Boulder / Denver transportation infrastructure
 

Part 2 from my recent Colorado trip, focusing on transportation. Pictures are in 4 sections: rail, bus, parking, cycling.

I prepared this as a slideshow, so to get the narrative making sense I included some pictures from previous trips. If you are a long-time forumer you may recognize a few here and there.

RAIL:

Light rail runs on-street in downtown. It has a dedicated lane, but there is generally little to no physical separation.

Trains are limited to a maximum of 3 or 4 cars (depending on the line) due to the length of city blocks on which they run.



A typical downtown Denver light rail stop.



In the suburbs light rail generally runs adjacent to the highway or in a previously-existing freight rail right-of-way. Stations are more substantial than downtown, and less frequent.



Unfortunately light rail cars are not low-floor. However, door locations are identified on each platform.

Note that this door location specifically is a bicycle entry point.



Proximity to stations has become a selling point.




BUS:

Denver and Boulder share a regional bus system called "RTD", which stands for "Regional Transit District".

This is a typical bus (except most aren't articulated), running in Denver's Larimer Square.



Downtown Denver is linear, with almost all major destinations within 1 or 2 blocks of 16th Street, which is a transit mall. The only vehicles allowed on the 16th Street Mall are RTD shuttle buses.



Along the 16th Street Mall, RTD provides a free shuttle. It comes approximately every 2 minutes and is by far the most heavily-ridden bus in Colorado. In addition to shoppers on 16th Street, it is used by commuters traveling from Union Station (which is at the far end of downtown) to office buildings throughout downtown.

The free shuttle is custom-built for RTD and is a unique bus frame.

This image shows one of the shuttles at what could be called a "super stop", with the tenting as shelter and other amenities.



Denver's free 16th Street shuttle features a unique bus design with multiple low-floor entry points for easy loading.



Since the shuttle is fully low-floor there is limited seating. This is generally not a problem because the route is only 1 mile long; most passengers are on only a few blocks.



Although Boulder is part of RTD and is served by normal RTD buses, they fund bus service in the city at a level above and beyond normal. One of the significant improvements is that the major trunk lines in Boulder each have a unique name and livery.

Named routes generally operate on headways of 15-minutes or less, and have simple routes that stick to the arterial streets. The idea is to remove complication from the process. Want the bus that goes down 30th Street? It's any bus with a "Bound" paint scheme, and it comes often enough that you don't need a schedule.

This one is called the "Dash". Note the cyclist included on the livery, about 3/4 of the way back.



Here are some other uniquely-branded buses from Boulder.







This particular route is a regional line that goes from downtown Boulder to the city of Longmont, approximately 20 miles away. Thus it is a more luxurious coach bus rather than a city bus.

Other named routes in Boulder include the "Bound" and the "Stampede". At one time there was a "Leap", but it was discontinued.



This is the large bus station in downtown Boulder. Above the bus station is public parking.



Long distance regional buses (such as the "Bolt" and buses to Denver) use bays on the ground floor, under the public parking.

Note the bike racks and lockers.



Local buses simply stop at the curb on one of the streets surrounding the station.

Note the bus-only lane at right.



A waiting room is provided. It doubles as a commuter store; there's an RTD ticket counter, bus and rail schedules, and a snack vendor.



Real time arrival information for regional routes is provided in the waiting area.

Arrival information for local routes is at the on-street stop, if it exists.




PARKING:

Downtown Boulder has a parking district. Rather than require individual property owners to provide parking, they are required to pay a fee to the city, which then builds public garages. The garage on top of the bus station was one such facility, but since that was built the city has taken to hiding the garages behind a wrapped mixed-use facade.

You can see the garage portion of this building above and behind the two floors of narrow commercial space (retail on the bottom and office above).

In order to preserve views of the nearby Rocky Mountains, Boulder has a strict 45-foot height limit. The restrictions on density that come with such a limit explain why underground parking is generally not economically feasible.



Here is another wrapped garage, with three floors of narrow commercial space.




CYCLING:

We all know Boulder is famous for its cycling infrastructure.

