DENVER | Transportation Thread

[Brainpathology]

Aren't employers barred from screening employees based on their walk ability in most cases?

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by RyanD

I think we are going to hit a ceiling with bike lanes and bike users here. So I say get it out of the way, give the Portlandians what they want so we can move on to streetcars and more solid year round forms of transportation.

Kind of like Union Station. Get it all built out so we can focus on CBD, 14th Street, etc again..

Both are integral to a person-oriented city; and both have their pros/cons. Biggest impediment to the latter (transit) is leadership. Until we have a council/mayor that want to see better transit in Denver, you'll have to make due with piece-meal projects/programs implemented by city staff. Denver had that (leadership) a few years back (Colfax Feasibility then Colfax AA), but with new blood, council has shifted to bikes. And because the city directly funds the construction/operation/maintenance of bike facilities, it makes it much easier/faster to implement.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by PLANSIT

Both are integral to a person-oriented city; and both have their pros/cons. Biggest impediment to the latter (transit) is leadership. Until we have a council/mayor that want to see better transit in Denver, you'll have to make due with piece-meal projects/programs implemented by city staff. Denver had that (leadership) a few years back (Colfax Feasibility then Colfax AA), but with new blood, council has shifted to bikes. And because the city directly funds the construction/operation/maintenance of bike facilities, it makes it much easier/faster to implement.

Now, if Romer hand been elected instead of Hancock we would be a lot further down the streetcar path. Instead, we get Aerotropolis.

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Instead, we get Aerotropolis.

And bike lanes. Because it's cheap, easy, and even if you half-ass it, it still pleases the masses. I'm not against bike lanes, I just don't think this should be our number one shining gold star in alternative transportation in contrast to what the media outlets think. Bkers have louder voices than the streetcar / rail activists in this city, so it's easy to listen when you have a louder voice. I'm thinking this probably needs to change and some of us need to peep up a little more.

[bunt_q]

I call BS. I see absolutely no link between bike lanes and companies... Portland isn't exactly known as being a major burgeoning hub of corporate growth. I'd bet Houston is attracting more tech companies than Portland is,

[The Dirt]

Instead of asking, we should be studying places that have attracted tech companies in the past. Ultimately, though, I think that large tech companies will always choose a suburban campus style office over a true urban location. It's going to be the small startups that can be honed in downtown. As they grow, they will probably move out but still be more likely to stay than out of town companies that have no historical ties.

[DenverRider2]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Ultimately, though, I think that large tech companies will always choose a suburban campus style office over a true urban location.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/us/as-...ntown-is-reshaped.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

Granted this is the exception but I imagine fewer and fewer young tech works will want to be working in suburban office parks (apples new hq not withstanding)

And regarding the bike-transit battle that seems never ending here, comparing a network of protected bike lanes downtown with a $500 million streetcar line on colfax/ broadway is silly. The money does not come out of the same pot and obviously one does not preclude the other.

[bunt_q]

It's only silly to compare them when you are looking at funding and implementation. It's not silly at all to compare them when you are looking at the political support each garners. Because the human brain and the city of Denver only seem to have so much political and policy attention span available. That's true at every level of government, actually. You know how people criticize Obama for focusing on health care during his first term, when there were other more important things to deal with? Well, the same applies at a micro level when we are talking about bicycles instead of every other thing that should be important to the city. We humans can only focus on so much.

[bunt_q]

Boom.

Carroll: Northwest FasTracks rail, RIP

By Vincent Carroll
Denver Post editorial page editor
Posted: 11/01/2013 10:06:47 AM MDT


The writing is on the wall for the FasTracks northwest rail line from Denver to Boulder to Longmont. It was always hard to justify; now it's all but impossible.

The Regional Transportation District, to its considerable credit, released a comparison last month between building the orphaned rail proposal and supplying roughly 100 miles of enhanced bus service in the northwest suburbs that would connect to the Bus Rapid Transit project (BRT) that is well under way between Denver and Boulder — and the cost-benefit comparison wasn't close.

For example, a rail line only from Boulder to Longmont would cost nearly as much (between $199 million to $243 million) as the entire enhanced bus network north of U.S. 36 ($255 million to $300 million).

Daily boarding estimates were an eye-opener, too. The Boulder/Longmont rail would attract 1,500 to 1,600 boardings per day by 2035, compared with more than 16,000 on buses.

http://www.denverpost.com/carroll/ci_24429620/northwest-fastracks-rail-rip

[DenverRider2]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

It's only silly to compare them when you are looking at funding and implementation. It's not silly at all to compare them when you are looking at the political support each garners. Because the human brain and the city of Denver only seem to have so much political and policy attention span available. That's true at every level of government, actually. You know how people criticize Obama for focusing on health care during his first term, when there were other more important things to deal with? Well, the same applies at a micro level when we are talking about bicycles instead of every other thing that should be important to the city. We humans can only focus on so much.

