DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Interesting points about how much density is in Cap Hill and other downtown neighborhoods. Considering how much housing is being built in Golden Triangle, Arapahoe Square, RiNo, and eventually River Mile, I wonder what mobility around the urban neighborhoods will eventually look like. I know that ride-sharing and scooters go a long way but it seems that we are really not prepared for how many more people will live within 2-3 miles of the city center. I would love subways but RTD's bus system could be greatly improved in the meantime with real-time GPS monitors at bus stops like in San Francisco.

[Agent Orange]

Originally Posted by jhwk

I do not agree that the suburban rail is world-class. The northern half works well as an S-Bahn (despite having too much single track and too many grade crossings) but the southern half is pretty poor. The street running dictates a poor level of service for the entire LRT system, but without it the rail wouldn’t effectively serve the CBD. The stub ends at Union Station, the split between the LRT and Commuter Rail, and the miserably slow routing just south of downtown could all be significantly improved. The LRT stations in the Baker/Lincoln Park are on the edge of an industrial area and only serve half-circle areas.

Wish we had done EMU for the southern lines to begin with. We'd have a faster and more spaced out system, which would be more appropriate for the commuter purpose Fastracks was intended for. And we could have single seat rides instead of the laughable multi-block transfer made all the worse by our long headways. We could overlay that with a tram-train system (like many German cities' Stadtbahns) which could serve the city of Denver and go underground where needed. Tunnel between CC and US is necessary, at the very least.

I think the NW to SE line is the most important and the corridor I've long championed. One reality that I don't see Denver ever accepting is that adding real transit with underground sections to core city neighborhoods is really only justifiable with big upzoning. I don't see that going over well with this constituency, not to mention the present Council.

We should have built the proposed, perpendicular subway lines through downtown that were floated in the 1970s. Big missed opportunity.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

One major obstacle to an underground tunnel connecting Union Station to Civic Center Station is that Denver gets a substantial amount of its sales tax revenue from the 16th Street Mall. I feel like I've heard the mayor or someone else say that an underground system would risk taking a lot people off 16th street mall and would have a negative economic impact. My preference would be to have a subway connecting US and CC with a stop at 16th and California for LRT transfers. Then, get rid of the mall ride and make 16th 100% pedestrian.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mhays

Seattle built a five-station bus tunnel through Downtown in 1990. That was converted to dual bus/rail use in 2009, and became rail-only in 2019, with four stations retained.

Thanks for the clarification in general and especially with this part; I (obviously) wasn't familiar with this one.

Originally Posted by jhwk

TL;DR: for various reasons, tunneling costs in the US are significantly higher than elsewhere in the world. If we could get costs under control, even in line with the highest-cost European countries, tunnel projects would be far more viable.

I lol when I read this stuff.

The biggest factor is that every special interest has insisted that analysis be done to address their concerns for this, that and everything under the sun. This can cause projects to be delayed a decade (not unusual). If costs go up 3.5% to 4% per year that's an additional 40% in costs. In addition, the raw costs for all the (un)necessary work and analysis adds another ~25%.

The comparable projects in that article started construction in the 1980's; you can't compare costs for such disparate time periods. Just follow the inflation for light rail. In 2001 the light rail portion of T-REX was $42 million per mile. FasTracks costs were $70 million per mile. Today costs are now 3X what FasTracks cost. It called the time value of money.

Originally Posted by gopokes21

and one of the nation's ONLY worsening smog crises. You can't even see the mountains 12 miles away on any given work day.

Denver is built in a Valley; many cities are; that's why I-25 was originally called the Valley Highway. Particulates gravitate to the valley from surrounding areas (kinda like how gravity works). Denver is hardly alone or even the worst case.

Originally Posted by gopokes21

(unless you count the forever-forthcoming Colfax BRT, which will be a useless and expensive boondoggle).

