Salt Lake Transit News Thread

[bob rulz]

It's amazing to me that Denver is ever in consideration. They rejected the Olympics once before! Why wouldn't they reject it again?! It's far costlier and more controversial than it was in the 1970s.

Is there pushback against the Olympics in Salt Lake? I don't hear much. Then again, I don't think I'm in the right social circles to hear much opposition - or much about it at all. It's still a long ways off, too.

I whole-heartedly support the Olympics here. Not only does it provide a great economic boost, but we have all of the facilities already, and it would be a huge incentive to improve transit, increase hotel capacity, and loosen our alcohol laws.

[twig]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

It's amazing to me that Denver is ever in consideration. They rejected the Olympics once before! Why wouldn't they reject it again?! It's far costlier and more controversial than it was in the 1970s.

Is there pushback against the Olympics in Salt Lake? I don't hear much. Then again, I don't think I'm in the right social circles to hear much opposition - or much about it at all. It's still a long ways off, too.

I whole-heartedly support the Olympics here. Not only does it provide a great economic boost, but we have all of the facilities already, and it would be a huge incentive to improve transit, increase hotel capacity, and loosen our alcohol laws.

The drives may be a little longer to the resorts than Utah but I can definitely see where people are coming from when they would rather stay in Denver than Salt Lake while they are here for the Olympics. Denver is massive compared to Salt Lake, offering much more of a nightlife, boasting the second largest cultural arts complex in the nation, having one of the largest beer and tap scenes in the nation, extremely great public transportation around the downtown area, sport venues everywhere... yeah I guess I'm with you, I really don't see the draw.

I love Salt Lake, and I love Denver, but it irks me when people say things like this that they shouldn't even be considered or why they even are. Sure they may be slightly farther from their resorts than us, but the draw of them being a huge city really makes up for it and sometimes more.

Edit: My post wasn't directed just about what you said Bob Rulz, there's some comments on the page before that helped me come out and say this. So if some of what I said isn't what you said its because that part wasn't directed to you.

[Makid]

Hatman,

I think it would be great if SLC could get the 4th South extension and a fully covered central station.

It could be done in multiple phases.

Phase 1 - Glass Roof, similar to those in Europe:


Phase 1 - Elevated walkways over tracks to limit pedestrian - train incidents.

Phase 2 - Enclosed separated ticketing, seating retail and restrooms.

Phase 3 - Completely enclose the tracks. The elevated walkways could be fully connected to create a grand hall. It could have openings to the trains below. The hall could have spaces set aside for retail and dining.

Depending on the final design, I think that this could be done nicely without needing to be overly expensive. If all 3 phases are done at once, it could be cheaper but phases allow for improved timelines if all the funds aren't available upfront. If SLC were to be awarded the Olympics though, I think all phases at once as well as the 4th and 7th South loops and the Downtown streetcar. Total costs for all 3 should be less than $300 Million. If we add the Granary streetcar line it may be $350 Million.

I also think that Murray should look into a station similar to SL Central (with it all being covered) as that is the only other station that has both Trax and FrontRunner in close proximity. I do think it could be even better than SL Central only because of Trax isn't within/directly next to the street as is the case with SL Central.

Overall, I think that without a full rebuild of SL Central, what I have listed above would work. It could be a source of pride for the area and help encourage both ridership and better designs for nearby future construction.

The loops and streetcars will happen. The sooner they are added, the faster they encourage increased density and pedestrian design.

[Hatman]

Originally Posted by Wasatch Wasteland

Just a comment, but what is the likelihood of UTA/UDOT negotiating with Union Pacific to shift their tracks? It would certainly make some things easier and more convenient to have all the plantforms shared and located together, and is also required in many areas along the Wasatch front in order to double track front runner.

As far as I know, Union Pacific will happily shift their tracks if 1) it doesn't affect their operations and 2) somebody else pays for it. UTA and Union Pacific have negotiated freight track realignments in many places along the FrontRunner route - the most obvious being the 'Grant's Tower' area directly north of Salt Lake Central Station (its where the tracks make a big triangle). Check out Google Earth to see how that used to be, then see what they did to make space for FrontRunner.