If you're talking political capital and attention span, fasttracks has done much more to deflect from downtown transit than bikes have. Why invest in streetcars when we have already spent billions on light rail? Of course this light rail mostly benefits suburban commuters and not the urban core. Streetcars, buses, bikes and pedestrian improvements should fall under the complete streets tent which would benefit all parties rather than just building more trains running along the highway.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by DenverRider2

If you're talking political capital and attention span, fasttracks has done much more to deflect from downtown transit than bikes have. Why invest in streetcars when we have already spent billions on light rail? Of course this light rail mostly benefits suburban commuters and not the urban core. Streetcars, buses, bikes and pedestrian improvements should fall under the complete streets tent which would benefit all parties rather than just building more trains running along the highway.

Oh, I completely agree with that.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by DenverRider2

If you're talking political capital and attention span, fasttracks has done much more to deflect from downtown transit than bikes have. Why invest in streetcars when we have already spent billions on light rail? Of course this light rail mostly benefits suburban commuters and not the urban core. Streetcars, buses, bikes and pedestrian improvements should fall under the complete streets tent which would benefit all parties rather than just building more trains running along the highway.

But does the complete streets tent encourage us to go after the low-hanging fruit, ie bike lanes, while ignoring other, more vital, transit improvements because its easier? Stripping a bike lane is one thing, a dedicated bus lane is something else entirely and the complete street tent has the affect of giving both equal attention and importance.

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

But does the complete streets tent encourage us to go after the low-hanging fruit, ie bike lanes, while ignoring other, more vital, transit improvements because its easier? Stripping a bike lane is one thing, a dedicated bus lane is something else entirely and the complete street tent has the affect of giving both equal attention and importance.

Well, one has a master plan. One doesn't. Got to understand what works best and what is priority. That's probably step one for transit.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by PLANSIT

Well, one has a master plan. One doesn't. Got to understand what works best and what is priority. That's probably step one for transit.

That's the planner talking. I am not sure a master plan would make any difference at all. RTD built light rail without a master plan (a real one) for a decade. What we need is a starter line. A master plan without a starter line is just something to collect dust and let planner-types drool over. To say we need to plan for the fourth line before we can build the first is just a stall tactic; an excuse to make up for a lack of movement or interest. And we don't need to plan for five lines to know which one is going to come first, either.

Might that make for some awkward re-dos in the future? Sure. But RTD managed to put the CPV line in before there was a Union Station master plan, and it doesn't appear to me that ultimately limited what could/could not happen at Union Station. Same would apply for whatever streetcar hub ends up at Civic Center in the dream master plan scenario. Planners have a bad habit of letting the future's perfect and the complete stand in the way of the present's realistic.

[RyanD]

RTD is at it again!



-So we're calling it 'Fare Media' now.. Not just fare, or tickets..

-They have successfully separated LRT and CRT..

-3 different icons, 2 of them trains..

You know.. I would be fine if we called it a 'choo-choo' instead of what this sign is saying; it's going to confuse both residents and out of town visitors.. I'm not very pleased with any of this and I think something needs to happen / be said before this turns into a complete disaster in 2016..

[The Dirt]

They're selling fare media for a mode that isn't operational for another 2 1/4 years or is this some sort of display? By the way, I'm never going to say tickets again. If I see a movie, I will get cinematic media. If I am caught speeding, I will get excessive velocity media. Amtrak has tickets, however because they're not with it.

[bcp]

Wow..fears coming true...

[Zmapper]

Even if RTD weren't willing to completely integrate the branding of their rail services, they should have called the new lines "Regional Rail", instead of "Commuter Rail". In contrast to the peak-oriented commuter rail systems, usually operated with diesel locomotive-hauled trains, the RTD service will be more frequent and operated with EMUs, and thus should properly be branded as regional rail.

[bunt_q]

Fare media? That should make things easy for foreign travelers to Denver. I'd almost prefer they just put the signs in Spanish, make them easier to follow.

I suppose we're going to need a fourth symbol for bus rapid transit too. Wonder what that'll look like.

I'm actually a little confused about which symbol will represent the airport line. Since it'll have overhead electric, does it get the little train icon with or without the pantograph? I suppose the dividing line will be which end of union station you have to go to to catch that type of train. But wait, I thought it was supposed to be a single station? Now we even need two symbols to unify the two ends of it.

Eh, who cares. As Cirrus pointed out from Railvolution, RTD leadership views the highlight of this project as TWENTY-TWO BUS BAYS! Interestingly, the bus symbol even comes first. I'd be willing to bet that in other cities, the trains would come first.

How incredibly provincial we are.

[EngiNerd]

Why wouldn't they at least put the symbols in the order of the description?