DENVER | Transportation Thread

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

They're paying for something they're not getting. Right?

...

But I've seen it argued on this board by more than one of you seemingly knowledgeable folks that it's "their own fault" for not making up their minds what they want (or something along those lines). Who are "they"? Are certain Boulder politicians getting in the way of RTD?

Exactly, who is "they"? Why is Boulder special? The people of Brighton are getting screwed. Parker is getting screwed. All of east/southeast Aurora is getting screwed. southwest JeffCo is getting screwed. Lots of people aren't getting anywhere near a choo choo under Fastracks.

At least Boulder is getting a BRT. Others have it worse. The only difference is the lack of feeling like they "deserve" something more than what they're getting. That's what separates Boulder.

As for the "they" in the planning studies - there are lots of theys. But the fact that Boulder County was slated to get a BRT AND a train (while the others I listed above get nothing) is a product of that process.

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

And didn't RTD, once they realized Fastracks was grossly underfunded, simply decide to skip the Boulder line for now since it would cost the most? What else is there to the story?

RTD is skipping the Boulder line not because it costs the most in dollar terms, but because it costs the most for the benefit it produces. It has pathetically low ridership projections, even compared to lines that cost half as much. So it's not just about total money, but how that money is best spent. RTD has a responsibility to get the most bang for its buck, and the Boulder line produces the least bang of the proposed Fastracks lines. There's a reason it's the only line that hasn't attracted a private proposal. It happens to be the same reason that RTD pushed it to the bottom of the list.

It's a rarity that the public and private sectors agree on something. When you see it, there's probably something behind it.

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

Until I know the answer, I'm just sticking with the old "Boulder got screwed" narrative.

But if you want to go with the "Boulder got screwed" narrative, I'm fine with that too. It's sort of like the "rural Colorado is getting screwed" and the "Weld County is getting screwed" arguments. Want to secede - good riddance. The reality is that Boulder is BY FAR the slowest growing area of the metro. Politicians respond to voters. When your town has fewer of them (relatively speaking) every year, then yeah, you're going to get screwed.

EDIT: See Cirrus' table, it's better.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

Who are "they"?

When the original FasTracks lines were being planned, there was a study for each corridor that looked at mode, route, etc. Each study was supposed to come up with a recommendation that worked for that corridor. The study for the US-36 corridor was done in 1998 and was organized, defined, managed, finalized, and accepted by a committee that included RTD, CDOT, Boulder city, Boulder County, Broomfield, Superior, Louisville, and Westminster.

Everywhere else in the region, the committees in charge settled on one recommendation. But for Boulder they couldn't. Everybody *wanted* a train because trains are nicer than buses, but they *needed* a route that served downtown Boulder and CU, because those are the main destinations along the route. Since the study team couldn't figure out how to get a train to downtown Boulder, they said that could be done with buses, and the train would go somewhere else.

So in essence, instead of doing their job and picking one alternate, they said "eh, let's just do both." The problem is there's only enough ridership in the corridor to justify the cost of building one or the other. Doing both costs twice as much, but there are not twice as many riders. So both the BRT and the rail cost every bit as much as any other line in the region, but both of them only have "partial" ridership because they're splitting the market between them. But they're not even splitting it evenly. Because the most important destinations are along the bus route in central Boulder, the bus line gets most of the riders, and the rail line only gets a small percentage.

Then, after the fact, it turned out the cost projections for the rail line were wildly too low, and it was actually going to be much more expensive than anybody thought. Oops.

So fastforward to the recession. RTD can't meet its budget. They do not have enough money to build everything. It's a simple unfortunate reality that something has to be delayed. There's no choice that *somebody* has to be screwed. The only choice is who. So what does RTD do? They do a cost-benefit analysis of all the lines, to see which ones get the biggest (and smallest) bang for the buck. They look at the BRT line and see it has most of the ridership. So that's great, they'll build that. Then they look at the rail line and see that it's extremely extremely expensive, but gets almost no riders. Every other proposed line everywhere else in the region gets more riders for less money than the Boulder train. Then they remember that delaying the Boulder rail doesn't actually screw Boulder very much at all, because the rail line is just a less-effective duplicate of the BRT line. Almost all the Boulder riders were going to ride the bus anyway, because only the bus actually went where it needed to go.

