DENVER | Transportation Thread

[sashyenka]

^From what I see (I live 1.5 miles down the street from Bradburn), they've been slowly restarting construction on further phases of the residential development. But Bradburn has a really bad turnover rate with their restaurant/retail space.

[Wizened Variations]

The parking lots* downtown are not the problem, as IMO people are not going to forced into abandoning their cars by a supply and demand situation with downtown parking. Instead, people will abandon using their cars when they have no choice, for economic reasons, whether going to the neigborhood store or going downtown.

Likewise, TODs will continue to be built in their eccentric RTD hybrid way, as long as the TODs and the government jurisdictions involved feel no need to plan for dense housing between 150 meter and 400 meter walking distance of rail stations.

Even in today's worsening economy (again turn off the TV), the metro area has not crossed the magical line where planning HAS to be done differently. Planning is still using the assumption that for the forseeable future 95% or so of all metro area trips will be done via private vehicle.

Until the time that 10-20% of metropolitian transportation is via bus + steel rail, TODs will reflect the wish of the eclectic ('I'm green, I'm lean, and I bicycle') local voter and large scale developers who- based upon market analysis, the cost of money, and what their bankers recommend- don't see the changes coming...

The crush is will be here soon yet most seem to believe that Denver, Colorado, and the US will magically return to the 'good old boom days.'

Nope, nada, nein, non, etc. Not going to happen. Good urban planning will come from desperation, not inspiration in Denver, in Colorado, and, in the rest of the US. And believe me, this desperation will be here sooner than we think....

*How about shanty towns in all those parking lots, with communal bathrooms, and bazaars filled with local produce and products? No joke.

[bunt_q]

Shanty towns might be a bit of a stretch. But slightly poorer cities do tend to develop in a much denser, mid-rise fashion. If we're to take only a selfish Denver-centric urbanist view on things, it might not be bad for the city if we got a bit poorer. Brazil, Turkey, and any other middle income country you can think of produce much better cities than we do... (Disclaimer - I am not advocating for poverty, just pointing out a possible silver lining if decline is to come...)

[Cirrus]

Downtown's parking lots aren't there because of the market for downtown parking. That market would be satisfied by garages if necessary.

The parking lots downtown are there because a parking lot is the cheapest thing you can throw on to an otherwise empty lot, which is what those properties really are, and is how we should treat them. They are empty lots waiting to be developed.

[CharlesCO]

Is it possible to tax these people who own these lots as punishment and as a motivator for development?

[Cirrus]

Yes.

When you set a property tax there are two things to consider: The value of the land itself, and the value of the improvements (buildings and other "built" stuff) on the land.

Most property taxes simply add up the total value of the land+improvements and then set a tax rate based on that total value.

However, if you want to encourage redevelopment you can do it differently. You can base your tax rate on the ratio of the value of improvements to the value of the land. That is, you set your tax rate according to a sliding scale, with a higher rate for properties where the value of the land is more than the value of the improvements. The more value your improvements have as compared to the land, the lower your tax rate. That way, the property tax rate (not the total payment, but the rate) is higher for properties that are empty or underused, and lower for skyscrapers.

I don't know if anyone in Colorado does this (very possibly they already do), but I've seen it done elsewhere.

[bunt_q]

How does that work for condominiums, I wonder?

Also would be interesting because of the higher taxes levied on commercial property than residential property in Colorado. If we start punishing under-developed land, do we treat it at its potential commercial tax rate, or its residential rate?

Pretty sure nobody here does that presently.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Shanty towns might be a bit of a stretch. But slightly poorer cities do tend to develop in a much denser, mid-rise fashion. If we're to take only a selfish Denver-centric urbanist view on things, it might not be bad for the city if we got a bit poorer. Brazil, Turkey, and any other middle income country you can think of produce much better cities than we do... (Disclaimer - I am not advocating for poverty, just pointing out a possible silver lining if decline is to come...)

My point is- and I firmly believe this- that future planning should have been actively pursued over the last 10 years. As we have not, we must now plan for huge demands on our infrastructure in ways that quite frankly have not existed in the US outside of NYC since WWII.

In Denver, for example, how about a total bus + light rail + commuter load of 1,000,000 rides per day, about 4 times the ridership as today, by 2025?
What would that mean in terms of number of buses, use of the light rail built to that point, commuter rail etc.? What about 1,500,000? What about 2,000,000 riders per day?

