How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/06/how-denver-is-becoming-the-most-advanced-transit-city-in-the-west/373222/

by andrewfong • 12 years ago

122 67 12 years ago

RobotCaleb• 12 years ago

Looking forward to being able to get to DEN via train.

bri3d3• 12 years ago

The Northwest suburbs (Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, Longmont) got quite screwed over in this deal - we approved and paid into the 0.4% sales tax in 2004, but ended up with only years of disruptive highway construction leading to a privatized tollway and fake Bus Rapid Transit. We didn't even get real BRT as the buses run in the private toll lanes rather than their own grade and the buses board and deboard just like a normal bus (supposedly the "train style" buses couldn't make it up a hill on the highway).

The Denver area really does have good mass transit, though - the Southwest suburbs are now well-served by light rail, the airport will have rail service soon, and the bus system is reasonable (as bus systems go), albeit with extremely high fares.

thescribe• 12 years ago

Thank you for pointing this out. Denver has great transport because they haven't broken ground northward yet.

rpedela2• 12 years ago

36 is starting to show a lot of progress for the dedicated bus lanes and the train tracks which will eventually go to Longmont. It was always the plan that the south and airport would go first. The north is scheduled to be done in 2017 I believe.

bri3d3• 12 years ago

36 isn't showing any progress for train tracks - they're not building any!

There's going to be light rail to South Westminster (South of 72nd), but the train tracks to Longmont are only being "researched," aren't part of this phase of construction, and are one of the reasons RTD are trying to pass an additional 0.4% sales tax.

The original concept was that the Northwest Rail project would proceed along with the other rail projects - to the point that housing developments like Steel Yards were built next to Boulder Junction in anticipation of the "coming train station." The original project plan involved running RTD and BNSF freight trains on the same shared, standard-width, diesel-powered rail line, not unlike Caltrain in the Bay. You can see that map here: http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/media/uploads/nw/2009-0715_NWR_... (stations in Red were purportedly "funded" by the 2004 tax).

That plan was scrapped for a variety of reasons: RTD couldn't come to an agreement with BNSF, they would have had to use eminent domain and pay a lot to build a rail yard, and they straight up mismanaged and ran out of money.

The new plan is that there's no plan: RTD are conducting a "Northwest Area Mobility Study" and even if an additional tax were to pass, it's unlikely we'd see a working rail line until the mid-2020s at the earliest: http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/nw_1

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

Not that they can easily solve this, but unless you live very close to a station or do the park n ride thing (no good if using for parties) - the southbound rails leave you in the middle of dark suburbia. So yes, you can skip out on a bit of driving down I-25. It's neat but I'd be surprised to hear that a significant percentage of the population is "well served".

kposehn• 12 years ago

The Northwest line is already under construction to Arvada, correct? I believe they are working westward right now.

As for the line up to Boulder, blame the expense of building a completely separate right-of-way along the BNSF Brush Subdivision, a very busy funnel for coal trains :-/

bri3d3• 12 years ago

"South Westminster" - basically, 72nd and Federal.

They weren't trying to build separate right-of-way - they were trying to lease the existing BNSF tracks:

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_20782125/rtd-stunned-by-bnsfs-c...

You're right that the busy freight corridor is a lot of the problem, though.

blackaspen• 12 years ago

There is a separate line to Arvada, I believe it's the Gold line. That's still on track.

ary• 12 years ago

The Northwest suburbs (Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, Longmont) got quite screwed over in this deal

No kidding. Last I heard the proposed Light Rail extension might not even make it to Boulder. Longmont and Lafayette are most likely screwed. Personally I'd like to see a justification for how the rail west to Golden (which stops short no less) got priority over the airport or Boulder.