If you had to delay one FasTracks line, which would you pick? (Hint: Any other answer is objectively wrong.)

So "they" is the committee that did the plan, plus the state officials who signed off on it, plus all the elected officials who endorsed it.

[Cirrus]

Now let's talk about bunt's building permit list. Here it is, summed up nice and pretty:

COUNTY		TOTAL NUMBER OF NEW RESIDENTIAL UNITS
Adams		 405
Arapahoe	1664
Boulder		 225
Broomfield	 509
Denver		2434
Douglas		 845
Jefferson	 505
Weld		 788

Not only is Boulder the smallest, it's by FAR the smallest. It's barely more than half the 2nd smallest (Adams). Every other corridor can say "we've got a lot of expected growth coming, so we need new transit or we'll get overwhelmed." Boulder can't say that, because Boulder isn't growing.

And the reason Boulder isn't growing is because Boulder is run by NIMBYs who have worked very hard to make sure it never grows. It's not some temporary fluke of the market, it's what Boulder wants to be. There is huge demand to live in Boulder, but Boulder intentionally doesn't allow it to happen. They throw up all sorts of regulatory hurdles that make development in Boulder almost impossible. On purpose.

And that's why in our one-person-one-vote democracy, Boulder's bad planning is causing its political weight in the region to rapidly diminish. In the past Boulder might have flexed it political muscle in order to get both its rail and BRT, and screw someone else over by leaving them w/ nothing. But that's not an option anymore, because they don't have that much muscle to flex. Oops.

[Cirrus]

New (or sort of old) subject:

I ran across a picture just now on twitter that made me think of a question bunt asked a while ago, about how common bicycling was in the olden days. I said it was very common but didn't have any proof handy.

Here's large photographic evidence. It's Rochester NY in 1904. The photo is too big to show inline on the forum, so open it up in a new tab. Then count the bikes. I count a bare minimum of 20, with a lot more uncountable in the background. Sidewalk bike racks are about as common as the trolley wire support poles.

PS: If you'd like to be depressed, use Street View and take a walk down that street as it exists today. Start with this link and then hit the forward arrow until you've gone 2 blocks. The one building on the left is still there, at least. Down the street there are a few more on the left. Mostly it's parking lots and horrible modernist-era offices.

[DenverRider2]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

And the reason Boulder isn't growing is because Boulder is run by NIMBYs who have worked very hard to make sure it never grows.

I don't understand the hostility towards Boulder's development planning. Apparently the sprawl which is running rampant in douglas and arapahoe is preferable? If Boulder county allowed a sterling ranch development in their open space would they then deserve a transit line? Why not serve the existing population centers which are plenty dense enough to support mass transit rather than building park and rides in the middle of nowhere?

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Exactly, who is "they"? Why is Boulder special? The people of Brighton are getting screwed. Parker is getting screwed. All of east/southeast Aurora is getting screwed. southwest JeffCo is getting screwed. Lots of people aren't getting anywhere near a choo choo under Fastracks.

At least Boulder is getting a BRT. Others have it worse. The only difference is the lack of feeling like they "deserve" something more than what they're getting. That's what separates Boulder.

Well, the fact is - as much as it's fun to make fun of those hippies for thinking they're special - Boulder is special. In a way it does "deserve" something more than what they're getting. And there's much more than the snobbery you implied that separates Boulder from Brighton, Parker, or any of those other areas you mentioned.

The Denver metro area is really the Denver/Boulder metro area. Boulder is it's own city - a center of business and education. It's known of nationally whereas those other places you mentioned are not. It has a reputation, that reaches outside of Colorado, as a center of education, innovation and as a tech start-up incubator - a miniature Silicon Valley if you will. It's a real, unique city with a distinct difference in culture and a substantial GDP relative to it's population – not simply a suburb. There's a reason, besides geography, why the Census Bureau gives Boulder it's own MSA despite the fact that some of the suburbs in Boulder County are actually Denver's suburbs.

In other words, despite the fact that the cul-de-sac Joe Taxpayer in Boulder lives on might look exactly the same as the cul-de-sac Frank Taxpayer in Brighton lives on, there's a reason Joe Taxpayer in Boulder can expect more.