As for realigning the tracks at Salt Lake Central Station, yes it would be nice to have all the tracks line up in a nice neat row, but it really isn't necessary. I know it looks really silly to have platforms squeezed in wherever they fit, but I did that for a few reasons:

1) All of these platforms serve different systems. The TRAX platforms are short and in the street, the FrontRunner platforms are long and by necessity very close to the other transit in order to make transfers easier. The Amtrak platforms are long and separated because the trains are long and infrequent, and the hypothetical East-West commuter system is on the west side because that's the easiest alignment for that line.

2) All of these platforms are for through-tracks. None of them are like Denver's, where all the tracks are stub-ended. This means there don't need to be as many tracks. Denver has their 6 commuter rail tracks because they need a place for all their trains to sit and switch ends. Salt Lake Central Station is much more fluid than that, with trains able to run straight through the station every few minutes if necessary.

3) If the tracks are going to be connected by elevated walkways, then it doesn't mater if the tracks are lined up or not. Putting things in a line helps if you are planing on putting in an at-grade walkway - like at the end of the stub-tracks in Denver - but if you're already planning on building banks of elevators, escalators, and stairs to get between platforms, then it matters less.

4) I wanted to minimize changes to the property lines. I didn't want to demolish buildings, I didn't want to shift the Union Pacific main line, which is allowed but very expensive and slow. Basically I wanted to make as few changes as I could while still building in the functionality of a large station. Sure, it won't have a signature 'train hall' like other grand stations, but I don't think it needs to. Salt Lake Central already has the layout of a highly functional station, with the Plaza between FrontRunner and TRAX and the space that seems to be reserved for wider platforms. There is abundant space beside the station in the form of infrequently-used yard tracks that can be re-purposed as new platform spaces or layover yards for transit vehicles. I envision building these pieces out slowly, bit by bit, while the station is still functioning, which would be much more difficult if the goal is to realign everything so that it fits into nice neat rows.

What I'm trying to say is that I think this is a very practical plan and my expectations and assumptions are not unreasonable. These are modifications that can be done to make a lousy transit hub a great one, and I hope that in the run up to the Olympics () enough emphasis is made on transit downtown to make some or all of these improvements a reality.

I'll also post the plans again for good measure:

Map with interactive labels and toggling layers:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1W2N7Gdq6DILuuQxNX1jF0XnMezFv_fwa&usp=sharing

[Hatman]

Makid,

Great thoughts, and I like that you have referenced the Berlin 'central station' as a fully enclosed train station. I agree that would be awesome. For those who haven't seen pictures of this station, be prepare to be amazed - it is ridiculously impressive:


https://www.google.com/search?q=berlin+b...D&biw=1855&bih=940#imgrc=-20RMYA8diEdQM:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Hauptbahnhof

Basically, two main lines intersect at the station. There are trains going one direction on an elevated line and trains traveling perpendicular below ground, and passengers enter between these levels (at street level).

Because of this, there is essentially two train halls, one below and one above. The grandness is not in the multiplicity of tracks, but in the shared space of having trains and people so close together:


The glass construction sort of has a Salt Lake City Main Library sort of vibe doesn't it?

My ideal, as I have said before, is an ARTIC (Anaheim, California) style station. This station has very few train tracks (2 for Amtrak/Metrolink, with 2 in the future for High Speed Rail), but it has a grand entryway that serves to lift passengers up from street level onto an elevated walkway that connects to the tracks:





I think if we had very simple, yet grand and elegant head-house which conveyed people up to the walkways, then we wouldn't need to move the tracks from where they are. We'd need to build canopies to cover the platforms, sure, but we wouldn't need to incorporate them into a grand train hall. We will never be impressive for having a multiplicity of tracks, but we can provide a great civic space that builds civic pride that is designed to be fundamentally convenient to use.

