We all are historical revisionists.

RTD is an institution with three functions: 1st) to keep employees working while moving people; 2nd) to keep planning, engineering, and, public relations people working during 'design' and 'build out' phases, and 3rd) to develope Lodo. And, IMO, in that order.

The US economy took a huge hit between 2007 and today. The causes are irrelavant in this discussion. All the readers know the drill about cost over runs, etc., on plans that were firmly laid out when very few people really needed alternative transportation.

I am positive that the Fastracks layout would not make it to "first base" if the planning phase, say where RTD was in 1995, was occurring today.

Few people, to me, had any idea in 1995 that maybe a LOT of people might use public transportation because THEY HAVE TOO. Seems to me that that reality is fast approaching in any future world.

Ok, the Fastracks Boulder plan was part of the payoff scheme that Lodo Denver bargained with the inner and outer suburbs, in exchange for the horrid spokes design that would funnel users DOWNTOWN. The Tech Center got the TRex mess. Littleton got the excellent Southwest line. Powerful Lakewood (which was very powerful in 1995 as the center of Jeffco) got the Taj Mahal line. Boulder, home of CU, high tech entrepeneurs, and, an affluent live style was to get- what was imagined in 1995, a double bonus of rail and bus (thereby pulling Broomfield, Louisville, and, poor Longmont on board).

So the design of the rail 'road', due to BNSF, was ruined due to that railroad's recognition of their line's value, combined with the desire on RTD's part to shoe horn in a 'high status' transportation solution into the Turnpike/Rail corridor.

A few pointed out to RTD long ago that Fastracks was a poor solution. Those of us that did, at that time, were very naive politically, while those at RTD, and various city/country governments were astute politically and ignorant about what efficient fast public transportation CAN DO.

Combine that combo with the leadership of an egomaniac like Marsala during the 90s and early 00s, and, we are getting what we deserve in 2012*, I suppose.

NOT 2011 ANYMORE?

I still don't understand your perpetual pessimism, Wizened... :( You act as if FasTracks is some sort of very ill-conceived notion in which it's going to do little to no good. TRex mess, you say? We can quibble all you want about the fact that the rail line should have probably been on the east side through the middle of the Tech Center as opposed to being on the west side adjacent to I-25, but it's still serving an essential purpose for tens of thousands of riders per day. The West Line will be running through some pretty dense neighborhoods in West Denver and into Lakewood, and will end at a major employment center. Should it have gone into downtown Golden? Yes, of course. But funds simply weren't there to support it, and perhaps ridership estimates just didn't support it, either. The DIA line is essential, no doubt about it. The Gold Line will connect Wheat Ridge and Arvada to downtown and the rest of the system, which is great for commuters. Not just to downtown, but also to the Tech Center and/or DIA. We can argue till the cows come home about the I-225 corridor, but I see a lot of use in connecting DIA, Fitzsimmons, Central Aurora, etc., to the Tech Center as well as downtown.

Of course FasTracks isn't the be all end all. It needs to be supplemented with additional streetcar/trolley/bus service to connect more of the dense city neighborhoods with each other. But FasTracks is for regional transportation first and foremost, not necessarily for shorter, intra-city trips...

Aaron (Glowrock)

I have spent too much time in my life looking at scenarios. To me, a scenario is a model where one can change values of multiples of variables and, hopefully, can look at differing outcomes. People that operate via scenarios try to seperate, best they can, their own prejudices from a given scenario 'X' then manipulate the variables to see the outcome. Those of us that tend to think this way (there are many other ways to think, I understand that) will relentlessly vary inputs and look at outputs.

I do not mean to be patronizing, here.

In addition the transportation scenarios I have thought about over the years grew from my youth in Japan and a year in Europe. During these years, I rode and rode and rode trains, bicycles, and buses. I experienced what fast, safe, and frequent 'public' transportation means. I literally have sat with hundreds of thousands of fellow riders, disembarked from trains and buses with them, spent hundreds of hours in business and recreational areas around train stations.. These experiences constitute, in my mind, not what 'public' transportation can be, but, what in many parts of the world, IT ALREADY IS.

Metro-Denver, bottom line, has continually disregarded the NORMS of public transportation in much of the world, in favor of a very- hate to say it- provincial, cow town, home concocted mediocre product. Whether this has occurred due to property owner and development power politics, or from naivity makes no difference. What is built is built.

What you mean to say is that THE UNITED STATES, bottom line, has continually disregarded the NORMS of public transportation in much of the world... blah... blah... blah... ;)

Ever thought of the fact that, in MUCH OF THE WORLD, public transit is paid for in no small part through the use of fuel taxes that are much, much higher than ours? It's not a legitimate comparison, Wizened. You have to look at Denver more or less as a comparison to other mid-sized metro areas within the United States. I'd say Denver's doing pretty damn well by that regard, quite frankly. And it's not like bus service is terrible, either. I've always been under the impression that RTD is pretty good in terms of its overall bus route network, actually.