The main north/south street in Boulder is called Broadway. Parallel to Broadway the city provides an off-street trail. For much of its length the trail is directly adjacent to the sidewalk.

There is plenty of friction between cyclists, pedestrians, and skateboarders (which are common in Boulder), but it's much better than cycling on Broadway itself.



Boulder has a counter-flow cycle track on 13th Street in downtown. Unlike the DC or New York cycle tracks, it is separated by attractive landscaping.



Here the track mingles with a short turn lane for cars. Except this short section, 13th Street is one-way in the other direction.



Another view of the 13th Street cycle track.



This counter-flow bike lane is on the campus of the University of Colorado (go Buffs!). The street it runs along, Pleasant Street, has such low volume of vehicular traffic that no physical separation was deemed necessary.

And I guess they wanted to save that tree.



The main east/west street in Boulder is called Pearl Street. Pearl Street is parallel to Boulder Creek, along which a linear park runs for several miles. Rather than provide an on-street facility, the city decided to provide for east/west bike travel with a trail through the linear park.

Here are two views of it.





The city takes wayfinding along the major bike routes seriously.



Boulder is famous for its bike/ped underpasses. This is where the east/west Boulder Creek trail goes under north/south Broadway.

Good sight lines and lighting are key features of Boulder's underpass system. Underpasses have to feel safe or people won't use them.



That same underpass up close. It is comfortable and safe-feeling enough for this female cyclist to park and enjoy the ambiance of the adjacent creek.



This impressive underpass is the main gateway between the University of Colorado and the adjacent student ghetto neighborhood, University Hill.

Although this picture was taken at an inconvenient time of day, this underpass is extremely heavily used. When I was a student at CU I walked under it every day.



RTD places bike-on-bus practice racks at key locations around town, so users can become comfortable with the process without holding up other passengers on a full bus.

This particular one is at Denver Union Station, but there are some in Boulder too.



The University of Colorado has a bike station centrally located on campus. It features racks for hundreds of bikes, registration, minor maintenance, parts recycling, info on Boulder trails and transit, and free bike-sharing for students.



The back side of the bike station building, with free air and informational displays.



CU's bike-share is called "Buff Bike". There are 60 bikes available free to CU students, faculty and staff. I think they are only available at this one location, but could be incorrect.

The city of Boulder is planning a 250-bike, 10-station public bike-share system for launch in 2010.



The Buff Bike fleet is not completely uniform.



Bike part recycling at the CU bike station.





Boulder has several bike shops. The largest and most famous is University Bikes.

Note the mural on the second floor.



Inside. Their selection of commuter bikes was better than any store I've been to in DC.



Biking permeates throughout Boulder culture. Check out the logo of this pizza shop.



To wrap up, here are some vintage bikes just for fun.

Neat shots.

Spectacular thread. I especially loved the commentary. I had no idea Denver had such a divine transit network. I knew it was good, but wow! Denver deserves the praise Portland gets, that's for sure (maybe it does and I just don't notice?).

What I really don't get though is that cities like Denver and Portland have put in so much effort in trains/buses/pedestrians/bikes and have gone above and beyond to promote it. Despite this, here in Canada, in Edmonton & Calgary, which are both sprawly cities by Canadian standards and do not have near the vibrancy of these 2 cities nor near as much transit infrastructure. And yet, in some cases, per capita, more people still use transit here, and in others, in actual numbers we beat out transit kings in the US like Denver, CO. Calgary has the highest ridership for LRT in Can/US (or tied with Toronto, can't remember) and Edmonton Transit System per capita has more riders than TriMet in Portland. Clearly Denver and Portland have put in a lot of effort, yet aren't getting the same results as us sprawly Canadian cities (and we get more effective transit with less effort and routes). Do you know anything about this? Any ideas?

^ Denver's LRT runs far less frequently than Calgary or Edmonton's. Sort of a chicken or egg problem.

Will be interesting once the full build out of Denver Union Station as a transit hub happens, along with the accompanying EMU, DMU and BRT lines if transit jumps due to full regional coverage, or if remains sleepy.