[Wasatch Wasteland]

Originally Posted by twig

The drives may be a little longer to the resorts than Utah but I can definitely see where people are coming from when they would rather stay in Denver than Salt Lake while they are here for the Olympics. Denver is massive compared to Salt Lake, offering much more of a nightlife, boasting the second largest cultural arts complex in the nation, having one of the largest beer and tap scenes in the nation, extremely great public transportation around the downtown area, sport venues everywhere... yeah I guess I'm with you, I really don't see the draw.

I love Salt Lake, and I love Denver, but it irks me when people say things like this that they shouldn't even be considered or why they even are. Sure they may be slightly farther from their resorts than us, but the draw of them being a huge city really makes up for it and sometimes more.

Edit: My post wasn't directed just about what you said Bob Rulz, there's some comments on the page before that helped me come out and say this. So if some of what I said isn't what you said its because that part wasn't directed to you.

I don’t think “massive” is quite the right word... salt lake area about 2/3rd the size, not 1/10th. (2.5 million compared to 3.4 million) yeah the downtown is bigger but the population is pretty comparable. And the Denver resorts are nearly 2 hours away... salt lakes are 30 minutes.

Denver does have a better “non Olympic scene” to help entertain when otherwise not at any venues. Transportation (roads and transit) is pretty comparable. Cost wise, salt lake is the much cheaper option, which tends to be the deciding factor these days.

[Hatman]

I know I'm bouncing around between topics like crazy, but here's more on free public transit:
Seoul's Answer to a Pollution Crisis: Free Public Transit
https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018...llution-with-free-public-transit/550829/

This article explains how Seoul has made transit free on their equivalent of 'red air days,' and that the city gets a very modest increase in the amount of people taking transit. So little, in fact, that it is considered ineffective.

This should not be surprising. If transit is only free on red air days, that creates an inconsistent demand for transit. Its like saying "Everyone has to pay to go to the movie theater, except on some random free-movie days." What will happen? The movie theaters will not be more crowded on usual on regular days, but when the movies are free the theaters will be packed beyond capacity; until the theaters get packed, there is no incentive to build more or bigger movie theaters because the free days happen so infrequently.
The same thing happens in transit. If free days are infrequent, 1) there will not be the capacity to handle a sudden surge of new riders, and 2) the transit system will run only routes designed to handle the low volume of regular paying riders. None of these will be especially convenient to new riders, since the transit agency wasn't designing routes around these new riders (only around their existing riders - responding to demand the way any good organization should).

Free transit is an all-or-nothing deal. Either it is free all the time, or it must be paid for every time. Any middle ground just causes confusion and inefficient messes.

Some more good links in the article about Free transit experiments, including some in the USA:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/why-cant-public-transit-be-free/384929/

http://www.fdot.gov/research/Completed_Proj/Summary_PTO/FDOT_BC137_38_FF_rpt.pdf

But in the end, these articles are focused strictly on transportation, and I think that is far too myopic:

Imagine if elevators were costly and inconvenient to use - they charge a dollar per trip, stop at every floor, and only depart every 10 minutes. Who would use the elevator? Nobody, that's who, except people who really liked being in tall dense buildings or people who had no choice (like they had disabilities or worked on the 80th floor). What is worse, nobody would like tall buildings. They would prefer shorter buildings in which they could get to all the floors they wanted via the convenience of stairs. Very few tall buildings would be built, and cities would devolve into sprawl.

The same thing happens with public transportation. People do not want to live in dense cities if it means they have to pay money and/or wait for infrequent transit. They would rather live and work in the sprawl accessible by their convenient cars. Cities will devolve into sprawl unless we can find a way to build a decent horizontal elevator - a free, frequent, and convenient public transit system!

Once transit is free, the demand will be there to expand system capacity and convenience. A system that is more convenient and with better capacity (more routes, later hours, more direct service, etc) will encourage more people to use transit, and so on. It is a virtuous cycle.

Where will the money come from to make transit free? Where does the money come from to make elevators free? The elevators are paid for by the value they create to the building owner. Transit can also be paid for by the value it provides to the city - through taxes.