Also, one must not forget the important fact that Joe Taxpayer and Frank Taxpayer voted for the same thing. They voted for a system that included a rail line to Boulder and never included any such line to Brighton, so in that regard, they both goth screwed – even if Joe Taxpayer is more directly affected.

Originally Posted by bunt_q

As for the "they" in the planning studies - there are lots of theys. But the fact that Boulder County was slated to get a BRT AND a train (while the others I listed above get nothing) is a product of that process.

I guess I assumed it was as simple as: RTD conducted a feasibility study to find out what kind of transit the NW corridor would need and that's what they stuck on the ballot. You guys know more about this stuff than I do.

Originally Posted by bunt_q

RTD is skipping the Boulder line not because it costs the most in dollar terms, but because it costs the most for the benefit it produces. It has pathetically low ridership projections, even compared to lines that cost half as much.

This really surprises me – especially considering the amount of auto-traffic between Denver and Boulder, and the fact that Boulder has some disproportionate gravity (like I went on about above). I honestly never realized the ridership projections were so low.

I would guess a DUS/Boulder line would be a no-brainier, and would fall behind only a DUS/DIA line and DUS/DTC line (which, of course, was already approved and built separately from Fastracks) in terms of prioritizing mass-transit development in the Denver area. Leaving Boulder out, in my mind, would be like leaving either Oakland or San Jose out of BART.

But what do I know. If the ridership projections 🞵🞵🞵🞵, then the ridership projections 🞵🞵🞵🞵. I can't argue with that.

Originally Posted by bunt_q

The reality is that Boulder is BY FAR the slowest growing area of the metro. Politicians respond to voters. When your town has fewer of them (relatively speaking) every year, then yeah, you're going to get screwed.

EDIT: See Cirrus' table, it's better.

Not to get all Wizened Variations on you (have I been here long enough that I can say that?) but I think money counts at least as much as population when it comes to getting votes and Boulder still has a disproportionate amount of that. I mean, many voters (and it doesn't take many in a close election) are sheep, and it only takes so much money to sway their votes. I agree with you somewhat about Boulder's shrinking influence, but I don't think the shrinking (relative) population has as much of an effect here as you might think.

Also, power brokers something something.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

When the original FasTracks lines were being planned, there was a study for each corridor that looked at mode, route, etc. Each study was supposed to come up with a recommendation that worked for that corridor. The study for the US-36 corridor was done in 1998 and was organized, defined, managed, finalized, and accepted by a committee that included RTD, CDOT, Boulder city, Boulder County, Broomfield, Superior, Louisville, and Westminster.

Everywhere else in the region, the committees in charge settled on one recommendation. But for Boulder they couldn't. Everybody *wanted* a train because trains are nicer than buses, but they *needed* a route that served downtown Boulder and CU, because those are the main destinations along the route. Since the study team couldn't figure out how to get a train to downtown Boulder, they said that could be done with buses, and the train would go somewhere else.

So in essence, instead of doing their job and picking one alternate, they said "eh, let's just do both." The problem is there's only enough ridership in the corridor to justify the cost of building one or the other. Doing both costs twice as much, but there are not twice as many riders. So both the BRT and the rail cost every bit as much as any other line in the region, but both of them only have "partial" ridership because they're splitting the market between them. But they're not even splitting it evenly. Because the most important destinations are along the bus route in central Boulder, the bus line gets most of the riders, and the rail line only gets a small percentage.

Then, after the fact, it turned out the cost projections for the rail line were wildly too low, and it was actually going to be much more expensive than anybody thought. Oops.

So fastforward to the recession. RTD can't meet its budget. They do not have enough money to build everything. It's a simple unfortunate reality that something has to be delayed. There's no choice that *somebody* has to be screwed. The only choice is who. So what does RTD do? They do a cost-benefit analysis of all the lines, to see which ones get the biggest (and smallest) bang for the buck. They look at the BRT line and see it has most of the ridership. So that's great, they'll build that. Then they look at the rail line and see that it's extremely extremely expensive, but gets almost no riders. Every other proposed line everywhere else in the region gets more riders for less money than the Boulder train. Then they remember that delaying the Boulder rail doesn't actually screw Boulder very much at all, because the rail line is just a less-effective duplicate of the BRT line. Almost all the Boulder riders were going to ride the bus anyway, because only the bus actually went where it needed to go.

