reed says the recent remedial safety training did not include instruction on how to drive in the correct direction in HOV lanes because that’s “general” information that should be known by bus drivers.