Taxes already cover basically all the cost of your trip. The fares you pay now are just barely able to pay for the money it takes to collect and enforce your fares. The transit agency will run just fine if it is free so long as it isn't also required to pay for the fare-collection infrastructure - fare machines, the tap on/tap off machines and network costs, the costs of collecting all the spare change from the machines in a secure way, the cost of sorting and accounting for all the cash collected from the machines, etc.

With any reform of the UTA, funding must also be rearranged so that fares become free, and transit expenses are seen as investments in dense, urban cities. Trains elevators. Buses are elevators. We don't want to pay for elevators!

That felt good to get off my chest. I'll get down from my soapbox now.

[Wasatch Wasteland]

PREACH Hatman. PREACH.

[Makid]

More news:

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/9000...ructure-higher-fees-for-hybrid-cars.html

Task force gives go-ahead to new UTA structure, higher fees for hybrid cars

A hefty draft bill that would replace the Utah Transit Authority's volunteer board with three full-time trustees and keep the top boss was passed unanimously Thursday by members of a legislative task force.

The bill, which would make state transportation funds available to UTA for the first time, also imposes sales tax increases in counties that haven't already approved the maximum amount of local taxes for transit.

The sales tax provision would kick in on July 1, 2022, adding whatever hasn't already been passed by then of the full 1.05 percent available as a local option tax in counties with mass transit.

For Salt Lake and Utah counties, where voters rejected a ¼ of a cent increase for transportation known as Proposition 1 in 2015, sales taxes would go up that amount under the draft bill in 2022.

Under the draft bill, the 16-member volunteer UTA board would be eliminated in favor of three full-time trustees nominated by local government and appointed by the governor with the consent of the state Senate.

The CEO and president position, now held by Jerry Benson, would become an executive director post. The draft bill calls for a new, nine member local advisory board to set compensation for the trustees and make recommendations.

While nothing is listed regarding the free fares (yet), it does look like the sales tax increase will be coming. The way I read it though, wouldn't Utah County take the biggest hit in that they are behind other Counties in their sales tax level for transit?

I wonder if there will be any stipulations on the State funding for transit. I know that there is a push to increase transit usage and the best "bang for the buck" method is to have transit be free. It costs less than $30 Million each year and could effectively increase ridership by 75% system wide once everyone is made aware of it.

[bob rulz]

Hatman I've heard you mention it before, but do you have a source for saying that the revenue generated from fares barely makes up for the cost of fare enforcement?

Also Makid, I like your ideas a lot! I hope to see these increased downtown transit options happen sooner rather than later!

Originally Posted by twig

The drives may be a little longer to the resorts than Utah but I can definitely see where people are coming from when they would rather stay in Denver than Salt Lake while they are here for the Olympics. Denver is massive compared to Salt Lake, offering much more of a nightlife, boasting the second largest cultural arts complex in the nation, having one of the largest beer and tap scenes in the nation, extremely great public transportation around the downtown area, sport venues everywhere... yeah I guess I'm with you, I really don't see the draw.

I love Salt Lake, and I love Denver, but it irks me when people say things like this that they shouldn't even be considered or why they even are. Sure they may be slightly farther from their resorts than us, but the draw of them being a huge city really makes up for it and sometimes more.

Edit: My post wasn't directed just about what you said Bob Rulz, there's some comments on the page before that helped me come out and say this. So if some of what I said isn't what you said its because that part wasn't directed to you.

Sorry, I wasn't taking a dig at Denver. Denver is a wonderful city with a vibrant cultural scene. I'm not delusional enough to think that Salt Lake compares in the nightlife/vibrancy department. I wasn't saying that because Denver isn't a great city in its own right, I said it because Denver was awarded the Olympics once before and the voters rejected it. The people of Colorado didn't want it. I can't imagine that would be different now, but maybe I'm wrong.

If Denver did happen to be awarded the Olympics, I would be a bit disappointed, but I would be happy for Denver and Colorado to get that opportunity that they didn't get before. And it's not like I would have to travel too far to attend if I wanted to.