For decades East Colfax has been Denver's busiest bus corridor (not counting the 16th street mall) by a country mile. Haven't read all but I've read a lot of the analysis that has gone into planning the East Colfax BRT. It will move significantly more people through the corridor and makes eminent sense.

[TakeFive]

Now Renting



Images courtesy of Bespoke Uptown.com

Southern Land Company’s Bespoke Uptown Community Welcoming Residents
January 13, 2021 - Mile High CRE

Bespoke Uptown community at 17th and Pearl Streets in Denver, is now open to residents. Blending modern conveniences with historic neighborhood preservation, the development features 316 upscale apartments spread over 10 floors with over 12,000 square feet of ground-level commercial space.

Southern Land Company worked with Historic Denver to preserve two historic early-20th-century commercial structures that anchor the development on 17th Avenue and will continue to serve as retail space. Maintaining these structures lends pedestrian scale to the project on 17th Avenue. The project also replaces a surface parking lot, better activating the space.

This has been one of my favorite projects ever since Southern Land agreed to preserve the historical buildings along 17th Ave.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

Great post, but I really think a subway line should compliment our existing network rather than duplicating it. Baker, Lincoln Park, and Auraria are already well-served by RTD rail. That's why I would shift a little to the east and directly serve Glendale, Cherry Creek, Cheesman, and Cap Hill en route between Colorado/25 and Civic Center.

Thanks for starting the discussion - I, for one, completely agree with many of your main points here. Central Denver IS a lot denser than people give it credit for and it seems that financing realities (as opposed to ridership viability) is really what is holding this kind of local discussion back.

I must say though that anybody who claims that Baker is well-served by light rail must never have had to walk from anywhere in its core residential area to a light rail station. The gap between 10th/Osage and Alameda is about 1.75 miles, so it puts most of Baker well beyond a half-mile walk of a station. While we're all stating our transit wish list - what would be really useful on this line would be to add a new station somewhere near where it crosses Santa Fe, and then get rid of the ridiculous "Sports Authority Field [not actually] at Mile High" station that became redundant when the W-line station at Decatur/Federal was built. All this station in the back of the Pepsi Center parking lot seems to do is add unnecessary dwell-time for Union Station-bound trains.

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

One major obstacle to an underground tunnel connecting Union Station to Civic Center Station is that Denver gets a substantial amount of its sales tax revenue from the 16th Street Mall. I feel like I've heard the mayor or someone else say that an underground system would risk taking a lot people off 16th street mall and would have a negative economic impact. My preference would be to have a subway connecting US and CC with a stop at 16th and California for LRT transfers. Then, get rid of the mall ride and make 16th 100% pedestrian.

This gets thrown around a lot, but I'd like to see a real analysis about this sometime. As somebody who is on the mall somewhat regularly, the retail there doesn't really strike me as being mall-shuttle supported anymore. I feel like 16th street is really emblematic of how Downtown has changed over the past decade. What I see instead are people who live and work downtown patronizing the restaurants and other businesses on their lunch hour because that is where the main critical mass of retail exists. Some of the nicer restaurants may attract weekend/evening visitors - but even that is changing with the closure of longtime restaurants like Rialto, Paramount, or Marlowes, and the opening of many new ones closer to Union Station.

I don't deny that the Mall Shuttle played a major role in launching the 16th Street Mall in the 80s, but I have never really observed it playing this role anymore. Shuttles today are usually jam-packed not with tourists, but with locals using it to escape the cold or avoid walking all the way across town. The changes to retail at the Tabor Center seem particularly reflective of this - gone is the indoor mall, replaced with fast-casual lunch offerings and upstairs office uses and an athletic club. Granted I have never read an actual professional analysis of where every mall patron comes from - this is just based on my own personal observations. But I think the idea that retail on 16th Street would collapse without the Mall Shuttle is a very stuck-in-1994 kind of attitude that ignores how much more vibrant and urban all of downtown has become since the mall first opened.