If you had to delay one FasTracks line, which would you pick? (Hint: Any other answer is objectively wrong.)

So "they" is the committee that did the plan, plus the state officials who signed off on it, plus all the elected officials who endorsed it.

Thanks for the detailed story. Well said. It all makes much more sense to me now.

It's too bad there isn't a way to get the college and downtown connected to rail. One would think a way can be found if they looked hard enough. Honestly, part of me just wants to see rail everywhere (rather than bus) because trains are just neat and I have an affinity for them. For whatever reason, I can't stand sitting on a bus with all the riff raff, and yet I love sitting on a train - riff raff or not. If I were involved with the decision making process here, I would honestly be really tempted to go along with the "eh, let's just do both" crowd, but I'd like to think I'd be more pragmatic than that.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

And the reason Boulder isn't growing is because Boulder is run by NIMBYs who have worked very hard to make sure it never grows. It's not some temporary fluke of the market, it's what Boulder wants to be. There is huge demand to live in Boulder, but Boulder intentionally doesn't allow it to happen. They throw up all sorts of regulatory hurdles that make development in Boulder almost impossible. On purpose.

This I'm well aware of and I've never understood it. Dumb IMO.

San Francisco did the same thing because they were afraid the character of The City, with all it's cute little neighborhoods made up of 3-story Victorians with the bay windows, etc., would change due to the so-called "Manhattanization" of the City. They were right to some extent of course, but I think a compromise would have been better than the strict limits on development they ended up with. Although the SF/Boulder situations aren't totally analogous due to SF being locked in geographically and the fact that it would remain a world-class city with great political clout regardless of whether it was allowed to grow, the tide is turning in SF as people are becoming increasingly frustrated by the skyrocketing cost of living (and as the old-timers are being replaced by newcomers) so I don't think the strict zoning will last much longer. And I think the tide will eventually turn in Boulder as well. As expensive as Boulder is, it just isn't expensive enough yet.

[CharlesCO]

San Jose is *not* part of BART, as Santa Clara County decided their money would be better spent building an extensive freeway and expressway system. San Jose's MSA is also over four times larger in population than San Francisco's (1.8 mn vs. 4.3 mn). Meanwhile, Denver's MSA is currently estimated at 2.6 mn, while Boulder is just under 300,000 — roughly 50,000 larger than Greeley. While Boulder is important, sure, there's not much rationale in using a significant portion of Fastracks tax dollars on duplicate service to the most geographically isolated community with the poorest outlook for growth in the region.

Also, you are correct that San Francisco is perhaps one of the fewest cities in the country that could possibly out-NIMBY Boulder, but as you mentioned, San Francisco's growth constraints are not completely artificial like Boulder's, and even San Francisco is also starting to show some signs of change as well, with a new construction boom and some revised growth policies. Boulder hasn't done any of that.

Choo choos are neat, but they become less neat when they cost a billion dollars. They become even less neat when the choo choo line in question is forced to run at speeds lower than the current LRT lines and at headways that will force any potential ridership to lose interest. I don't remember the details exactly, but in order to get a train to serve downtown Boulder and CU, RTD would have to either purchase new right of way (which is prohibitively expensive) and/or use grade separation (which is prohibitively expensive). There's really no other way to shoehorn a rapid DMU rail line into Boulder proper any other way. Someone correct me on that or clarify with more details, but the end result is that the only way we can get a rail line to Boulder is to have it touch the very eastern edge of it, significantly reducing anyone's interest in using it.

If we're serious about building the best public transit that we can, we need to use our needs, capacity, service, and frequency as our starting point, not technology. For the Northwest corridor, it just so happens that a bus rapid transit system on dedicated right of way serving the destinations with the highest possibility of ridership is a better option than rail. I'm also certainly not the best person on here to articulate this point, but in the meantime, I'd suggest you take a look at this article which is one of my favorites. Buses can be just as fast and frequent as rail, much in the same way that a bad rail system can be just as slow and inconvenient as some of the most inefficient bus lines. Americans (but other nations as well) have a stigma that bus is inferior to rail, but in many cases, the justifications for that viewpoint are either false or cultural. The sooner we (and especially our friends in the Northwest) can shake this stigma, the sooner we'll be able to have a serious discussion about building the best transit system with the money and resources that we have.