Again, FasTracks isn't the ENTIRE transit picture. It's got to be looked upon in conjunction with other intra-city transit solutions, whether they be bus, trolley, streetcar, or what-not.

Aaron (Glowrock)

I do agree that we have paid less taxes on public transporation- FAR LESS, than nations with smaller military budgets, etc. That, however,
makes it far more important to design, plan, and, build extremely well. In addition, this constraint should require those who are in a position to influence design, planning, implemented, etc., to actually SEE what other nations have done, learning from the "+"s and "-"s of what has already been built.

Yes, Denver is part of the US and the US has the 'problem', but that in my mind is not even a good excuse- just because 90% of the people are a certain way, does not mean we all have to be.*

Through stations, platform to platform boarding, convenient pedestrian access to stations, quiet station design, dedicated right of way, large radius curves, high speed switches, high average vs high peak velocities, sleek style to attract youth interest, room for further expansion of stations and room for additional tracks,frequent service, safe transit enviornments, etc. are ALL KNOWN, discovered factors in good rail design.

Very frequent service, platform to bus boarding, dedicated lanes, dedicated right-of-way, cross platform transferring, free riding options, flat rate service, etc., are all known factors in good bus design.

I am not indicting the thousands of bus drivers, light rail engineers, mechanics, maintanence people, many designers, some of the planners...the little people. Most do a very good job. But these people had, and, have virtually nothing to do with what is built, how things are to be designed, etc., other than to influence budget people as part of the cost equation. No, I am angry at those higher in the food chain who, the older I get, the more I realize that they made this mess, deliberately.

So, maybe despite my very transit rich life style, I might go along with just building out what is being built now, and, wait until people really get desperate. Maybe then we could something that would truly work when Colorado has the supposed 10 million people in 2050.



*Fastracks has been designed, planned out, etc., in a corrupt, hackneyed, self-serving, 'provincial manner', where a very few shortsighted power players hurt the city for years to come. Don't just excuse that away with comparisons to Cincinnatic, Hoboken, etc. Remember, too, that many of worker bees have known this, but, have kept quiet to keep their jobs. I dream at least once a month about Fastracks being a horrid, inefficient set of slow, old, infrequent, 6 and 7 car trolleys moving multitudes of very uncomfortable people, taking 'forever' to get anywhere but Lodo. Realize it did not have to be...

The best possible designs, from what I've observed, usually can't get built. They end up costing way over budget. Then in attempts to scale them down into the budget, you get public opinion/input coming in (often not a very informed input either) and then there are political input from multiple cities coming in. In the end, there are many factions of people and influences, all with a slightly different idea of what would be the best design for the available budget. Then there are groups who opposite it entirely and if they can't kill the project, they attempt to enter into the discussions to influence it's design, in an attempt to get them to make compromises, which they hope will undermined the success and usefulness of the end product. I guess, so they can just gloat about "I told you so," and then use that as precedence to fight any similar projects in the future.

Being that we be not a totalitarian society, but instead a democracy based society, these opinions all matter. So in order to come to a resolution and consensus on designs, compromises have to be made. If they are not, nothing gets built. If too many compromises are made, the end result can turn out to be a conglomerate of two opposing proposals, glued together. It's a delicate balance and we do the best we can. It's better than the totalitarian society option.

call me crazy...but...if BNSF is costing something like $700B for right of way...couldn't they redesign this whole route with just train and acquire right of way / share 36 right-of-way for less than that number?

That's one of my questions as well. We are looking at such a ridiculous cost increase for the commuter rail in the NW corridor that a lot of previous options that were dismissed as being financially non-feasible are now less likely so. Since it seems that RTD is committed to building the commuter rail portion, whether in 2030, 2040, or 2050, let's look at other options in getting the rail to Boulder that maybe goes where the people actually are. It's not as if time constraints are going to be a factor after this October's failed tax increase.

Or build the rail up to Louisville, connect Longmont with rail via the North corridor and CDOT's Northern Front Range rail plan, and leave Boulder in it's own little bubble. ;)

I don't disagree that train and BRT would likely be a duplicative service. I would have more confidence in BRT if it were actually a "kick-ass" BRT system, which it is not based on its current design. BRT should be completely separate from vehicular traffic and having to get off at every exit for stations and negotiated intersections and car lanes is not BRT. BRT will be affected by weather and traffic still. If they redesign the BRT to function more like rail, then I would be wholly supportive of getting rid of the train option.

That said, there is still a lot of anti-Boulder rhectoric that is informing people's comments here. You may not like Boulder's politics, but that should not be a factor in whether equal transit service should be provided to Boulder or not.

1. At the end of the day, we all agree that Boulder should get a good transit line.

2. Key word from your paragraph: "Equal". Not "twice as good as anybody else".

3. Despite point #1, land use politics (everyone's, not just Boulder's) really *do* matter for this. We'll get the best bang for our buck on these transit lines if the jurisdictions they go through are willing to plan correctly around stations. RTD does absolutely have a responsibility to invest our limited regional dollars in the places they'll be most effective. Jurisdictions that refuse to grow around transit stations (and therefore push growth to more sprawling places) should not be rewarded with expensive transit infrastructure. Boulder is in the enviable position to already have a good transit-supportive downtown, which is one of the reasons why the BRT (which goes there) performs so much better than the rail (which doesn't). The only thing the rail line really has going for it in Boulder is the 30th/Pearl transit village, which is tiny.

