That was such incredible BS. I was standing in an underground stub commuter rail platform yesterday.

I suspect the difference is that we're talking about permitting a new station with a design they have apparently come to disfavor of late vs. an existing station. Our cities are full of buildings, streets, and infrastructure with designs that we'd never allow to be built as designed today.

EDIT: Oh, also, IIRC, the issue was not just an underground stub station, but the grade/incline that the tracks would have to come in at, too. All the tracks leading out of DUS cross over 20th Street on a bridge, so the tracks would have to be level and at the bridge grade by that point. But you also can't have any slope to the platform area underground either. So you'd have to go from a flat underground grade that extends to 18th Street up to a flat grade crossing over a bridge at 20th Street and in those two blocks the slope was apparently too steep for the fed's liking.

Also, lets not forget the additional half billion dollars we did not have.

I think the bigger mistake was before the Union Station planning process really got underway. They should have kept a wider ROW at the CML before all the new developments on the Downtown side of the CML went in.

I don't accept that new standards are necessary when old standards worked just fine and resulted in better cities... Not that that would be Denver's fault.

However, incline is a more legitimate issue. I'm willing to believe there wasn't room to fit an acceptably gentle slope between the bridge and platform.

Heres something from todays Post:

RTD directors delay decision on putting FasTracks tax hike on fall ballot
By Jeffrey Leib
The Denver Post
Posted: 03/09/2011 01:00:00 AM MSTUpdated: 03/09/2011 05:08:29 AM MST


After being buffeted for weeks with conflicting views of whether metro Denver voters will support a hefty FasTracks tax increase this year, RTD directors voted Tuesday night to defer until early May the decision whether to pursue such a ballot measure or delay it.

By a 13-2 vote, Regional Transportation District directors approved a 2011 financial plan for the $6.7 billion FasTracks program that assumes area voters will back a sales-tax increase of 0.4 percentage points in November 2012 but allows RTD until May 3 to decide whether to accelerate the process and vote this November.

RTD general manager Phil Washington said the agency will assess a number of "triggers" over the two months to help determine whether a 2011 election is winnable. They include judging whether the economy is improving, assessing whether there is "ongoing support from stakeholders," and verifying that there is financial support for a waging a successful tax election, Washington said.

FasTracks, which includes at least six new train lines and extension of three existing RTD light-rail lines, is at least $2 billion short of what is needed to complete the project by the end of this decade.

The Metro Mayors Caucus, which includes about 40 area mayors, had earlier supported a plan to take the proposal for a 0.4 percentage-point tax hike to voters this November.

But Tuesday night, Lakewood Mayor Bob Murphy read a letter from the caucus noting that polling research "suggests that given the very recent state of the economy, voter support for a 2011 FasTracks tax increase may be less certain."

Last week, the Coalition for Smart Transit, a pro-FasTracks group that includes business, environmental and labor representatives, said backers of the transit expansion would likely lose a tax election this year.

RTD's political consultants said off-year elections typically involve a smaller, older, more conservative and more tax-averse electorate.

"Based on recent research, we do not believe that 2011 is the year to ask for any tax increase," the coalition said in a letter to RTD directors Tuesday.

In 2004, when metro voters approved the original 0.4 percent FasTracks tax, proponents spent about $3.7 million winning that yes vote.

Tuesday's vote by RTD directors includes a plan to begin spending $305 million — as early as May — on some previously unfunded FasTracks projects.

These include $90 million to extend express toll lanes along U.S. 36; extending light rail along Interstate 225 from South Parker Road to East Iliff Avenue, also for $90 million; building a $90 million segment of the North Metro train line from Union Station to the National Western Complex; and building a $17 million transit station in downtown Longmont that ultimately will serve the Northwest train line.





Read more: RTD directors delay decision on putting FasTracks tax hike on fall ballot - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17...#ixzz1G8SQ0zgo
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Wow, that's politics at its worst. Let's say voters don't pass the tax in 2012. Are we going to run trains from DUS to the National Western Complex? We can use the downtown Longmont station for weddings, perhaps? Or RTD can lease it to Starbucks, maybe.