[airhero]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

I wasn't saying that because Denver isn't a great city in its own right, I said it because Denver was awarded the Olympics once before and the voters rejected it. The people of Colorado didn't want it. I can't imagine that would be different now, but maybe I'm wrong.

Perhaps the history hurts their case, but Denver is a very different place now than it was then. The voting bloc now is dominated by generations that weren't voting in 1972 (the youngest voters in Denver in 1972 are now 64 years old). I think there would be broad support for the olympics now.

On the other hand, money is a very big issue and it's hard to see Salt Lake getting passed over with the olympic infrastructure basically already in place. It makes a lot of financial sense to host in Salt Lake over any other city for the winter games. I think it will be very difficult to make a case for another city to host. Salt Lake wants it again, Utah citizens want it again (for the most part), and the IOC views SLC favorably. If USOC does bid for the winter olympics, Salt Lake only loses out through gross incompetency mixed with another US city making their case really well.

[bob rulz]

You may be right, times have changed a lot since 1972. Perhaps Denver just wasn't ready for the international draw it would've brought at the time. Of course Denver is likely just fine with that now.

But the Olympics are getting more and more expensive and more and more controversial every time they come around.

I was probably harsh in saying I don't understand why Denver would even be considered. It deserves to be considered. But as you said, cost is very important nowadays.

[Hatman]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

Hatman I've heard you mention it before, but do you have a source for saying that the revenue generated from fares barely makes up for the cost of fare enforcement?

UTA's budget is pretty easy to find. Here (PDF) is a 2013 audit that puts UTA's total revenue at $312 million. Fares were 15.8 percent of that total. Recent articles have reported that the revenue has dropped to 14% of all revenue.

The fare-collection and enforcement money is much harder to calculate, since it involved a lot of judgement calls, and UTA isn't exactly willing to share this cost with us. Additionally, a lot of this cost comes from infrastructure improvements and maintenance. For example, in the same audit, it said that UTA had spent $19 million that year to improve the Electronic Fare Collection system.
19/312=.06, meaning that in 2013 UTA spent 6% of its budget just to improve one aspect of its fare collection system. In other words, UTA spent more than 1/3 of all money it collected in fares on a system to make improvements on the system it uses to collect fares, and this doesn't even consider what UTA was paying for its Fare Enforcement Officers, or for its Ticket Vending Machines at rail platforms, etc.

And these aren't just one-time things either. Just this year, UTA paid another $3.7 million to improve the card reader system again.

For your information, the UTA police department has an anual budget of $6.4 million. I am in favor of keeping that unchanged, since officers can do much more than just check fares. There are, however, separate UTA personnel whose only job is to collect fares; these cost UTA an average of $18,000 per year per person (they are part-time employees).

Another FYI, Ticket Vending Machines are not cheap. UTA has opted not to place Ticket Vending Machines on its new Provo-Orem BRT line since that project is so over-budget it cannot afford the several million dollars it would cost them. So fares for the first year or so will probably be free for that line, since UTA cannot yet afford the system to collect fares. (In know this as an insider working on the project - consider this a leak!)

Then there is the process of quantifying how much extra work was required of the accounting department to process all the small cash quantities used in fares, the lost time of buses as they sit in the road waiting for people to put money in the machine, the time it takes UTA mechanics to fix those machines, etc. This gets messy and opinionated, so I have no hard published numbers for you, only what I have heard from UTA employees.

I'm told this is about 5-10% of UTA's costs. Combine this with the infrastructure improvements that happen every few years, and you can build an average yearly cost of about 14-15%. I know this would not hold up in a court of law, and that I'm generalizing quite a bit, but I don't think I'm far off.
Eliminating fares would cause UTA's revenue to go down, no doubt, and perhaps it would take gas-tax money to fill in that revenue hole. I'm fine with that. I think any step toward getting transit funding from the things it actually improves (property values, air quality, etc) and away from things it hurts (fares can be considered a regressive tax on the poor) is a step forward.

I hope this answers your question.

[Makid]

Hatman,

With the increase in riders from going to a free transit option, couldn't UTA make up any projected shortfall by getting more money for advertisements within their vehicles?