Denver has done good things with voter approved initiatives for sure!

Excellent thread: Very informative and interesting--I'd give you an A! The Denver/Boulder region deserves lots of praise for its well-coordinated transit/biking program. I also like that they have a "Practice putting your bike on a bus here" station, cause I've never done it and wonder how easy it would be.

Regarding Edmonton's Q's, here are two thoughts that came to me:

1. Canada has a significantly higher gas tax, providing extra incentive to ride transit
2. Calgary's office market is much more heavily concentrated in its downtown relative to Denver or Portland, thereby encouraging a higher percentage of commuters to ride transit to work.

^True, but that doesn't explain Edmonton. Edmonton's employment is distributed all over the place. Portland's rail transit goes more places than Calgary's so technically it should be able to connect more people than Calgary. People seem to be willing to drive here as much as the US despite gas prices. Alberta is known for it's pickup trucks and SUVs.

^ Denver and Portland also have other modes of rail transit, do they not?

Denver has commuter rail I believe - not sure on Portland...

^yep. denver has commuter and lrt, and pdx has lrt/streetcar/commuter(wes).

Unfortunately, Denver does not have commuter rail, just lrt.

Not for a few years...

Great thread. I just realized that both cities you've lived in (that I know of) have strict height limits. Kind of a funny coincidence. I really like the idea of city owned parking where private enterprise pays a fraction of the cost AND they get a better end result with equal if not less $ than doing it on their own.

Regarding Edmonton/Calgary LRT: I can only speak on Portland's behalf but one area I think we largely lack is our quality/quantity of transit oriented development in the outer reaches of the rail lines. Our inner city ridership levels are phenomenal. Outside of that, Portland could stand a massive change in how it develops around transit. For example: I take the rush hour train into downtown on a daily basis. There are 15 stops prior to my own & when I get on the train is nowhere near capacity. With my stop & perhaps 1 or 2 further the train has more than doubled it passenger count over the previous 15 stations.

Everyone, don't confuse Boulder as a suburb of Denver! You will never convince any Boulder residents that they live in a Denver suburb. The People's Republic of Boulder is like an independent city-state. You know, something more like Washington D.C., Singapore or Vatican City :-)

That's true. Boulder is barely aware that Denver exists.

Excellent thread! I don't normally like buses, to be honest. Even when I lived in SF, I only took the bus as a last resort. But, when I took my trip to Denver and Boulder two years ago, I found the RTD extremely efficient and convenient. I got straight to downtown Denver from the airport, then to Boulder and didn't have to rent a car. My only complaint was that the downtown bus station did not seem to have lockers and I had to walk to the Greyhound station so I could leave my bags while I walked around Denver. That was just inconvenient for me. Unfortunately, I do not get to ride the light rail. Thanks!

Problems that the Union Station redevelopment project will eliminate. There will also be a new shuttle from Union Station to Greyhound Station -- so that journey will be made easier. And of course you will be able to ride the EMU train from the Airport to Union Station, instead of the bus. And you will either be able to ride a faster BRT line to Boulder and/or eventually take the DMU Commuter train (depending on how FasTracks turns out).

I'm currently going to the school of architecture in Boulder. I love living here precisely because of all the things you mentioned in the thread. I love not having a car. I take the bus to class almost everyday, it's reliable and efficient. The only complaint is that the bus is always packed full because so many people use it, but it makes me happy to see how many people embrace public transit.

When the weather is nice I ride my bike to get around town and because of the efficient trail system it takes 10 min or so to get just about anywhere I want to go in town (often faster than driving) and there are plenty of places to park bikes.

I also commute to denver pretty often and it is really easy to get from downtown Boulder to downtown Denver in aprox. 45 min. They run busses pretty frequently (about half an hour) even in off peak times. I'm just sad I won't live here by the time they get the commuter rail running from Denver to Boulder.

Really interesting thread. Nice pics, informative commentary.

An excellent summary of some of the transit successes Denver and Boulder have realized. It is quite apparent there exists an abundance of sound policies that could, and should, be borrowed from these cities.