Umm, they are re-designing BRT to function like that. You are describing the old "BRT."

I think, before you are too critical, you should do your homework.

I will emphasize again - "equal" transit does not mean the same transit. "Equal" in transit terms means "offering the same mobility." Many of the solutions being implemented in the Denver area are not feasible over a 30-mile corridor like Boulder's. Not to mention, population is much more spread out in that corridor, except in Boulder-proper, which is almost impossible to penetrate with the same rail technologies that can cover the distance between Denver and Boulder. So we have low ridership, long distances, and no easy ROW. "Equality" is impossible - because to provide the same service will cost 5-times more, to serve less than one-sixth of the metro area population. That's hardly equal.

I think we can agree the Federal Transit Administration doesn't have any anti-Boulder bias. So what does it tell you that the Northwest is the only main corridor left in the whole metro area that can't qualify for federal dollars? The Fed's formula, not RTD's. I'll answer - it tells you the corridors are not equal.

The Rolling Stones on Boulder BRT:

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need

It's not a factor, we're stereotyping Boulder (goddamn faux-liberal hippies) because of the way Boulder is displaying a sense of entitlement over demanding BOTH systems.

The idea that Boulder should have equal transit service is an interesting one. Is equal transit service the one that can serve a large number of commuters similar to the other corridors? Or is it one where the technology is roughly comparable but carries a fraction of ridership due to the constraints of the corridor?

The NW corridor has become the ultimate example of the political compromise that is FasTracks. Every member-county of RTD is getting something out of it and every county thinks that that "something" needs to be fixed guideway transit. Even if it's the least efficient system. Right now I'm seeing a lot of the rhetoric and decision making being driven by the 2012 tax increase proposal and the fixed-timeline that it causing a lot of tunnel-vision on all sides that's leading to some poor, and expensive, potential solutions. If the tax proposal does fail, it would provide some much needed time for the decision makers and vested interests to step back and figure out if there is a better solution for the NW corridor, such as revisiting some of the other alternatives.

You know, Boulder (and all of us) should be more careful about all the talk of fairness. Boulder was the only corridor to get two transit lines in one corridor, and now that it hit a speed bump, RTD's hybrid solution is to throw an extra $700 million at the corridor. So we're up to, what, $2.4 billion now for the northwest corridor, or just under a third of the whole Fastracks program. Unfair?

Other corridors get it much worse.

What about Brighton? Right of way preservation, really, that's all they get? That'll work well, considering the hybrid northwest rail plan will eat up whatever funding RTD has until 2045 or so. Which makes a lot of sense considering the northwest is the slowest growing sector of the metro area. Brighton should be furious. As should Commerce City. Adams County is going to be a growth star over the next 20 years.

Frankly, what Aurora is getting is pretty marginal too. Far be it for me to poke the sleeping dragon that is Aurora, but if anybody should be shooting flaming arrows at Boulder, it's Aurora (not Denver). Denver will be fine figuring out its own intra-city transit someday. It's the rest of the Metro Area that Boulder is screwing.

Bunt,

Did you notice you the FasTracks staff recommendation to the RTD board used $2.5 billion in revenue bonds? Hmmmm.... wonder why they haven't proposed using the other $1.2 billion in available bonding capability asides from the inability to service the debt?

At least Boulder is screwing everyone and not using guns, can't say they aren't sticking to their liberal tendencies there.

Okay, so when I sponsor a ballot initiative to prevent such abuses to TABOR's intent, can I call it the "Wong Amendment?" It would be easy enough. Require sunset language be included in TABOR votes for all taxes and debt authorizations.

Sure, though I believe TABOR already requires it when a debt authorization is requested. The principal and total interest must be calculated and an entity is not allowed to exceed the total amount which does serve as a sunset clause. It's likely one of the reasons that FasTracks is in such a bad fiscal situation as it is: the entity can't leverage it's way out of fiscal shortfalls and has a hard time dealing with large (>10%) cost overruns. Then there's the grossly underestimating the capital cost estimate and projected revenues...

Though would you really want to further the cause of direct democracy in the United States? I'd prefer a benevolent technocracy over giving my fellow troglodytes further say in screwing things up.;)

So China... without the rampant human rights abuses? ;)

There are other alignments as well, that jut north to Lafayette and up into boulder via Valmont. My understanding is that RTD actually has ownership of part of this right of way.

I was looking at the West Corridor map and wondered is there a reason besides higher cost that they didn't just extend it closer to downtown Golden? It could've gone (and still could in the future) down ROW along Hwy 6 with a final stop by the Colo. School of Mines and within 5 blocks of downtown and 8 blocks of the Coors brewery.