Ideally, they should be able to increase revenue from advertising based on the increase in riders. So if ridership increases 50%, advertising revenue should also increase 50%.

Lastly, it might be worth more for UTA to install screens in Trax, Streetcar, BRT and FrontRunner vehicles. The screens could act similar to that of the electronic billboards. They could be on the sides where current advertising is or also in the aisles similar to:


They could also replace the electronic ticket machines with digital advertising screens.

These few options could generate enough revenue to cover the loss of fares and maybe increase revenue a bit (once fare collecting services are removed from the budget).

[Hatman]

Great point. With more people using transit advertising revenue should also go up.

Unfortunantely, Advertising accounts for a very small part of UTA's revenue. According to the audit I linked to earlier, advertising amounts to 0.7% of UTA's revenue. Doubling that to 1.4% would be helpful but not enough to offset the loss of fare revenue.

I like the idea of using the electrical connections from the fare machines to power electronic bill boards. That could help make more ad money, and it could also provide much better information to passengers in the event of delays.

I wonder what would happen if UTA went all-in on advertising, like to the level of Hong Kong's double-decker trams. There isn't a 'default' color scheme for those trams, like UTA has its red white and blue 'whoosh'. Instead, every single car in Hong Kong is completely covered in advertisements:


The privately-owned and operated Las Vegas Monorail has done something similar, with each monorail train getting a corporate sponsorship:




I wonder if such a thing is even possible in Utah. It would certainly add a lot of color and variety to Salt Lake's streets. And if it means free fares for all transit, I wouldn't mind losing the 'whoosh'. Except on FrontRunner, which doesn't travel in the streets anyway.

[Hatman]

Come to think of it, using advertising money to pay for your transportation was at one time thought to be Google's reason for jumping into Autonomous Cars at all. Google would not charge you to ride in their cars, but you would have to see/listen to some ads:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/12/self-driving-cars-free-future/548945/

This isn't as dumb as it may seem. With the cost of a driverless taxi getting as low as $0.10-$0.20 per mile, you could theoretically make a lot of money by combining that with advertising. The average cost of an ad on google is $2 per click, meaning that Google could break even on a trip up to 10 miles long so long as you click on just one ad - and most trips would be far shorter than 10 miles.

I wonder how to incorporate that into transit. Makid, your idea of screens where the TVM's are is starting to sound really smart - so long as they are durable touch screens able to allow people to click on adds.

Well-used transit lines can have amazingly low costs per passenger mile, often in the single-digit amount of cents. If enough advertising were done in a way that doesn't discourage more ridership, then transit could totally be paid for by advertising. Theoretically.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by Hatman

UTA's budget is pretty easy to find. Here (PDF) is a 2013 audit that puts UTA's total revenue at $312 million. Fares were 15.8 percent of that total. Recent articles have reported that the revenue has dropped to 14% of all revenue.

The fare-collection and enforcement money is much harder to calculate, since it involved a lot of judgement calls, and UTA isn't exactly willing to share this cost with us. Additionally, a lot of this cost comes from infrastructure improvements and maintenance. For example, in the same audit, it said that UTA had spent $19 million that year to improve the Electronic Fare Collection system.
19/312=.06, meaning that in 2013 UTA spent 6% of its budget just to improve one aspect of its fare collection system. In other words, UTA spent more than 1/3 of all money it collected in fares on a system to make improvements on the system it uses to collect fares, and this doesn't even consider what UTA was paying for its Fare Enforcement Officers, or for its Ticket Vending Machines at rail platforms, etc.

And these aren't just one-time things either. Just this year, UTA paid another $3.7 million to improve the card reader system again.

For your information, the UTA police department has an anual budget of $6.4 million. I am in favor of keeping that unchanged, since officers can do much more than just check fares. There are, however, separate UTA personnel whose only job is to collect fares; these cost UTA an average of $18,000 per year per person (they are part-time employees).