The Denver area really does have good mass transit, though

Agreed. As far as American mass transit systems go RTD is pretty good. At least it's an integrated system unlike the mess in the SF Bay area.

julienchastang2• 12 years ago

Also longtime Boulder resident here. Yes, agreed 100%. Boulder and surrounding NW communities really got the shit end of the stick here. The phony BRT seems little different than what is in place now (just replace the ABX sign with BRT, and there you go), but something that we will probably have to live with for a generation at least. I don’t have high hopes for how the buses will perform during snow storms (unlike rail which has fewer problems in inclement weather). How will this be considered an improvement is beyond me. What is really disappointing is Boulder residents and politicians are just rolling over dead instead of either demanding the service they were promised and voted for or trying to get their tax money back. And I don’t expect RTD will ever be able to pass another tax increase ballot measure ever again. The rest of Denver-metro has their train (already or soon), so they won’t vote for another tax increase and neither will Boulder given how much they have been shafted in the past.

Apart from the NW corridor complete fiasco, yes FasTracks is really quite nice in other areas of Denver-metro.

vidarh• 12 years ago

how the buses will perform during snow storms

Depends greatly on how well you treat the roads. I'm from Norway, and we have areas where you'll not be able to see over the snow when driving at certain times of winter, and keeping the buses running is usually not a big problem, as long as the roads gets cleared regularly.

unlike rail which has fewer problems in inclement weather

... also depends on how prepared they are. I now live in the UK, and here a few cm of snow causes the train network to grind to a stand-still while they struggle to keep the track clear, while in Norway, the trains on many lines are equipped with snow-ploughs during the winter.

jessaustin• 12 years ago

The Northwest suburbs (Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, Longmont) got quite screwed over in this deal - we approved and paid into...

I wonder if, in a political science game theory sense, this is similar to the "red states get the most government spending" phenomenon. That is, it's unlikely that the people of Boulder would ever vote against rapid transit projects. So, a rapid transit program can have political success without serving those "reliable" voters as well as it serves more fickle areas, whose votes could change if they become unhappy with the program.

julienchastang2• 12 years ago

Yes, that is exactly it. Boulder has been the biggest proponent of public transit, but gets the least in return. Former Democratic Colorado state legislator Ron Tupa a while back used to make an issue of this. If memory serves correct, it was city of Boulder that originally set up the successful HOP bus service not RTD (it was eventually absorbed into RTD). Apparently there is no (political) upshot for RTD to serve Boulder in any decent fashion. But this can only last so long before even Boulderites get fed up. My hunch is another tax increase would not pass. Of course, most of the FasTracks system will be complete soon so now so that does not matter except if you live in the neglected NW corridor, of course.

chadmaughan2• 12 years ago

Salt Lake City (also "in the West") already has ~45 miles of light rail track [1], 88 miles of commuter rail track [2], ~3 streetcar track miles [3], and 69 transit stations. It was named as one of the top transit systems in north america for 2014 [4].

This was approved in 2008 by voters in Salt Lake County [5]. Already under works are plans to expand the commuter rail beyond Ogden to Provo (from 88 to 135 miles) and expand the streetcar concept. Additional lines are also currently being studied [6].

Of course, when Fastracks is done, it may have more "track miles" but that will be mostly due to the airport being so, so far away from the city center (~23 driving miles from Denver to DEN compared to ~6 from Salt Lake to SLC).

I'm excited for Fastracks. Can't wait to never have to fill my rental car out at that single, lonely Conoco gas station by DEN again.

1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAX_(light_rail)

2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FrontRunner

3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Line_(UTA)

4 - http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865605797/UTA-named-one-o...

5 - http://www.rideuta.com/mc/?page=Projects-Frontlines2015

6 - http://www.rideuta.com/mc/?page=UTAProjects

saosebastiao3• 12 years ago

To me, SLC is the ultimate counterpoint to the whole "Republicans are destroying transit!!" hysteria. SLC's core is definitely left-leaning, but just a few miles outside the city center it is pure Republican territory. And despite the heavily skewed demographics, they are voting in massive numbers to extend rail transit to their cities. It is quite amazing what will happen to voting trends on transit investment when you consistently demonstrate fiscal responsibility, fast construction, and high ridership.

Osiris• 12 years ago

SLC light rail is significantly cheaper than RTD. The furthest zones in Denver are $10 round trip. When I was in SLC it was $2.50 round trip for anywhere on the entire line (I'm sure it's more by now).

