DENVER | Transportation Thread

[citycenter]

Are these designers a little confused? This is COLORADO - it gets gold 6 months out of the year!! Why would Kinetic Plaza be open-air??? What a strange design....

[The Dirt]

Gold, meaning cold? 6 months out of the year, not really. It was 70+ degrees last weekend, and we get some wacky warm weather mixed in with cold weather Oct-Apr. Seems sensible to me, except for the poles. What's the point?

[enjo13]

In practical terms will the kinetic plaza even be used a whole lot? Most people are going to be getting off of the mall shuttle/downtown circulators. I think the plaza is more of an extension of the public spaces. It's meant for art, hanging out, etc...

From what I can see in the preso (although I haven't studied it closely) it looks like they want to move Lodo bound folks through Union Station itself. The bulk of the commuters will circulate towards 16th st. or to the bus station to catch the circulators.

[bcp]

they can study it all they want...it won't be perfect. once built, people will find and continue to use the fastest routes ('wear paths' as they say...) so i hope their program / materials / art has some flexibility to adjust and allow people to crank through the station as best as they see fit.

[SnyderBock]

Access to all platforms will also be available from the climate controlled, below-grade passageway. You will pretty much be able to walk all the way from inside historic Union Station to the Light Rail platforms on the other end, without being exposed to any bad weather or extreme temperatures.

The elevated Kinetic Plaza will be an easy way for people to get from the Train room and out into LoDo (such as people going to Coors Field). It will also be for people needing to get to and from the parking garage (yes, people will use that thing).

The fact is, there will be three ways to get out of the Train room. This means it will be able to handle great future capacity--which is good, because we don't' want to have to do major expansions after only 10 years.

-From the South end of the Train hall, they can simply walk down the end of the platform and out to 16th Street mall shuttle stop.

-From the middle of the train room, people can go down escalators and either get on a free 18th Street circulator bus, or go towards the Light Rail Terminal for a transfer, or go up into the entrance to Union Station (more for people with luggage waiting for a DIA train, or long haul travelers using Amtrak, SkiTrain or future Front Range Commuter Rail, waiting for their train). They will be able to get into Union Station to buy tickets and wait in comfort.

-Then there is the Elevated platform. This will be highly visible and an attractive exit for people that get off trains on the southern end of the Train hall. It will also be used heavily by people going into LoDo by foot, such as those that go to Coors Field to watch Colorado Rockies games.

[bcp]

but can trains go south (ranger express) or west (vail) from DUS with this plan? i can't recall if that was preserved with the plan or not.

[llamaorama]

I had read that maybe an idea for that would be to add a platform on the main rail line out by the LRT platforms. But is there enough room?

I don't see the problem in backing the trains out the way they came in back onto the main tracks. Isn't that what Amtrak and Ski Train do now?

[bcp]

it's quite a tangle north of DUS and some complicated ownership / leases for the various tracks i would imageine. even if it wasn't, backing up in order to go south or west is a pain for riders (chicago works this way and it's frustrating / adds at least 20 mins to any trip).

if there is room along the CML that would be excellent as there is already a path 'out of town' that heads south, and there are lots of options for heading west too.

otherwise they might be able to elevate out of DUS but that coudl get messy.

[Paulopolis]

I think the fact that Union Station is not going to be a through station will make it more difficult/expensive to have it as the main Denver station for front range commuter rail. So it does make sense to have that line at the light rail station since that seems easiest.

And what if Denver gets expanded intracity rail sometime in the distant future? Certainly some of those lines would go to Union Station. I wonder where they would put them.

It can't wait to see Union Station as the hub for all of these modes of rail transport.

[bcp]

i would guess we are going to end up with a second, possibly larger, station either north (40/40) or south (broadway) of the city. there just is very little room for expansion at DUS

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by bcp

they can study it all they want...it won't be perfect. once built, people will find and continue to use the fastest routes ('wear paths' as they say...) so i hope their program / materials / art has some flexibility to adjust and allow people to crank through the station as best as they see fit.

No, see, RTD can just put up a sign that says, "Please don't walk this way." and that'll take care of everything...

Open air is fine by me... the climate isn't a problem. This is Colorado, people leave 40 degrees in Denver to go play outside in 20 degrees in he mountains - we'll be fine (although the design of that Kinetic Plaza needs serious help).

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by bcp

i would guess we are going to end up with a second, possibly larger, station either north (40/40) or south (broadway) of the city. there just is very little room for expansion at DUS

I guess I don't see where the problem is... you've got platforms 3, 4, and 5 for the Amtrak and the Ski Train. Not every possible train route has to have its own dedicated platform, because even if we do get long distance train someday, I can't imagine it would ever see more than 30 min headways (hourly is more likely)... three platforms for two Amtraks a day and two Ski Trains (seasonal)... that leaves a lot of open track to work with, doesn't it?