I completely agree with you that something like a subway that could quickly whisk people from DUS to Civic Center, with a stop in the middle, would be a complete game-changer for Denver. Even a light-rail with dedicated guideway and minimal stops could help with this (put it on 15th, 16th, 17th, or 18th - I don't think that detail matters much). The current plans for 16th can still move forward because the new shuttle-lanes could just be reserved for emergency vehicles and bicycles (who regularly use them anyway) in the future.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

If I'm not mistaken, the 16th Street Mall redesign will eliminate the curbs separating the bus lane from the sidewalk, which would allow the entire strip or blocks of it to be readily convertible to pedestrian-only.

One of the main issues that I see, and I could well be wrong, is that our relatively large rail system is 1). primarily design for suburban commuters and 2). anchored at Union Station (which is often 1-2 miles away from the CBD where most suburban commuters work. The mall ride and the metro ride can help but they add enough time to the process where it really doesn't make sense for many people that don't simply prefer commuting via rail. If commuting downtown via car was less attractive (congestion pricing, bus only lanes, less parking) and there was a high frequency and quick connection between US, 16th and California, and CC, that might be a game-changer.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

If I'm not mistaken, the 16th Street Mall redesign will eliminate the curbs separating the bus lane from the sidewalk, which would allow the entire strip or blocks of it to be readily convertible to pedestrian-only.

One of the main issues that I see, and I could well be wrong, is that our relatively large rail system is 1). primarily design for suburban commuters and 2). anchored at Union Station (which is often 1-2 miles away from the CBD where most suburban commuters work. The mall ride and the metro ride can help but they add enough time to the process where it really doesn't make sense for many people that don't simply prefer commuting via rail. If commuting downtown via car was less attractive (congestion pricing, bus only lanes, less parking) and there was a high frequency and quick connection between US, 16th and California, and CC, that might be a game-changer.

Well look at that - I didn't realize the new mall configuration was going curb-free, but you're right! That's great.

And yes, I pretty much agree with the rest of what you are saying. All travel mode comparisons seem to end up being about time competitiveness. It is not crazy to design a transit system around a hub - plenty of systems do this. But the transfers provided need to be fast, frequent, and useful. A cross-town service should get riders from Union Station to Broadway in closer to 3-5 minutes and run all times of day. If it takes 10-mins or more to traverse this distance then forget it - it would be more logical to simply take your car to your final destination at that point and skip the transfer through Union Station. Splitting this same basic route (DUS to CC) into at least 3 different services doesn't help either.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mr1138

As somebody who is on the mall somewhat regularly, the retail there doesn't really strike me as being mall-shuttle supported anymore. I feel like 16th street is really emblematic of how Downtown has changed over the past decade. What I see instead are people who live and work downtown patronizing the restaurants and other businesses on their lunch hour because that is where the main critical mass of retail exists. Some of the nicer restaurants may attract weekend/evening visitors - but even that is changing with the closure of longtime restaurants like Rialto, Paramount, or Marlowes, and the opening of many new ones closer to Union Station.

I don't deny that the Mall Shuttle played a major role in launching the 16th Street Mall in the 80s, but I have never really observed it playing this role anymore. Shuttles today are usually jam-packed not with tourists, but with locals using it to escape the cold or avoid walking all the way across town.

Interesting comments re: 16th Street Mall. I always enjoy anecdotal feedback and observations. Couple of points.

• During normal times, the 16th Street Mall remains the Number One destination for tourists, largely driven by the immense convention and meeting business. I feel terrible for that stretch during these COVID times.
• The growing role for internet shopping only compounds the difficulty. Still, as the biggest shopping and people corridor I assume the 16th Street Mall will ultimately gain market share and thrive.

While not as interesting nor as much fun...

• For those interested in the 'current state' of RTD, there's a dandy easy-to-scroll through power-point pdf which reviews last year along with proposed changes.
  
• There's also a listing of the actual route changes made - scroll waay down to see the light rail changes.

