DENVER | Transportation Thread

[Denver]

Originally Posted by CPVLIVE

Not sure if this has been posted already. The Central Rail Extension Mobility Study Final Report from RTD. It's loaded with pretty renders.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5xa8hx9yj199m6/CRE%20Final%20Report.pdf?dl=0

Thanks for this. Does anyone know if they have funding in place?

[bcp]

is this corridor and small extension possibly the most over-wrought analysis of all time? it's been going on for over 10 years...and this 150 page study results in no preferred-alternative...more analysis to come. (unless i totally missed it...?)

alternative 2 would be good for AS...the extensions just seem kinda silly, and the twists and turns of the NWSS extension? my god what a painful ride that would be...

from the study...

"How long would it take to travel from 38th/Blake to the Convention Center?
The traffic and travel modeling conducted for this project estimated that a one-way trip from
the 38th/Blake station to the Convention Center would take approximately 24 minutes."

anybody see a problem here?

i'm being a curmudgeon on this one...but gotta call a spade a spade here i think.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by bcp

is this corridor and small extension possibly the most over-wrought analysis of all time? it's been going on for over 10 years...and this 150 page study results in no preferred-alternative...more analysis to come. (unless i totally missed it...?)

alternative 2 would be good for AS...the extensions just seem kinda silly, and the twists and turns of the NWSS extension? my god what a painful ride that would be...

from the study...

"How long would it take to travel from 38th/Blake to the Convention Center?
The traffic and travel modeling conducted for this project estimated that a one-way trip from
the 38th/Blake station to the Convention Center would take approximately 24 minutes."

anybody see a problem here?

i'm being a curmudgeon on this one...but gotta call a spade a spade here i think.

Alt. #1 was rejected

Alt. #2 was rejected also
"This option was also rejected by the project team (after consultation with stakeholders) because it would result in delays and operational inefficiencies in the downtown loop since there is no pocket track for CRE operations, which also affects user convenience and impacts the downtown traffic signal network."

Sounds like to me that they have settled on Alternative 3A or 3B, both of which will have to be studied again to determine which they are going with. Basically adds a station at the front of the convention center and some extra siding track at 14th and stout to allow more trains through downtown. Those two options aren't all that different from each other, so one would hope that they could be decided on fairly quickly. There is no funding at this time either, so maybe it doesn't really matter if they decide that quickly.

I also found it interesting that the wheel chair ramps are being converted to modular, so that they can be moved around or even eliminated easily in the future....because it looks like they are seriously considering low floor cars!

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by bcp

"How long would it take to travel from 38th/Blake to the Convention Center?
The traffic and travel modeling conducted for this project estimated that a one-way trip from
the 38th/Blake station to the Convention Center would take approximately 24 minutes."

anybody see a problem here?

i'm being a curmudgeon on this one...but gotta call a spade a spade here i think.

And this is why we keep parking requirements. It's an 8 minute drive, so long as we don't allow the planners to convince us that the days of the car are over and parking must be eliminated. Triple travel time isn't a worthwhile sacrifice.

[Interzen]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

It's an 8 minute drive

Actually the way the lights are timed right now it is often more like an 11 to 14 minute drive. If I was commuting downtown from anywhere on this line or beyond I would give up 16 minutes each way if I didn't have to pay for parking.

That said, 10 Mph average speed does seem slow. What are average travel rates on a typical street car local line (which is what this line basically is)

[jubguy3]

Originally Posted by Interzen

Actually the way the lights are timed right now it is often more like an 11 to 14 minute drive. If I was commuting downtown from anywhere on this line or beyond I would give up 16 minutes each way if I didn't have to pay for parking.

That said, 10 Mph average speed does seem slow. What are average travel rates on a typical street car local line (which is what this line basically is)

All I have to add is that our streetcar parallels a very congested and busy road and the streetcar takes longer than the bus. 15 mph max speed. Some amount of miles I forgot in 12 minutes.a

[bcp]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

Alt. #1 was rejected

Alt. #2 was rejected also
"This option was also rejected by the project team (after consultation with stakeholders) because it would result in delays and operational inefficiencies in the downtown loop since there is no pocket track for CRE operations, which also affects user convenience and impacts the downtown traffic signal network."

