I found this list of RTD light rail stations ranked by average weekday ridership and figured y'all might like to see it.

It's from 2007, so a little dated, but whatev.

Plus I'm willing to bet that the majority of the Alameda numbers are simply people wanting to use I-25/Broadway but find no available parking...

No question, the Mile High and Pepsi Center/Elitch's stations are dead for much of the year, but special events turn them into some of the busiest stations at any given moment in time...

Also, I'd bet that the County Line Station is now substantially more heavily used as a result of the bridge connecting it to Park Meadows...


Aaron (Glowrock)

Question: who uses the Nine Mile station? I always thought it was a dead station just acting as a placeholder until the H line will eventually be extended to connect with the East line to the airport. But that data suggests that it's almost as busy as the Englewood station. Who uses it? Doesn't it have reduced frequencies, too?

Tons of people use that station, CharlesCO. Especially all those people in the SE metro area that commute into downtown or the Tech Center. I used to ride that stretch of LRT quite often when I lived in SE Aurora...

Aaron (Glowrock)

I have used it a few times and always felt fortunate to find a parking spot. It is a busy station and is why I thing the Illiff extension is a good idea.

is there going to be a garage and/or more parking on Illiff?

Thanks for the info. I guess it's just far busier than I thought and serves a bigger population.

When does the Iliff station open? Is it opening before the rest of the H line all the way to Peoria and the East Line CRT?

Iliff can get done now with the $300m RTD has "left over" from Fastracks I. Not sure the timeline, but it's a while off.

What happens after that is still an unknown... and election-dependent.

With comments
 

Cheated here...quoted comment
Thanks you, Cirrus

1 16th Street Stns 17527 <-morning and evening commuters
2 Colfax at Auraria 14117 <-college and buses)
3 I-25 & Broadway 12017 <-not too much parking, mostly switching
to 'other line' and buses.
4 18th Street Stns 7123 <-closer to where I work
5 Englewood 5831 <-kids meet there, a lot of parking, quite a
few buses stop there.
6 Nine Mile 5722 <-Parker Road, Smoky Hill, wish Fastracks
would have gone their way
7 Littleton/Mineral 5611 <-surprising how many commuters come from
West of the South Platte.
8 Alameda 5473 <-Broadway Station North
9 Colorado 4602 <-interconnetions with local business and the
mighty 40 bus.
10 Southmoor 4585 <-a fairly dense, knowledgable community
east and south east.
11 Union Station 4173 <-lots of teens and 20s hang out between
light rail station and 16th when it is warm.
Shortcut to the Boulder buses. Business
commuters that work the north end of
16th.

12 Lincoln 4075 <commuters to downtown! who wish the
rail was longer and faster

13 Convention Center 3827 <special events and close by commuters
14 University of Denver 3799 <best way to cheaper housing
15 Littleton/Downtown 3574 <synergy from ACC and local commuters
16 30th & Downing 3574 <end of the line for now-catch local
buses to the north
17 10th & Osage 3364 <lots of teenagers, commuters within
a 2 km radius or so, not too many
"whoops I picked the wrong train"
types yet
18 Arapahoe Village Cntr 2664 <-major bus feeder
19 Dry Creek 2146 <-commuters to, and, downtown
commuters
20 Evans 1912 <-lots of college kids, blue collar
commuters
21 Belleview 1711 <-the bridge is not too long, so there
are some downtown commuters
22 Yale 1383 <-local residents to downtown and
Colorado
23 Orchard 1250 <-very tiring place to commute from
24 25th & Welton 1242 <-gentrified commuters and locals
25 Oxford-City of Sheridan 1196 <-local business north of Oxford, some
commuters to DSU and downtown
26 Louisiana-Pearl 1187 <-blue collar and teenagers
27 Auraria West 1124 <-only college kids and a few
professors
28 Dayton 1116 <-full of potential, a long way off
29 County Line 1066 <-the mall is close by :)

Oh right...I keep forgetting that the extension to Peoria is not a done deal...though I have confidence in Denver's increasingly left-leaning voters in 2012.

Can you imagine if highways such as 225 and 470 were built according to demand, rather than the highways themselves creating demand? i still can't believe RTD couldn't get the west line all the way into downtown golden, the one area along the line with enough density to support anything other than a park-n-ride.

Umm, they are.

470 was built long before highlands ranch even existed. highways drive development, not the other way around. transit, unfortunately is held to a different standard.

They built 470 as only a 4-lane highway. It needs to be a 6-lane highway. It didn't need to be a 6-lane highway 20 years ago. they saved money back then, by only building it 4-lanes. Now they have to make it 6-lanes. The West Corridor is 2-tracks 90% of the way, all the way to Federal center. It doesn't need to be 2-track from federal to Jefco, because ridership numbers showed only slightly increased ridership from frequency increase under 15min. Therefor, a cash tight budget can save a nice amount of funds and only build this stretch 1-track. It is designed to be 2-track; simply to be upgraded in future. There is nothing wrong with this, your complaints are unwarranted.

I don't care so much whether the track is 1 or 2 lanes. but can you imagine if route 6 had stopped at the fed center instead of going all the way into golden because some study said not enough people would use it when it was originally built?

I can imagine today, if hwy 6 was being built for the first time, the residents of Golden would heavily oppose it going into Golden. There is opposition against light rail going into downtown Golden, because people claim it is already too congested with highways. I'm sure, the light rail will eventually be extended by a station, further into Golden. The Gold line EMU is also designed to one day be extended into downtown Golden via Coors Brewery. Whereas the West light rail line would be extended down from Jefco Court to a station near the south end of downtown Golden or possibly the Colorado School of Mines area.

it just seems to me that it would make WAY more sense to have the end of the line for the west line be somewhere near Red Rocks Amphitheatre...huge ridership in the summer and much less drunk driving / hassle.

dmintz is right on this one. 470 created its own congestion.

Weird. I really thought that there was consensus about this issue on these boards. I mean, all kinds of transportation expansion causes growth. Whereas highways promote auto-oriented sprawl and expand by widening, rail transit promotes dense areas around stations, and expand by increasing frequency and possibly station lengths/number of train cars.

I thought there was agreement on this too. I do agree with the nitpick that it would be nice if mass transit were built in anticipation of growth more instead of reaction to it. Though the TOD and rezoning around the lines are what make me say "nitpick" instead of something stronger.