I think it's funny how much effort is going into whether it can pass or not, now or later. It's almost as if RTD is a giant lobbying firm, and the voters aren't to be trusted.

So, it looks like they divided up the money pretty evenly among the lines, but the Longmont station struck me as odd. I guess it makes them feel like they got something, but building a station that won't be used for 8 years minimum seems like a waste. By the time the first train arrives, I would think they would have to spend money fixing it.

Why is RTD building express toll lanes?

Either CDOT kicks in a big portion of the budget, or RTD builds bus-only lanes, not HOT lanes.

Do you count the ROW as part of the budget? I mean, we can't just give part of our highway to a transit agency without making them pay for it, can we?

My question is, how is the toll revenue divvied up?

No I don't count the ROW as part of the budget, because A) CDOT is supposed to be the Dept of Transportation, not highways; they should be just as happy to build a transit facility as a cars facility, and B) If a deal couldn't be struck to let RTD build bus-only (even if just shoulders) and CDOT refused to pony up for a car facility, then RTD should have abandoned the BRT and put the money into making rail work correctly. One good corridor rather than two bad ones.

I realize CDOT's refusal to play ball is a real-life problem that doesn't have an ideal solution, but dammit, RTD should not be in the business of building lanes for cars. They just shouldn't. That is specifically outside their mission, whereas transit is most definitely inside CDOT's.

If CDOT is forcing RTD to pay for car lanes, the governor should be getting involved to put CDOT in its place. That's why we have a governor.

Oh, and toll revenue isn't the only problem with HOT lanes. Since transit and SOV tolls are in direct competition with each other once the facility opens, whichever agency manages the end product will have every incentive to screw over the other agency.

Let's say CDOT managers the HOT lanes, which they should. Let's say RTD's bus service eats in to the toll revenue too much and CDOT can't turn a profit on their new toll road. Think they won't start charging RTD to use it, and force RTD to double or triple fares? Of course they will. Our HOT lane contracts here actually include exactly that; if too many people use transit, the transit agency has to pay the highway contractor for lost toll revenue.

That's not good government, no matter who pays for it.

Right, it wasn't the concept that was rejected, but instead the specific design. The incline was too steep. This means additional tunneling would have been needed and the bridge caused a problem with that. Also, the feds required some new stricter design requirements for possible explosions (if I'm not mistaking), which would have increased the cost of tunneling, even farther. That was also the reason the buildings over the platforms, such as the parking garage, are likely being eliminated. The original design and bid didn't include structurally reinforced buildings over the tracks to better withstand terrorist attacks. To me, that's a silly oversight and likely was an intentional oversight to just get a lower bid in to win the contract, knowing they would have to eliminate those elements later on. I say this, because I'm no expert, but the first time I saw the design, I thought, "that building and parking garage over the platforms, will have to be engineered to be able to withstand an explosion from possible terrorist attacks). So if it crossed my mind, why didn't it cross theirs?

The mistake was in the land developement pattern
 

Ok Union Station- in more of historical discussion

The primary mistake in the Union Station design was made 20 or so years ago by those people who partitioned the old rail yards that filled the bulk of the land now in various infill states north of Auraria Parkway and west of 7th Street all the way to the South Platte. IMO two factors played out:

1st: In order to get maximum, quick buildup along a line north on 14th Street, Speer viaduct (which was getting long of tooth) was brought down to ground level as close to I-25 as possible (although there is room for 6 tracks under the bridge, not just the five that are there).

2nd: McNichols Arena which was located about where Invesco field is now, was not a 'major' city venue and large landowners (at the time) had this parcel that was both very assessable by a ground level Speer Blvd and necessary to stimulate rapid urban redevelopment north of (at the time) the rather pathetic Larimer Street area.

The large scale plan to develop all that vacant space in the rail yards was to push the heavy rail towards the South Platte River, separated by a park from the River. However, this push was not complete as large scale property consortiums planned to develop a 'New Manhattan' from Speer northeast to at least 20th Street (seen today in the 'Glass House', the sagging Millennium Bridge etc).