For going south, I don't think there's any question it'll have to happen out by the CML (maybe a new, fancy shelter or building out there to match whatever theme front range rail goes with)... It's supposed to be one "integrated" station, right? So I guess that's the best we can hope for... it's the obvious solution.

[bcp]

fair point, but i'm assuming that anything going west / high-speed will not be compatible with the in-place tracks. if so, would have to be CML or outside of LoDo.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by bcp

fair point, but i'm assuming that anything going west / high-speed will not be compatible with the in-place tracks. if so, would have to be CML or outside of LoDo.

Well north-south high speed would be by the CML I'd imagine...


As for west - it'd probably just follow the Ski Train (and Gold line) alignment out of town (and maybe hop into the I-70 corridor someplace - who knows). I don't expect high-speed to stay fast coming into the station, they never do.

They'll have to push it through there, no doubt about it... definitely some condemnation in our futures if we're talking I-70 high speed. But that's just part of the battle... I don't think union station will be the problem, though. What we have isn't much different from any other Euro-station in a built up area (just at about one-fifth scale) Lucky for us, we'll have about one-tenth of the trains coming in...

[SnyderBock]

There is for sure, a preserved space between the two Light Rail platforms and the CML for a future North-South Front Range Commuter rail line and platform.

There is also a backup plan to add an elevated loop out of the main Train Hall, and looping around southward to tie into the CML. But it is widely believed that may not be necessary.

Also consider, additional lines could (in the distant future) come into Union Station as a subway. They would have platforms crossing under 17th Street passageway and have escalators that come up directly into the underground passageway somewhere between the Light rail terminal and the Commuter Rail terminal (Train Hall). With a North-South alignment crossing under 17th Street at a 90 degree angle, Denver Union Station could add an enormous number of subway platforms well into the distant future, and all would/could be through-line configuration. They would have to be deep, tunnel bore, not open trench construction though.

[bcp]

i'm comfortable accepting that we will absolutely never have an underground subway in denver (nor do we really need one).

[The Dirt]

By the time Denver gets sufficiently dense enough to warrant a subway, we will probably be beaming in from place to place (Star Trek style). Actually, if it ever comes to that everyone will like in their own private 10 acre estate in Montana and doing their shopping in Hong Kong.

[SnyderBock]

I'm just saying, the current Union Station design should be able to handle capacity for close to 50-years. At that point, I wouldn't be surprised if Denver builds a subway line or two and I was merely pointing out that they could fairly easily be integrated into this design by having access to/from them via teh below-grade pedestrian passageway.

I could be off, because there could be a need for a starter subway line in 30 years or so. Just a short one. But it could integrate into Union Station just as I describe. In this way, Union Station will have a lot of room for long-term expansion.

[docroc]

Okay, the Seattle region just passed a vote to expand its light rail system (and other bus improvements) to the tune of $17 billion (yes, with a "b") on Tuesday.

And they basically only end up with a "T" configuration to their light rail system with this phase of improvements.

While there are clearly issues with how much you can compare the light rail system in Denver with the one in Seattle (given that they have to figure out how to get tracks across a floating bridge to the eastern suburbs) - it does suggest that the price-tag for RTD's system in Denver at $4 billion was a very low estimation.

We should go forward with putting the foundation in for the system we need in Denver without short-cuts that we'll regret in the future.

A couple of options for how to go forward with the existing money:
(1) build a first phase of each alignment to full design, but not necessarily for the full route. (Assume a second phase would come along to allow extension of the route to the final terminus as planned.) This would be not in appropriate for the west line, gold line, and north line - they could be extended to their planned end points at a later date.
The line from downtown to DIA should be completed be completed in full during this first phase.

(2) Substitute - for the time being - express bus service instead of light rail for the I-225 corridor. Invest in Intelligent Transportation System improvements on I-225 to better accommodate express bus service. True, that won't provide the same type of service as light rail, but would be an acceptable interim approach that has its own attractiveness and efficiencies until light rail is constructed in a later phase.

(3) Delay improvements on the SE and SW light rail segments until a later phase, to allow investments to be channeled into allowing the new corridors to get up and running first.

Again, none of these are the most desirable thing to do - it would be most ideal to just identify additional money to build the entire system as planned - but these may be among some acceptable options for moving forward until additional money is identified.

[bunt_q]

You cant even compare us to Seattle... they have tunneling, hey have huge bridges, they have water, and they have earthquakes (don't discount that - it adds cost).

Snyder - I wouldn't worry about 2050... we won't be starting new subways - by then, we'll be contemplating our futures as a far-out, neglected Chinese or Indian province...