How would all that we have built out work in such a series of scenarios? What kind of work environment would develope in what areas? (People will work, because, we very likely will not have money to continue to keep vast numbers of the unemployed, fed, and, entertained.)

Ok, so let's take the TRex line, and imagine that the I-225 extension is finished to the DIA line. IMO the old warehouse district along I-70 might be a huge work location, filled with 10s if not 100s of thousands of low paying MANUFACTURING jobs. So, people take the train and the bus from the suburban Aurora slums to go work there.How about say... 100,000 per day? Maybe trains every 2 minutes, 6 cars long going 20 mph on the light rail? Maybe another 500 to 1000 buses to service Aurora alone.

Transportation interfaces at TODs above all must have the ability to expand their transportation capacity. For example, I could foresee removing the light rail vehicles so that cheaper, lighter Brazilian high platform vehicles 6-8 or more cars long can run along the tracks as they are now.
(the stations could raised very quickly if 2-5000 glad to be employed people raised the platforms, one cinderblock at a time).

The question of TODs, in my mind, boils down to keeping the option open for a huge increase in ridership at stations involved. An 8 car train can have hundreds of people boarding and deboarding at the same time- these people will flood out like a wave, bumping into those that want to board. If there are any parking lots, people will carpool so intensely (a way to make that extra cash) that an automobile might have 6 or more commuters crammed into something the size of a Ford Focus. A huge non-regulated pool of taxis and buses will pick up and drop off people...

Ok, enough of the shock treatment. What I am advising is that TODs be built secondarily to the ease of expanding the numbers of tracks, platform length, approaches for bus traffic, etc. Put retail and intertainment in a ring about 100-150 meters away from the station. Apartments and businesses from 150-300 meters. Anything further can be accessed by bus or by bicycle.

This is NOTHING new. This is how it is done throughout much of the world NOW.

Ok, I am not a betting man, but if I was, I would say the odds that by 2025 that 1,000,000riders/day would take public transportation would be
about 15-20% with 2,000,000 riders/day 2-5%. By 2035 these odds would change to 75-85%% for the 1,000,000 riders/day and 20% for 2,000,000- right about the time FasTracks is built out.

[Pizzuti]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Shanty towns might be a bit of a stretch. But slightly poorer cities do tend to develop in a much denser, mid-rise fashion. If we're to take only a selfish Denver-centric urbanist view on things, it might not be bad for the city if we got a bit poorer. Brazil, Turkey, and any other middle income country you can think of produce much better cities than we do... (Disclaimer - I am not advocating for poverty, just pointing out a possible silver lining if decline is to come...)

Can you point me to a U.S. city where lower average wealth has encouraged density?

In my sense it really just comes down to when the city grew... pre 1950 grew more dense and post 1950 grew more sprawled - at least in the U.S. Across the board, most other parts of the world grew denser than the U.S. did and that was a result of a lot of other factors.

I think wealth is the limiting factor on sprawl in, say, India, Peru, Africa, and places like that with super-dense shantytowns that are very poor; in the U.S. I'd say Puerto Rico and New Orleans are the only places where you see hints of that post 1920. Elsewhere I think it's a pretty small factor shadowed by more limiting factors like total availability of space (Hong Kong, Singapore), high value/demand for limited agricultural land to feed dense national populations (the U.K., Japan, Italy, Germany), natural obstacles that make land-grabs harder (The Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, mountains in Japan, Italy and Central Europe, water in NYC/San Francisco/Seattle/Vancouver/New Orleans), growth occurring before the invention of the automobile (Europe, Eastern U.S., China, Japan), centralized planning policies (former Soviet states, China), growth due to direct proximity to ports (San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, Tokyo, Istanbul, Tripoli, Sydney), inhospitable climates (Cairo, Montreal, St. Petersburg, Moscow) land being taken up by government for public lands (Western U.S.).

Naturally, places that have the most of those factors (Japan, Europe) are the densest, places that have the fewest of those factors (Southwestern U.S., Deep South, Great Plains, Melbourne) are the most sprawled.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by Pizzuti

Can you point me to a U.S. city where lower average wealth has encouraged density?

In my sense it really just comes down to when the city grew... pre 1950 grew more dense and post 1950 grew more sprawled - at least in the U.S.