Sounds like to me that they have settled on Alternative 3A or 3B, both of which will have to be studied again to determine which they are going with. Basically adds a station at the front of the convention center and some extra siding track at 14th and stout to allow more trains through downtown. Those two options aren't all that different from each other, so one would hope that they could be decided on fairly quickly. There is no funding at this time either, so maybe it doesn't really matter if they decide that quickly.

I also found it interesting that the wheel chair ramps are being converted to modular, so that they can be moved around or even eliminated easily in the future....because it looks like they are seriously considering low floor cars!

Duasin, Stimpson-Gagnon

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Interzen

Actually the way the lights are timed right now it is often more like an 11 to 14 minute drive. If I was commuting downtown from anywhere on this line or beyond I would give up 16 minutes each way if I didn't have to pay for parking.

That said, 10 Mph average speed does seem slow. What are average travel rates on a typical street car local line (which is what this line basically is)

The streetcar isn't free either. You can get parking for not much more than a roundtrip local fare on RTD. Not everybody gets free transit from their employer.

I am not sure there is such thing as a "typical" line. Too many variables (dedicated ROW, signal priority, stop spacing, etc.).

[Interzen]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

The streetcar isn't free either. You can get parking for not much more than a roundtrip local fare on RTD.

True but a transit pass would be the obvious choice for a daily commuter and could be used more than just for the weekday commute.

I'm sure you are right and plenty will make the choice to drive to possibly save a couple minutes.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

Alt. #1 was rejected

Alt. #2 was rejected also
"This option was also rejected by the project team (after consultation with stakeholders) because it would result in delays and operational inefficiencies in the downtown loop since there is no pocket track for CRE operations, which also affects user convenience and impacts the downtown traffic signal network."

Sounds like to me that they have settled on Alternative 3A or 3B, both of which will have to be studied again to determine which they are going with. Basically adds a station at the front of the convention center and some extra siding track at 14th and stout to allow more trains through downtown. Those two options aren't all that different from each other, so one would hope that they could be decided on fairly quickly. There is no funding at this time either, so maybe it doesn't really matter if they decide that quickly.

I also found it interesting that the wheel chair ramps are being converted to modular, so that they can be moved around or even eliminated easily in the future....because it looks like they are seriously considering low floor cars!

Thanks for the interpretation as I also declined to study the study.

My understanding was that money for the original extension plan was a part of Fastracks. Whether that included presumed Federal participation I don't know.

Of course whether "Fast Starts" and "Tiger" program funding remains after the next Transportation Bill is anybody's guess. I have heard that these programs have been universally popular in both red and blue states so they might.

[Stonemans_rowJ]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

And this is why we keep parking requirements. It's an 8 minute drive, so long as we don't allow the planners to convince us that the days of the car are over and parking must be eliminated. Triple travel time isn't a worthwhile sacrifice.

We keep parking requirements because the mass transit is slow and inefficient, and doesn't serve people very well?

supply and demand. Parking in Denver is incredibly cheap and/or free because we have a hugely disproportionate over-supply.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2012/03/parking-minimums-create-too-many-parking-spots/1561/

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Stonemans_rowJ

We keep parking requirements because the mass transit is slow and inefficient, and doesn't serve people very well?

Umm, yes? Are you agreeing? Because it is frankly too late for us to build a transit system that will do anything else.

Originally Posted by Stonemans_rowJ

supply and demand. Parking in Denver is incredibly cheap and/or free because we have a hugely disproportionate over-supply.

We actually do not have an oversupply to speak of. Or at least the market doesn't think do. That article is talking about NYC - hardly an apt comparison, considering it is a statistical outlier on pretty much every transportation measure. (Also, the author Eric Jaffe is pretty much a hack - he writes some good stuff, but he's hardly an expert. The knowledge base on this forum is actually higher level than the average CityLab column.) In any case, we've lowered parking requirements, and developers apparently think they're too low, since they regularly exceed them. So that's hardly an oversupply problem.