Personally I believe that public transportation pricing should be based on an algorithm to maximize ridership rather than on being self-sustaining. Since the point of public transit is to reduce traffic, people that prefer to drive should be subsidizing public transit through registration and gas taxes.

aaron-lebo• 12 years ago

Do you have any idea why this is the case? Some aspect of Mormonism?

akgerber7• 12 years ago

SLC is a counterexample to that trend, but Republicans definitely hate transit in many cities— for example, the Tennessee legislature tried to ban a bus rapid transit project in Nashville even when no state dollars were used: http://www.wired.com/2014/04/tennessee-bans-bus-rapid-transi...

chadmaughan2• 12 years ago

Totally agree. For example, the Frontlines project, or "70 miles in 7 years" was done 2 years early and 300 million dollars under budget. [1] That goes a long way towards future budget increase requests and tax increase votes.

[1] http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56733855-90/2015-alleg...

superflit• 12 years ago

Sorry,

But Denver is Way more progressive and open than Salt Lake. So in general it rocks! And we can buy beer at sundays ;)

brown_ghost• 12 years ago

And since January, we can buy other fun things too!

bignaj3• 12 years ago

Funny how Seattle was left out of the comparison to other PNW cities. I'm not surprised... Seattle's transportation situation is abysmal.

seanmcdirmid2• 12 years ago

Metro/ST isn't that bad, I take it rather than rent a car when in Seattle, but I don't venture out of the West Seattle-Seattle-Bellevue core where service is pretty good.

bignaj3• 12 years ago

Yeah, but you don't have to deal with it every single day. Metro offers pretty horrendous bus service especially considering their cost per passenger one of the highest in the country. Recently voters thwacked a measure seeking more funding for Metro and one of the main reasons I think (among others like aversion to car tab expenses) was anger at mismanagement.

lotharbot2• 12 years ago

Transportation of all types in Seattle is abysmal, because Seattle has so many waterways, steep hills, etc. that can only be crossed via a small number of routes. They're always terribly congested.

bignaj3• 12 years ago

Subway service would do wonders but knowing Seattle it will never happen.

overgard• 12 years ago

What I've always wanted in colorado is a japanese style bullet train across the front range. It makes so much sense since most of the population in colorado lies in a pretty narrow north-south axis, and there is more than enough open space.

timr• 12 years ago

Awesome. I went to college in Denver back when the first light rail initiative tanked, and it was a nightmare to get around the city without a car. I've been back a few times since, and the transformation has been remarkable: almost everywhere I went back then is accessible by train now.

Now, if only San Francisco could follow suit and invest in greater transit -- instead of trying to increase the density of already-dense neighborhoods -- we might have a prayer of battling housing costs here. Housing density automatically happens when people can get from cheaper places to more expensive places quickly and reliably.

(Or maybe people will just leave the ridiculous bubble of the bay area, and go to places like Denver instead. Even better.)

lotharbot2• 12 years ago

"the transformation has been remarkable"

It's been great for my dad. He used to have to schedule the Access-a-ride to pick him up in his wheelchair. It was a huge pain, and he tried to avoid it as much as possible. Now he's got a light rail station a block away. He has an ease of mobility he's never had before.

jseliger• 12 years ago

Will metro residents give up their cars?

I wonder if the rise of Uber will affect this.

When I lived in Seattle, I noticed that a lot of people didn't commute to work via car but had one anyway, usually for one or two trips per week. Public transportation (buses and later light rail) were pretty good from about 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. or so during weekdays but were horrible the rest of the time. Bikes could be used intermittently.

Uber does an amazing job of filling in the gap. Last time I visited Seattle, I was struck by how some of my friends had given up cars, despite rising incomes, largely due to Uber. Uber may play a key role in getting rid of a lot of cars that are only marginally utilized, since it appears far more reliable and friendly than taxis—virtually all Seattlites who have to use Seattle taxis hate them. This has environmental and other implications.

abduhl• 12 years ago

The mountain states are car states. Denver is not a city like New York where people go without getting their license until they are in their mid-20s.