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

One of the main issues that I see, and I could well be wrong, is that our relatively large rail system is 1). primarily design for suburban commuters and 2). anchored at Union Station (which is often 1-2 miles away from the CBD where most suburban commuters work. The mall ride and the metro ride can help but they add enough time to the process where it really doesn't make sense for many people that don't simply prefer commuting via rail.

The importance of DUS has really been as a hub for the A Line - train to the planes. Afaik, the B Line carries few riders and the W Line isn't a lot better. But with the additions of the G Line and the N Line, presumably DUS will grow in importance and ridership over time.

During COVID times

• The SW Corridor light rail has 'reverted' to the D Line only serving the heart of downtown - by popular demand.
• The SE Corridor now ONLY goes to DUS via the E Line.
• However, the popular H line which originates in Aurora still goes via the SE Corridor into the heart of downtown.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Interesting comments, TakeFive. I didn't know about those service reductions. Imagine how much better the system would work if the south corridors went underground at I-25 and Broadway and went straight North with stops at Broadway and Alameda, Broadway & 6th, Denver Art Museum/Denver Public Library, Civic Center Station, 16th and Stout/Convention Center, 16th and Market, and then Denver Union Station. Fun to retrospectively envision those possibilities but we have to work around the system that we have.

To RTD's credit, the current rail system does serve Empower Field, Pepsi Center, and the Aurarian Campus pretty well.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

Interesting comments, TakeFive. I didn't know about those service reductions. Imagine how much better the system would work if the south corridors went underground at I-25 and Broadway and went straight North with stops at Broadway and Alameda, Broadway & 6th, Denver Art Museum/Denver Public Library, Civic Center Station, 16th and Stout/Convention Center, 16th and Market, and then Denver Union Station. Fun to retrospectively envision those possibilities but we have to work around the system that we have.

To RTD's credit, the current rail system does serve Empower Field, Pepsi Center, and the Aurarian Campus pretty well.

If you want a fun fact RTD did look at tying into the CBD with LRT down Broadway in the early 2000's. You would have rail from I-25 & Broadway going past the Capitol, Civic Center Station, and tying into the existing downtown loop. There were concerns about wires disrupting the view of the Capitol from Civic Center Park, along with other issues, and RTD ultimately went with additional trackage in the CPV.

There's a few things that RTD could do to improve train frequency downtown for relatively cheap; but, given the total resource allocation to FasTracks asides from O&M, nothing is likely to happen.

[bulldurhamer]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

If I'm not mistaken, the 16th Street Mall redesign will eliminate the curbs separating the bus lane from the sidewalk, which would allow the entire strip or blocks of it to be readily convertible to pedestrian-only.

One of the main issues that I see, and I could well be wrong, is that our relatively large rail system is 1). primarily design for suburban commuters and 2). anchored at Union Station (which is often 1-2 miles away from the CBD where most suburban commuters work. The mall ride and the metro ride can help but they add enough time to the process where it really doesn't make sense for many people that don't simply prefer commuting via rail. If commuting downtown via car was less attractive (congestion pricing, bus only lanes, less parking) and there was a high frequency and quick connection between US, 16th and California, and CC, that might be a game-changer.

as long as we allow uber and lyft to operate at these obscenely low costs, you can forget about all of it.

when going to the airport, i can walk a mile to the station and take close to $20 ride to the airport or take an uber and get door to door service for $30. if i'm traveling with somebody, it becomes significantly cheaper to uber.

the same choices are being made coming into and moving around the city. if it costs $7 to get across town and you can do it quickly, the notion of hiking to a station, waiting, then waiting some more with a bunch of people only to get not exactly where you're going for a couple bucks less is an unlikely proposition.

thus my original take on this. if we aren't going to stop uber, we may as well embrace the future of solar powered cars conveniently and safely taking us from one place to the next.

remember when streetcars were everywhere? well, neither do i, but they were here. then somebody realized busses could go to more places than just where the rails go. that's coming with trains as well. as automated clean cars come, they'll be efficient and safe and we'll laugh about crowding on trains. that and germs. there's some thought that we'll be stuck wearing face masks forever. riding on crowded germ filled trains vs taking a solo car ride is another no brainer.