For the WWII vets and their families many factors came together at the "right" time. Huge domestic oil reserves assessible with small oil rigs, a sea of foreign money that had taken refuge in the US during the War, a tradition of saving money, and the national desire to thank the Vets with the construction of the Interstate Highway system. The great confidence that came from winning the war and the Nation's desire to thank veterams unleashed the biggest construction boom in human history, prior to the current Chinese build out.

Ok so what were the poorer cities from 1945 to 1960? Most were in the South. Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte remained fairly small, and, much of the growth was around the powerhouses of the Industrial Belt- Cleveland, Pittsburgh, NYC, Indianapolis. Other cities grew with the military industrial complex: LA, Seattle, San Antonio, etc.

But the current situation cannot be compared with the era of cheap US oil and vast wealth. We are on new ground now.

Look at how little has been built since 2007, In Denver almost no real growth has occurred since 2008, and the growth had been slowing down since 2005 or so. Look at Denver Regional Street Guides from 2002 on, and compare those maps to an older free map from the 1970s. The amount of growth since even 1995 to 2011 in terms of new streets, etc., is very small even in an absolute measure compared to 1970-1985.

We are seeing the slow growth now, and, in the 'Rust Belt' have seen the slow growth since the 1970s (with the exception of anchor cities like Chicago, and, Boston.)

In the history of the US, the current situation has no equivalent.

Planning and design, therefore, must accept that the 'good times', defined since WWII are gone, and, urban planning must become centered around moving more people cheaper, and, quicker from smaller homes to their jobs etc. And this had better start NOW.

(Too much of what is being built reflects a reality that is gone forever).

[RyanD]

Don't mean to break up the conversation but I saw all this happen from my balcony and it was quite funny and it relates to Denver's transit, RTD, etc.. This was done by an RTD bus taking way too sharp of a turn on to 11th from Grant:

[bunt_q]

I do hope the city sends RTD a big fat bill.

[Wizened Variations]

Could not resist: visual metaphor?

[llamaorama]

I'm not so sure about the things being said. There is a lot of urban decay in Latin America as there is a lot of wealth inequality-which the argument doesn't address. White collar jobs go to planned office skyscraper districts around malls and the middle class live in suburbs and drive cars to them. You might be able to draw some connection between the poor areas with their street markets and something Jane Jacobs would have written about, but only a pollyanna would ignore the big picture of poverty. On the other hand, its investment that's driving the infill and reinvention of old inner cities in the US and in Latin America as well.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

I'm not so sure about the things being said. There is a lot of urban decay in Latin America as there is a lot of wealth inequality-which the argument doesn't address. White collar jobs go to planned office skyscraper districts around malls and the middle class live in suburbs and drive cars to them. You might be able to draw some connection between the poor areas with their street markets and something Jane Jacobs would have written about, but only a pollyanna would ignore the big picture of poverty. On the other hand, its investment that's driving the infill and reinvention of old inner cities in the US and in Latin America as well.

IMO, the only decline from wealth to moderate poverty that occurred in Latin America in the 20th Century, occurred in Argentina. The collapse of the Cattle Boom in 1913 was particularly hard for this nation, as within 5 or so years, the Argentineans went from being a rich nation to a far poorer nation (Peron did not happen for nothing).

Buenos Aires literally froze up. The British took their money out of the railroad system built to service the Pampas and the city quit building. Buenos Aires was not a small city by world standards at the time.

The US is becoming poorer at a very fast rate. Look around at how little has been built up over the last 10 years, and, how much less the last five compared to the previous five.

Redevelopment now is largely governmental in the sense that tax credits are used which is generated by at the city, county, metro area, state, and, federal levels to entice the moneyed class. Our infrastructure is deteriorating- everything from bridges to water and sewage. We are stepping down the economic ladder from what we recently were, and, we still have not come to grips with this yet.

Will the US develop the housing patterns of Latin America? Possibly. More likely, however, we will be a curious mix of Latin America features and former communist bloc features. The new poor and the existing poor will be housed either in government sponsored housing or in the rapidly decaying suburbs. There could well be shanty towns in the warmer parts of the Country, but winters in much of the US encourage ‘government intervention’ in housing.

Like in many of the great Latin American cities, many of our downtowns will become enclaves of middle class childless families and the upper class. Jane Jacobs would love many parts of Bogota, Rio, Mexico City, etc., because of the people traffic and the commerce that people traffic brings, and this type of change will occur in perhaps 2-3% of the area of some of our metro areas.

We are just getting poorer, sir, and, are not yet addressing it. Yesterday is dead.