Having Uber or great public transportation will not change the fact that much of the draw of Colorado is that you can drive two hours and end up in the mountains or on the plains. Colorado self-selects for cars and they will not be going away any time soon.

davidw• 12 years ago

I agree with your statement, but "you can drive two hours and end up in the mountains or on the plains." - why would anyone drive two hours to be out on the plains?!

kissickas• 12 years ago

Let me offer a concurring opinion - Uber seems incredible expensive for two or three trips a week, from my experience. It works best when you're with a group of friends/family members and you are all drinking or don't feel like dealing with driving and parking. I would never consider it as an option like a normal cab for when I just need to do the week's grocery shopping or run out to get something at midnight, when the light rail might have shut down for the day. The only city where I ever used it was Denver, actually. Is this different from others' experiences?

As a side note - can't you drive two hours to a mountain from most East Coast cities? The Catskills are only 2.5 hours from NYC. I thought mountains were much more accessible in Denver than a two-hour car ride.

akgerber7• 12 years ago

No American city is a city like New York— its public transit system is an order of magnitude different in ridership from any other: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_rapid_tra...

That said, once a car isn't needed for day-to-day life in multiple neighborhoods in a city, and likewise once relaxed parking space requirements make it such that keeping a rarely-used car isn't trivially easy, (and especially an economy where reliable used cars have become far more valuable and unnecessary line-items in the budget might be quickly removed) the economics for young adults tilt pretty heavily toward tossing in gas money to with your car-owning friends or renting a car for $100 every few weekends when desiring a trip to the mountains. And urban families might become one-used-car-kept-for-10+-years families as opposed to one-car-per-adult families.

My understanding is also that Denver has a pretty-decent network of bike trails and a relatively-mild climate, which also means two-to-five mile trips can be pretty easily covered without a car.

Of course Denver won't become New York— but it stands a chance of becoming less of an auto-required city and more like the DC area, which is a relatively young metro area for the East Coast with a mass transit system from the modern era and new urban nodes at outer transit stops, and many people still own cars but plenty don't, especially in the urban core.

ghaff2• 12 years ago

Maybe at the margins where Zipcar also has an effect. But even if you pretty much stick to an urban core during the week--which tends to become less true as friends and other activities move out to the suburbs--even just dealing with rentals for weekends can start to become a real pain.

cylinder2• 12 years ago

Nobody is going to use Uber to make trips to Home Depot, the grocery store, weekend getaway to the mountains, etc. That's what that one car per household is for.

FlacidPhil• 12 years ago

There are other services such as Zip Car and Car2Go that work very well for running errands. I live downtown Denver and sold my car nearly a year ago, haven't looked back since. There are times I rely on friends to go to the mountains and such, but for the most part I'm just fine without a car.

bnolsen• 12 years ago

denver isnt a downtown oriented city, its very spread out. also the trains are empty whenever i see them running. just another expensive sinkhole from what i can tell.

jbail• 12 years ago

Lived in Denver 5 years. Never driven to work, a pro sports game or a bar. Trains and busses have never been empty any of the times I've ridden them...which is daily

Xorlev• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, the satellite train tracks as they are now still require you to drive & park at an RTD garage, then wait for a train, and ride it with all the stops. For example, I used to take the W line from Federal Center station to Union Station. Without counting transit time to the station, it's about 40-45 minutes to Union Station. Car? 25-30 minutes. At that time, I still took the train.

I recently moved a little more south east, now it's a 5-10 minute drive to the Sheridan station (with lights) + parking + waiting, ends up being still 40-ish minutes. Only takes 20 minutes to drive, and I don't have people practically sitting on my lap.

And that's a good scenario. Denver lacks the simplicity I found in Portland's light rail and rail car system. It was quite clear how to get from place to place. Denver relies very heavily on buses.

Lots of transport? Sure. Most advanced? Don't think so.

davemel37• 12 years ago

All I know is that this car problem is growing rapidly in Colorado. As a Denver native, living in NY for the last decade I finally moved back to get away from the traffic. Unfortunately there are way more cars on the roads (and what feels like worse drivers) than I recall from a decade ago.

I won't even go up to the mountains during the weekend because I can get stuck in traffic on I-70 for 3-4 hours heading back to Denver on a Sunday afternoon/evening. It should take half that time.