Fast forward to when the Union Station light rail line right of way was placed.
Initially, money was to be put up by property consortiums, Denver State University and small property owners, and, the line was thus laid to maximize property development space. A result of this property patch work can be seen in the marvelously slow, highly curved section on the Union Station line from Colfax to the Invesco field station. Another result was the route north of Pepsi field under Speer Blvd, paralleling the heavy rail line.

(However, as such projects often do, the bulk of the money for building that line came from the tax payer.)

I am sure some of you old timers remember the original Union Station purchase in which RTD paid way over market rates for property. Originally, the property extended further southwest where the future train tracks were to run down what later became Wewatta. Part of that tapering property piece where the station tracks were to merge into 2 heavy rail tracks is visible in the shape of the Gates building which follows Wewatta, as originally intended.

Ok, so due to Pepsi Center and more importantly, due to lowering the Speer viaduct to ground level, the possibility of ground level through rail traffic at Union Station was eliminated.

Meanwhile, the Union Station line was completed, and, in a remarkably short time (:haha: ) the properties south of the line between 14th and Speer were built up. Remarkably short.... :)

The resulting mediocre design was not produced by accident, rather by, being polite, 'shortsightedness.'

Remember that in 1980 there were hundreds of acres of open land between Colfax and 20th Street.

Now we are stuck with a mediocre design, upon which hundreds of talented designers and architects have been working furiously to have the development put 'it's best face forward."

So what do we do now? Any heavy rail traffic from the south will be forced into the corridor north of the light rail Union Station. First, RTD needs to buy every square centimeter of land between the legal minimum clearance south of the 3rd heavy rail track and the light rail station. As Snyderbock correctly points out, there is room for a platform for a heavy rail track (at a minimum you need two tracks).Secondly, BNSF/UP needs to put in an extra heavy rail line where ever possible north of Dartmouth Street so that in the future, coal trains can have a place to park while heavy rail commuter trains travel north and south amoung them.

In addition, all of us need to work to keep right of way northeast of the Union Station light rail clear for future light rail growth (and heavy rail too) to at least Park Avenue.

All is not lost, but, the need now is to act to insure future growth of what we have.

(I had this merging of images one night over a cool Extra Pale Ale by Dillion Dam brewery: the crowded station scenes I remembered as a boy in Shinjuku played over Union Station, and Broadway Station. Our system under the crush of hundreds of thousands of riders was more like Mumbai than Tokyo. Now, I am not saying we will get 2,000,000 people per day like Shinjuku Station does, but, what about 250,000 or 500,000 at Union Station, excluding buses? What about 250,000-350,000 at Broadway? And I thought, better to plan for this than to excuse such a possibility away.);)

Oh woe is us. We apparently screwed up. Hind-sight is 20/20. Coulda-woulda-shoulda. Yet, somehow, we managed to survive.

+1

I'm a little tired of the oh woe is me crowd when it comes to DUS already. Is it going to be perfect? Nope, far from it! But it's still going to be a damned good station, a damned good transit hub, and it's going to be better than the vast majority of other transit hubs throughout this country, save for a few, obviously... :yes:

Aaron (Glowrock)

Most major cities have more than one train station, often one that serves metropolitan transit, and one that serves regional/national transit. I see no reason why we can't do that in Denver. Not everything has to go to Union Station.

The Broadway station is a logical contender for another station. It's geographically central, already an RTD hub, and it appears there is plenty of room in the RR R-O-W for additional tracks. It would be conveniently linked to DUS by light rail. Up at the 38th & Blake RTD station would maybe be another possible site.

I wish they would take light rail up to colfax/I-225 to access Fitz. I think they would get good ridership immediately

I believe the grade going down into the station was in fact the fatal flaw issue, as opposed to the fact that it stubbed at 16th.

Hey, my first post.

The advantage to using the available funding now from the Eagle Project savings to build this initial segment of the North Metro Corridor is that it would take one of the more expensive segments of North Metro out of the rest of the project and increase the chances that the less costly remainder up through Thornton might qualify for New Starts funding.

What kind of 2nd station are you talking about? For intercity trains or local ones? I'm not clear on what exactly you're proposing.

I agree that there is no good reason to continue the assumption that transfers are impossible anywhere other than Union Station, but I'm not sure locations so far from downtown are really desirable. But it depends on what you want to use them for.