Now, if we are to look at parking requirements on a national level - clearly many places have an oversupply, so it is a real problem. But it is not a problem in Denver, not even remotely. There's no massive parking subsidy or other conspiracy going on in the City and County of Denver to hold transit down. There's just no interest in making it work. Lots of anti-car interest; no interest yet in viable alternatives, which is creating an interesting dynamic that'll just cause us issues down the road, but I trust Council politics will fix that longer term, since average people still need a cheap and easy way to get around and will vote accordingly.

(That's the problem with when folks turn planning issues into political talking points - suddenly every liberal thinks every car-related idea is bad, and every conservative thinks the opposite. If only infrastructure actually worked that way.)

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

It's an 8 minute drive

Counting the time it takes to park?

24 minutes is too long, no argument. But I doubt you're comparing apples to apples.

[CPVLIVE]

^^^^
Yeah, depending on traffic it can take you 8 minutes to circle the block with the one-ways.

[TakeFive]

I'll piggyback on bunt's points. What's good for NYC not necessarily what's good for Denver.

Also it's good to re-emphasize that many tenants are now designing their space for one employee for every 250 square feet (or even less). Theoretically that means a building could now have twice the number of employees as 5/10+ years ago. Presumably not all tenants will follow that formula however. Still, it's this kind of major trend that can give building owners the heebie jeebies as to whether they have enough parking or not?

The growing residential density downtown is obviously a positive mitigating factor.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Counting the time it takes to park?

24 minutes is too long, no argument. But I doubt you're comparing apples to apples.

I said that, that's why keeping parking easy is important. But it never takes long to park here, super easy, if you're circling for 8 minutes it's because you don't know what you're doing. And I'm not exactly cruising around in some nimble urban machine. While we are doing apples to apples, you still have to get to the train as well. Even the shortest walk is going to match parking time - unless we start making parking more difficult, that is. And you still have to wait for the train, since we here in Denver love our 15 minute headways.

From the Englewood station area to downtown the train is easily 20 minutes longer door to door. That's including getting through whatever that disaster CDOT did at Santa Fe and I-25 is. Now maybe you guys have that kind of time, but I don't have 40 minutes to give up in my day simply out of lofty principle.

[bobg]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I said that, that's why keeping parking easy is important. But it never takes long to park here, super easy, if you're circling for 8 minutes it's because you don't know what you're doing. And I'm not exactly cruising around in some nimble urban machine. While we are doing apples to apples, you still have to get to the train as well. Even the shortest walk is going to match parking time - unless we start making parking more difficult, that is.

So it takes you less than 8 minutes to find parking downtown right in front of your destination so you don't ever have to walk several blocks when you drive? Which downtown are we talking about here because this sounds nothing like Denver.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

From the Englewood station area to downtown the train is easily 20 minutes longer door to door. That's including getting through whatever that disaster CDOT did at Santa Fe and I-25 is. Now maybe you guys have that kind of time, but I don't have 40 minutes to give up in my day simply out of lofty principle.

That's because you're a highly-compensated professional and not a low-level underling. Plus, I'd highly doubt that you would be losing 40 minutes a day if you were using our transit system as the commuter system it was designed to be and taking it during rush hour. Now, if you can somehow circumvent the Armageddon-like cluster fuck that is I-25 and Santa Fe at that time, please tell me your secret.

Hell, you're probably in the office before rush hour begins and still there after it ends. You do not apply to the transit metric. If you were in NYC you'd be shuttled around by private car because your time was too precious to be wasted on the train. Probably in Chicago as well.

[TakeFive]

About NYC, Juno would like a word. See her HERE.

Wut, didn't they redo the I-25 and Santa Fe intersect?

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

About NYC, Juno would like a word. See her HERE.

Wut, didn't they redo the I-25 and Santa Fe intersect?

They did and it's an absolute cluster. This is for a couple of reasons but the biggest contributor is probably the I-25/6th Ave reconstruction and the Santa Fe onramp to I-25 having merge lanes that are inadequate.