We should have that discussion irrespective to technological options— articulated bus, light rail, heavy rail, monorail, BRT, dirigibles, magic carpets...

[bunt_q]

One of the advantages of having almost no growth, however, is that you can build a BRT without the ever-present fear of it getting overwhelmed by traffic if it isn't 100% in its own ROW. If you building a bus system that works in Boulder today, it's likely to keep working, even if it has to share ROW in spots.

As for Boulder in-doing its growth measures, that would be almost impossible as a practical matter. They were very thorough. It's not a single growth control scheme, but multiple schemes layered on each other. It's an interesting exercise...but if you stop and think about what Boulder could change, it's hard to come up with much meaningful before you start needing such a political consensus (elections, multiple jurisdictions, supermajorities, etc.) that it'll just never happen. No, it's not SF. There's no turning back now.

[bobg]

Originally Posted by DenverRider2

I don't understand the hostility towards Boulder's development planning. Apparently the sprawl which is running rampant in douglas and arapahoe is preferable? If Boulder county allowed a sterling ranch development in their open space would they then deserve a transit line? Why not serve the existing population centers which are plenty dense enough to support mass transit rather than building park and rides in the middle of nowhere?

Is the sprawl in douglas/arapahoe preferable to the sprawl in Boulder county?
IMO yes the sprawl in Douglas/Arapahoe is preferable. Boulder's anti-growth policies directly led to the sprawl in Longmont/Erie/Lafayette/Louisville/Superior etc. So not only does sprawl still exist, but it's miles further away than it should have been. Further away sprawl forces more driving, and makes alternative forms of transit less realistic.

As others have expressed on this forum some of Boulder's policies individually (IE just an urban growth boundary) could have actually prevented sprawl while allowing Boulder to add density. Instead the combination of an urban growth boundary, height restrictions, and percentage cap on growth essentially pushed the sprawl issue further out. So now Boulder doesn't have to look at sprawl, property values go up, and all the growth related issues become other municipalities problems. It's just outright selfishness under the guise of sprawl prevention.

Does Boulder need sprawl style growth to get a transit line?
No but that growth makes for a more compelling argument when you are competing against other municipalities that are growing at significantly higher rates, and RTD has a tight budget. The bigger issue is there's two lines in Fastracks to Boulder (as much as people do not want to call BRT a line), and one of those lines the BRT makes a ton of sense from a cost benefit perspective, the other line DMU/rail is financially absurd from a cost benefit perspective .

Why not serve existing dense areas?
That's the fundamental issue, there's only one existing dense area on the 36 corridor and that is in central Boulder (Downtown + CU). Without a ton of resources it is next to impossible to get a train in and out of central Boulder. A better way to put it is central Boulder is dense enough to cause problems with a train getting in, but not dense enough (thanks to growth restrictions) to financially justify what it would take to cram a train in there.

[bunt_q]

While I'm thinking about areas where we intentionally set the political bar very high so we can't undo something later...

Buses have that problem. They don't show an irreversible (or hard to reverse) commitment to transit the way rails do. Think about it, with one administrative change our HOVs go from 2 to 3. Done. Same thing with buses - even if you give them a lane - with a stroke if the pen, that lane can become useless. That's a problem. A surmountable one, for sure. But we also make out lives more difficult when we do HOT/transit lanes, because those are opposite incentives. The same traffic management that is best for transit will likely not be what's best for revenue. So that has to be one hell of a contract. And I'm not gonna lie, RTD hasn't impressed me with their negotiation and dealmaking acumen. My fear is that the big boys take RTD to the legal cleaners. In that sense, we're safer in CDOT's hands...except who trusts CDOT to look out for transit? Especially if they're forced to choose between a bus and a big boy's preferences - big boys, who, by the way, are now in the business of bailing CDOT out of its funding straits.