I guess the US never has had to get up off the canvas, but we will...but it'll hurt like hell for a while.

Start by planning and designing for moving many more poorer people without cars... we got a TINY bit of this in Denver, but, we are starting to turn...

[CPVLIVE]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

I guess the US never has had to get up off the canvas, but we will...but it'll hurt like hell for a while.

The 1930's perhaps? Hoovervilles, 35% unemployment etc. etc.

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

Start by planning and designing for moving many more poorer people without cars...

Many poorer people may be without cars, but that doesn't necessarily make them poorer.

[SnyderBock]

Someone was posting in opposition to Union Station redevelopment plan (and were related to the people which did the lawsuit to try and stall it), several years ago on here. They too, believed in some sort of doomsday, the United States is falling down and everyone will be so poor they can't afford cars, so we need to invest in transportation infrastructure now, while we can still afford it. Because in a few more years, we won't even be able to build infrastructure anymore. USA is headed for all out 3rd World status.

But looking deeper into their position, it becomes clear they are very conservative and just happen to be conservative supporters of transportation. Their position just seems to be more like a person getting ready for bankruptcy, how they go spend all their money and buy anything they might get to keep through bankruptcy process, because they wont be able to afford it again for a long time. As opposed to someone who supports mass transit as a way to generate economic development and provide environmental alternatives to driving.

The USA is not going bankrupt. We are not going to fall to third world status. Our economy will rev up again. Also, one wall of text after another... Seriously? I don't even read them anymore Wizend.

[Wizened Variations]

The USA is not going bankrupt. We are not going to fall to third world status. Our economy will rev up again. Also, one wall of text after another... Seriously? I don't even read them anymore Wizend.

Many years ago, before I quit smoking, I went to my doctor about the complications from the flu. I described all the symptoms in great detail, and, he listened intently.

After I had finished, he did the stethoscope routine, had me breath deeply a few times, and then sat down quietly for a few moments on the only chair in the room, saying nothing.

After a few awkward moments, he started talking.

“You may not die of cancer; you may not die of a heart attack before your time; and, you may never get emphysema, but I am telling you, that you had better quit smoking right now to reduce the chances of a miserable death before your time.”

This type of reasoning applies to the US in 2011. Maybe there is a 70% chance that we can escape the damage done economically in the last 10 to 20 or more years. Maybe even a 20% chance that we can become richer by growing ourselves out of the mess we have made. But, like the smoker whose odds of getting cancer increase the longer her or she smokes, the US needs to start thinking differently NOW, and, quit thinking so much in terms of transportation primarily as a function of real estate development.

Let’s say that some of us (a very few who get their news outside of the mass media) believe that our economy will rebound, our debts will continue to be purchased by foreign governments without apparent affect, that our international competition will hand us back the manufacturing and research capabilities we gave them, and, that the Feds will quit printing trillions of dollars of funny money soon. Let’s say that these pundits are right. My two questions then are:

If you build a better, quicker, more efficient, safer transportation system as a result of dealing with the possibility of huge numbers of riders in the near future, do you not create a better system as a result?

If you plan and design TODs that are a close WALKING distance from transportation hubs that use accepted WORLD standards of planning already built out in Europe, and Asia do you not create TODs that are better designed, more user friendly, and, more of an asset to the metro area?

As a user of public transportation who has made the cash commitment to live in a transit friendly environment, and, as someone who has seen how good transportation and building design can be, I want the metro area I love to be a world leader in planning and design (which outside of DIA there is almost no outstanding late 20th Centruy planning and design in the metro area).

This requires good design as insurance against the more sobering possibilities that could well face us all. Don't plan for the sober possibilities and you had better accept the reality that you knew the probabilities, and, did nothing.

[bcp]

i miss warren, ok maybe not.

[Fritzdude]

Wizened: aside from your gloom and doom economic forecasts - don't you feel the market forces will dictate what type of TOD development projects get funded for construction? These are private investments, keep in mind, which means somebody is taking a chance to invest in their own money in the hopes that they can get a nice return. At the end of the day, that's a bigger factor than any type of "public good" reasoning.

So, whether it's needed for society is irrelevant. Rather, can someone make a buck on it is a better question.

Case in point, there were hardly any apartments being constructed in Denver 5 years ago because there was no market for it. Now - there is a bunch of them under construction. Therefore, when people demand to be close to Light-Rail, some developer will take a chance on it.