I'm glad Colorado is investing in Infrastructure and passing laws to accommodate Uber, etc...

bfwi• 12 years ago

It seems no article can positively describe a city, without mentioning that it's also a tech cluster. Is there a city that doesn't claim to be a tech cluster? We need to recalibrate that term.

EvanPlaice• 12 years ago

They're not exaggerating. Over the course of a decade.

DTC (Denver Tech Center) and Centennial Airport sprawled for miles around with tech companies and their employees who migrated from Southern California.

In the North West (Broomfield) around the Front Range Airport (or whatever they call it these days) tech companies and R&D centers started popping up all around Interlocken including Sun Microsystems.

Boulder is home to a number of smaller tech startups including SparkFun Electronics, and a Google facility downtown.

In the South West Lockheed Martin has a number of facilities that work on space systems (ie rockets, satellites).

Downtown Denver doesn't have much in terms of tech but the city is going through an urban revival and the light rail system is supposed to connect it all together (if they ever build the northwest rail line).

High wages and increased standard of living are a win/win.

roycehaynes2• 12 years ago

Downtown Denver resident here. I have to attest that the light-rail has been a tremendous win for Denver and surrounding area residents. Along with the bus system, Uber, and Car2Go, I started using light rail last December and never looked back. Even though there are hopeful plans to expand commuter rail to Boulder, I still think the FastTrack Program is a good decision. Boulder's been a stiffed by the new development but I can't imagine no commuter rail being implemented sooner than later.

roycehaynes2• 12 years ago

I have to counter some of the comments regarding buses and light rail being empty. This is completely untrue. People are using the light rail and buses in large sums. It has its off peaks but certainly before and after working hours is extremely busy. Most people who say their empty are likely the same folks not using public transportation. I had the same consensus before trying out RTD.

akgerber7• 12 years ago

Transit riders see mostly see full busses & trains because they're riding the heavy-ridership routes through dense neighborhoods. People driving in spread-out neighborhoods mostly see empty busses & trains because they see the busses mandated to serve sprawling neighborhoods to serve people who can't drive or to provide service to all of the transit system's tax base, even if those neighborhoods aren't built in such a way anyone would ride transit by choice.

Here's a paper & a couple excellent blog articles on the topic: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692308... http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/08/14/jarrett-walker-empty-b... http://www.humantransit.org/2009/12/yet-another-transit-isnt...

From the paper's abstract: "Public transport faces an increasingly intense conflict between patronage goals and coverage goals. Broadly speaking, patronage goals seek to maximize patronage of all types, while coverage goals lead to the provision of service despite low patronage – to achieve social inclusion objectives for example."

leejoramo• 12 years ago

I live in Grand Junction, Colorado and I visit Denver 4 to 6 times a year for business or pleasure.

I think that this article is missing a huge part of the success of the Denver region. It is not just the RTD but many other factors. The transit efforts are not in isolation.

Denver is a sub-urban city, but they have strongly revitalized their downtown and older districts. Downtown has the 16th Street outdoor shopping mall, all of the stadiums for major sports, convention centers, museums. The amount of new housing units that have been built within walking distance of downtown is huge.

The article briefly mentions some of the projects in LoDo as if they were all part of the RTD, but LoDo had been rejuvenated long before the current rebuilding of the Station.

And there seems to be thought into not just rebuilding the old downtown, but I see this around the Tech Center and Stapleton.

smuss77• 12 years ago

My question is when cars can drive themselves why will the non-impoverished population need public mass-transportation. I envision a grid of cars (belonging to competing private companies) that have no drivers and can take a person from A to B, for a set fee -- much lower than when you need a driver. Light-rail, why? We already have the infrastructure for cars. Give it 20 years.

PhantomGremlin• 12 years ago

I've never been there, but from afar the Moscow Metro is a thing of beauty. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Moscow_me... In particular one thing Moscow has that the Denver map doesn't have much of is a ring line connecting the spokes.

A ring means that arbitrary trips don't need to go thru downtown. Not having a ring means that the transit system models the 19th century layout of having "farm roads" connecting into the "market" in the middle of the city.

Perhaps Denver uses buses to form a ring?

How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

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