[bunt_q]

Bob makes an excellent point. Sprawl control and growth control are not the same thing. One is growth management, the other growth control. Boulder tries for growth control - as in, use my planning raygun to keep people out. That is impossible, except at the most local level. If Boulder had embraced the inevitable growth, but done it in anti-sprawl fashion, that would be one fantastic medium-sized city by now.

Remember, if Boulder had kept up its pace of growth from the 70s on, we wouldn't be talking about a little town. We'd be talking about Austin. Only better, because Boulder was decades ahead in terms of progressive thinking. They just went the easy approach (and profitable to existing property owners, whose dumpy 50s ranches are worth 600k now) - the 🞵🞵🞵🞵 Lamm no Olympics approach - and just said no to more people. I'm no Yoda, but I'm pretty sure taking the easy path leads toward the dark side. It WAS the Denver Boulder metro. You hear that less and less now. You hear US36 instead if the Boulder Turnpike. Boulder has been supplanted by...shudder...Aurora.

Boulder could have been a showcase for progressive planning. I don't think there's another city out there in a high growth area that understood the issues like Boulder did and had the appeal that Boulder has. Boulder might possibly be the greatest municipal lost opportunity in the country.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by DenverRider2

I don't understand the hostility towards Boulder's development planning. Apparently the sprawl which is running rampant in douglas and arapahoe is preferable?

Boulder's planning directly causes there to be MORE rampant sprawl. When growth is pushed away from Boulder, where do you think it goes? It doesn't just disappear. There's still the same amount of growth, but it just happens further out, at lower density. Instead of nice walkable infill in Boulder you get ranch houses in Erie. What Boulder does is the biggest driver of sprawl in the northern Front Range.

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

It's too bad there isn't a way to get the college and downtown connected to rail... Part of me just wants to see rail everywhere because trains are just neat and I have an affinity for them.

Oh I'd much rather be on a train than a bus, I agree. You will never hear me say buses can be as good as trains, because there really are legitimate differences between them. Unfortunately trains are just not always practical.

There are potentially ways a train could reach downtown Boulder, but they're expensive and complicated. If Boulder would agree to a deal like Denver made at Union Station, to develop the area at very high density in order to help pay for the project, then maybe it could be done. But Boulder would rather not get a train and blame RTD for it than accept so much new development.

Originally Posted by bunt_q

As for Boulder un-doing its growth measures, that would be almost impossible... There's no turning back now... It WAS the Denver Boulder metro. You hear that less and less now. You hear US36 instead if the Boulder Turnpike. Boulder has been supplanted by...shudder...Aurora.

Unfortunately I think you're right. Boulder is destined to be just like Golden. It will be a pleasant afterthought with little to no influence on anything.

Originally Posted by bobg

Some of Boulder's policies individually could have actually prevented sprawl while allowing Boulder to add density. Instead the combination of an urban growth boundary, height restrictions, and percentage cap on growth essentially pushed the sprawl issue further out.

Right on.

[EngiNerd]

EDIT: NM, already been said.

I will add though, so why isn't RTD playing up the cost benefit analysis more in the news to help make their case, and put the onus on Boulder to defend why they feel they have the god given right to two different kinds of transit, one that won't even hit the major population centers in that area? The only argument I have heard is "because we are paying for it"....well like Bunt said above, guess what, so is Parker, so is S. Jeffco, so are parts of Castle Rock, etc. There are realities here that have to be address, and I just don't think RTD is being upfront about them, and its leading to this "but you promised us" mentality.

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Bob makes an excellent point. Sprawl control and growth control are not the same thing. One is growth management, the other growth control. Boulder tries for growth control - as in, use my planning raygun to keep people out. That is impossible, except at the most local level. If Boulder had embraced the inevitable growth, but done it in anti-sprawl fashion, that would be one fantastic medium-sized city by now.

Remember, if Boulder had kept up its pace of growth from the 70s on, we wouldn't be talking about a little town. We'd be talking about Austin. Only better, because Boulder was decades ahead in terms of progressive thinking. They just went the easy approach (and profitable to existing property owners, whose dumpy 50s ranches are worth 600k now) - the 🞵🞵🞵🞵 Lamm no Olympics approach - and just said no to more people. I'm no Yoda, but I'm pretty sure taking the easy path leads toward the dark side. It WAS the Denver Boulder metro. You hear that less and less now. You hear US36 instead if the Boulder Turnpike. Boulder has been supplanted by...shudder...Aurora.

