[Sam Hill]

Interesting indeed. I gave up on RTD over a year ago (which I believe I ranted about here at the time - and more recently at Denver Urbanism). The bus was unreliable, too infrequent, and very uncomfortable due to the riffraff. It took anywhere from 1.25 hours (if all the stars miraculously aligned and I happened to get off work just in time to catch the RC), to 3 hours (if I was particularly unlucky that day), to get from Cap Hill to my workplace in Commerce City, or vice versa. Typically it took 1.5 to 2 hours. (It's about 20-25 minutes via car.) Not owning a car was difficult. I felt somewhat trapped and immobile. Even though I live in the supposed, walkable, urban oasis of Cap Hill, I found some of the simplest things, like getting to a drug store, daunting. Luckily I enjoy long walks, but I don't always have the time for them. It got to the point where I was spending several hundred dollars per month on Uber/Lyft, so I finally broke down and bought a car.

My world has changed. Everything - despite all the seemingly perpetual traffic jams all over the place - feels so much closer and more accessible now. I have mobility now. I have so much freedom now. My life is just so much easier. I can't believe I went as long as I did without a car. I was kidding myself thinking this town was not necessarily a car town. It is a car town and will always be a car town. All the anti-car sentiment among us infill geeks is irrational. An even stronger word like delusional is probably more appropriate. This is Denver.

I don't know who these people are that are fortunate enough to be bona fide yuppies that live in LoHi and bike to some tech job in the CBD or whatever, but I do know that they are a tiny fraction of the population of this metropolis. They will always be a tiny fraction. LoHi will only ever be able to house a tiny fraction. All the urban, hipster, downtown-adjacent neighborhoods combined will only ever be able to house a tiny fraction. The vast majority of us will be stuck with a choice between car and RTD - and obviously, for most of us, car wins.

Like many of us infill geeks who frequent this website, boost our home-towns, and engage in subtle, passive-aggressive city vs city antagonism, I like to think of my hometown as being bigger and more urban than it is. I like to think of it as well on it's way to becoming more like SF, or DC, or some other, more urban, transit-oriented town (not that the majority of people in those places don't also commute via car). But I've been realizing over the past couple years that it's just a fantasy. In order for this town to change into what I would like it be, public transportation would have to become exponentially more convenient and ubiquitous. And when I see the situation RTD is currently in, I just don't see how that's ever going to be possible. Perhaps several decades from now when I'm elderly or dead...