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Getting Around CU Boulder: The Transportation Cheat Sheet
Published September 8, 2026
If you have ever spent time at CU, or even just around Boulder, you have probably noticed that people get around in more ways than you can count. That is exactly how I felt as a freshman. Between BCycles, Lime scooters, RTD buses, skateboards, and e-bikes, the options are everywhere. Here is the transportation cheat sheet I wish someone had handed me when I first got to CU Boulder.
BCycles
Boulder's most iconic way to get around campus and town is the BCycle. These are the electric bikes you will see docked at stations all over campus, The Hill, Pearl Street, and out to Williams Village. They are useful for basically everything. Haircut on Pearl? BCycle. Heading home to Will Vill after class? BCycle. Just do not feel like walking to your 9 a.m.? BCycle has you covered. The best part for students is that your rides are free. Every full-time CU student gets a free Boulder BCycle membership with unlimited 60-minute trips. Just download the Boulder BCycle app, sign up with your colorado.edu email, and select the CU Boulder student pass. The only thing to remember is to dock the bike within the hour so you do not get charged a small fee for going over.
Lime Scooters
Lime scooters are all over Boulder too, and this is where a lot of new students get it wrong. Lime now works on CU's main campus and The Hill, not just the streets around them. You will see the green scooters parked at stations on The Hill, Pearl Street, and across campus. A few things to know: you unlock them in the Lime app, it runs about a dollar to start plus roughly 35 cents a minute, you have to be 18 to ride, and the scooters are speed-limited once you are on campus. When you finish, you have to park in a designated Lime Grove or the app will not let you end the ride, which means it keeps charging you. Convenient on The Hill, and honestly just fun.
Bring your own wheels: bike, skateboard, longboard, car
Bringing your own bike is a great move, and a popular one. CU is a Platinum-level bike-friendly campus with paths everywhere and tons of racks to lock up at. Here is what I would actually do, and what I did: buy a cheap used bike on Facebook Marketplace for around 100 to 150 dollars. That way, if it ever gets stolen or beat up, you are not out a nice new bike. And bikes do get stolen here if you are careless, so lock yours with a solid U-lock, which you can grab at the UMC Bookstore, and run it through the frame, not just the front wheel.
Two more things worth knowing. First, register your bike with CU. It is free, it helps campus police recover it if it goes missing, and it unlocks free maintenance help. Second, the campus bike stations will work on your bike for free. Flats, brakes, shifting, cables, air in your tires, a quick tune-up, all of it, no charge for registered riders. There are a few spots for this on campus, including a station on the north side of the CASE building and another over by the Engineering Center, so help is never far when your chain slips or your tire goes flat.
CU is also very skate friendly, so a regular or electric skateboard or longboard is a solid option. The route from The Hill down to campus is all downhill, which is why you will see people bombing to class every morning.
Do you need a car? Not really. One of the best things about CU is how close everything is, especially freshman year, when the dorms sit right by most of your classes. Sophomore year and beyond a car is nice if you live farther off campus, but plenty of students go all four years without one. If you do bring it, think of it as a bonus for grocery runs, ski days, and drives up Flagstaff to spots like Lost Gulch.
RTD Buses and the Buff Bus
Your Buff OneCard is also your free bus pass. Every CU student rides RTD's regularly scheduled routes for free, just tap your card as you board. If you live in Williams Village or on East Campus, the Buff Bus will become part of your daily routine. It runs constantly during the semester, gets you to main campus fast, and the fleet is going electric. Around town, RTD lines with fun names like the Hop, Skip, and Jump connect you to Pearl Street, the Twenty Ninth Street mall, and other spots. You can even ride RTD to Denver International Airport for free with your pass on the SkyRide, which is clutch around the holidays. And in winter, the CU Ski Bus runs affordable weekend trips to Ikon resorts like Winter Park, Copper, and A-Basin, while RTD's Route N gets you to Eldora free with your student pass. It is a great way to hit the slopes without owning a car.
The bottom line
Walking is always an option, especially as a freshman, since the dorms sit near most of your classes. But between bikes, scooters, skateboards, and buses, you will end up mixing several of these over your years in Boulder. Want to see how students actually move around The Hill and campus? Book a Signature Private Walking Tour ($150, any group size) at tourthehillboulder.com/request-tour. If you are out of state and cannot get to Boulder yet, book an Ask a Buff video call ($50) and ask a current student anything about life here.