Boulder could have been a showcase for progressive planning. I don't think there's another city out there in a high growth area that understood the issues like Boulder did and had the appeal that Boulder has. Boulder might possibly be the greatest municipal lost opportunity in the country.

This premise makes for an awesome Planning article/op-ed. Write it up Bunt.

[Wizened Variations]

I thought about the issue and considered how I would approach writing a thorough article or even a book on the issue.

So rather than doing either, I think:

1) Part of the Fastracks issue north of I-70 relates to the a combination of a large number of fairly small cities and unincorporated land.

South of I-70, the spokes out of DUS tend to run through 1 or two large cities, and, through an almost contiguous set of small or medium sized municipalities (the southeast line has the added component of a huge employment center that acts like a city).

Considering each spoke as a subset of an negotiated agreement, these subset agreements were easier to negotiate between few players per spoke- i.e., more reality oriented due to an easier to reach consensus.

2nd) Boulder, IMO, is unique in one important reason: Boulder is a large center of high tech, high quality manufacturing, employment. This employment center is so large, that (caused in part by the Greenbelt) cities like Longmont and Louisville, have become bedroom cities. Even during rush hour traffic on the Turnpike, the amount of traffic travel both ways can be surprising. The Diagonal Highway, too, has Boulder centric rush hour peaks. Even 120th Avenue, particularly west of I-25 has a significant Boulder centric component.

I suspect that many who work in Boulder feel that their commuter needs are not being dealt with. In addition, I suspect many are starting to believe that both the BRT and railroad options are for those commuters who travel towards Denver.

**************

Oh yes, I do suspect that Boulder and Longmont are primarily interested in doing something with the Diagonal Highway. BNSF has destroyed the Diagonal rail option*, IMO, and is asking for more money- spread out over a period of years- than the DUS project received from the Federal Government.

This is what is known as a "Buffeting"

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by CharlesCO

San Jose is *not* part of BART

lol. The whole time I lived in SF (3 years) "everyone" said, "they haven't built that part yet, but they're supposed to soon I guess". But these people are just average schmucks like me. They're not development geeks like you skyscraper page forumers.

[CharlesCO]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

lol. The whole time I lived in SF (3 years) "everyone" said, "they haven't built that part yet, but they're supposed to soon I guess". But these people are just average schmucks like me. They're not development geeks like you skyscraper page forumers.

...which is silly because the South Bay already has Caltrain, and BART's money would be far better spent improving the core system rather than throwing billions at extending each line into suburbia. I also think more people would equate Caltrain with BART service if the Bay Area had a consolidated transit agency. As much frustration RTD gives us, I think that's one reason why we're better off.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by CharlesCO

San Jose's MSA is also over four times larger in population than San Francisco's (1.8 mn vs. 4.3 mn).

I hate to veer off topic, but I have to chime in here with a rant about the Census Bureau's whole MSA thing.

First of all, SF's MSA is more like 4 million - and I don't even have to look it up because I've seen it a thousand times. And it would HAVE to be much larger, by any fair measure, than San Jose's.

Also, where does SF's MSA end and San Jose's begin? It's one metro. And SF is the heart of it. It's he cultural and financial center - the "downtown" of the Bay Area. If one were to tell someone in San Jose, "I'm from The City," they would know that means SF.

This MSA thing bothers me. Why split up some metro's but not others? Why split up the Bay Area or LA, but keep Seattle and Tacoma together or keep Dallas and Ft Worth together? I don't know who put together that Primary Statistical Area thing, but kudos to them. At least now we have something that keeps everything on the same list and in its proper order. But even that isn't very accurate. Take Denver for instance. You have a MSA that cuts off Boulder when Boulder is clearly part of the same metro area (not to mention the whole Louisville/Lafayette/Superior area), and then you have the CSA that somehow includes Greeley when Greeley is a freaking hour drive (or something like that) past the edge of suburbia. Denver metro's real population is somewhere in between. And I'm sure it's the same for just about every other metro.

Grrrrr!

Anyway...