Federal aviation officials won’t fund any portion of the project to expand the overloaded Peña Boulevard that leads to Denver International Airport. Colorado Department of Transportation officials also are steering clear. And DIA chief executive Phil Washington, who has guided the airport’s growth to be one of the busiest in the world, faces rising pressure as harried drivers rushing to catch flights frequently back up on the highway, which runs 11 miles from Interstate 70 to the DIA passenger terminal. A $2.1 billion overhaul inside DIA is boosting its capacity to handle record numbers of passengers, projected to reach 82 million this year, up from 69 million in 2019, and 120 million by 2045. But the average drive time to navigate Peña Boulevard, once eight minutes, has tripled to 24 minutes and often exceeds half an hour. “Peña Boulevard is a vital cog in what we are doing here,” Washington said, weighing options in a recent interview.