Another FYI, Ticket Vending Machines are not cheap. UTA has opted not to place Ticket Vending Machines on its new Provo-Orem BRT line since that project is so over-budget it cannot afford the several million dollars it would cost them. So fares for the first year or so will probably be free for that line, since UTA cannot yet afford the system to collect fares. (In know this as an insider working on the project - consider this a leak!)

Then there is the process of quantifying how much extra work was required of the accounting department to process all the small cash quantities used in fares, the lost time of buses as they sit in the road waiting for people to put money in the machine, the time it takes UTA mechanics to fix those machines, etc. This gets messy and opinionated, so I have no hard published numbers for you, only what I have heard from UTA employees.

I'm told this is about 5-10% of UTA's costs. Combine this with the infrastructure improvements that happen every few years, and you can build an average yearly cost of about 14-15%. I know this would not hold up in a court of law, and that I'm generalizing quite a bit, but I don't think I'm far off.
Eliminating fares would cause UTA's revenue to go down, no doubt, and perhaps it would take gas-tax money to fill in that revenue hole. I'm fine with that. I think any step toward getting transit funding from the things it actually improves (property values, air quality, etc) and away from things it hurts (fares can be considered a regressive tax on the poor) is a step forward.

I hope this answers your question.

One thing I would like to see is an impact fee schedule based on distance from a fixed transit stop(FR, Trax, BRT) along the Wasatch front.(perhaps waived for affordable housing)

within 1/4 mile 0$
Within 1/2 mile $
within 1 mile $$
within 2 miles $$$
greater than 2 miles $$$$

It provides revenue while also providing an extra incentive to develop near transit.

[Liberty Wellsian]

I'm honestly starting to worry that 2030 may represent the last best chance for either Salt Lake or Denver to host a Winter Olympics. Recently I read an article that said that winter had decreased by a full two months in Northern Utah over the last century. On top of that this winter has been shockingly mild.

As far as Denver is concerned I'm not sure if I was a Denverite if I would be for a massive Highway investment in order to get the Olympics. I'm definitely for the Olympics as a Salt Laker but that's one because the investment is much less and two because it's likely to be investment of a different variety. Another Olympics would be great for Salt Lake but I'm not sure that a first Olympics would be great(in the longrun) for Denver. I think at best it would be a boon to Suburban Colorado but not very good to Denver itself.

[mishko27]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

You may be right, times have changed a lot since 1972. Perhaps Denver just wasn't ready for the international draw it would've brought at the time. Of course Denver is likely just fine with that now.

But the Olympics are getting more and more expensive and more and more controversial every time they come around.

I was probably harsh in saying I don't understand why Denver would even be considered. It deserves to be considered. But as you said, cost is very important nowadays.

Worked at USOC in Colorado Springs few years back. Denver and Colorado candidacy has a lot to do with the fact that USOC is here and they'd like to bring it home, as shallow as that sounds. And Denver is a very different city than it was in 1972, with a significantly better infrastructure than back then.

And we were very red back in the 70s. Denver is bluer than Boulder nowadays. A lot has changed, the population make up is very different and I don't think we'd reject the Olympics now. And imagine the cool high speed rail project that would undoubtedly come with the Olympics as a way to mitigate the fact that the mountains are far.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by mishko27

Worked at USOC in Colorado Springs few years back. Denver and Colorado candidacy has a lot to do with the fact that USOC is here and they'd like to bring it home, as shallow as that sounds. And Denver is a very different city than it was in 1972, with a significantly better infrastructure than back then.

And we were very red back in the 70s. Denver is bluer than Boulder nowadays. A lot has changed, the population make up is very different and I don't think we'd reject the Olympics now. And imagine the cool high speed rail project that would undoubtedly come with the Olympics as a way to mitigate the fact that the mountains are far.

doubtful

When asked if a train to the mountains would be needed to get the games, Hickenlooper said, "I don't think so. I think we need a good bus rapid transit. A bus that would feel like a train. I don't see anyway we would get a train by 2026, 2028. We aren't going to get a train by then."

best bet is an expanded I-70 and a bus system that mostly disappears after the Olympics are over. Denver likely follows the Vancouver model if they get the Olympics.