[bulldurhamer]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190519191641.htm
"Driverless cars working together can speed up traffic by 35 percent"

i've seen one of the concerns with diverless cars is that when people will go in places, they'll send their cars driving in circles rather than paying to park, thus crowding the streets..

this is easily solved with a little regulation and some big parking decks scattered about.

the end result is a clean car that gets you safely and efficiently where you want to go. you'll still be able to walk and scooter and bicycle until all you want, but traffic will move more smoothly.

it's coming.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

If you want a fun fact RTD did look at tying into the CBD with LRT down Broadway in the early 2000's. You would have rail from I-25 & Broadway going past the Capitol, Civic Center Station, and tying into the existing downtown loop. There were concerns about wires disrupting the view of the Capitol from Civic Center Park, along with other issues, and RTD ultimately went with additional trackage in the CPV.

There's a few things that RTD could do to improve train frequency downtown for relatively cheap; but, given the total resource allocation to FasTracks asides from O&M, nothing is likely to happen.

This is definitely fun to imagine - though it makes me question if at this point service along Speer connecting to Cherry Creek (or somehow through Cap Hill) wouldn't be more useful given the redundancy of the C,D,E,F,H lines all connecting to I25/Broadway anyway.

Speaking of train frequency improvements and resource allocation - something that recently caught my eye is in the CDOT Central I-25 PEL where they mention "a long-term capacity need of RTD is the addition of two additional light rail tracks between I-25 and
Broadway and the Colfax Junction" and depict this as a potential component of various I-25 alternatives (perhaps funded independently of FasTracks???).

Is anybody here savvy enough with light rail operations to understand the full implications of this? Is this to allow for the possibility of express routes that skip certain stops? Somebody recently suggested to me that it may be to allow W-line trains to enter the Stout/California loop, but I'm not entirely clear how new tracks along the Central corridor would help in this regard. Much of what I know about light rail trains I learned from this forum so I figured I'd put this question out there while on the topic!

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Those are all fair points although your numbers are a little off. Ride-sharing is popular for legitimate reasons and I don't expect those reasons to disappear. However, my interest is in having a city, like San Francisco or New York, where you have options. Rail is not the sole solution but a tool upon which to direct future development of the city alongside other multimodal options, such as ride-sharing, bikes, scooters, buses, regular cars, etc... I would just like to avoid the car-dependent fate of Los Angeles and Houston. I think that is desirable for a litany of important reasons.

[bulldurhamer]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...vehicles-alone-won-t-stop-climate-change


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/23/electric-cars-transport-train-companies


https://futurism.com/the-byte/researcher-electric-cars-arent-answer-climate-change


https://phys.org/news/2020-09-electric-vehicles-wont-climate.html

Finally, this:

these opinion pieces seem disingenuous and miss the point.

1. the first article doesn't understand that future EV will be solar powered. So we can ignore that one.

2.The second article suggests we're in bad health because of cars and cars are scary? This is just stupid. Denver is the healthiest city in the country just about and there are plenty of cars about. Cars are scary, but we also know autonomous vehicles are going to be much safer for everybody. It's also absurd to think we'll all just be fine bicycling everywhere or happy to walk miles to get our groceries and somehow haul them back home.

3. Same thing as before. The goal isn't to plug your car into the wall. Eliminating the need to travel is a strange concept at well. Everybody stay home!

4. Streets are for transportation. I don't even know what the point is of that montage, honestly. You cannot take a train door to door. Most cannot take a bike anywhere. Cars moving freely without the constraints of human drivers will do just that. They'll get you directly from point A to point B efficiently and safely. Contrast that with the death traps that are bicycles. It's also pretty thin reasoning to say that roads take from potential green spaces without mentioning that everything else in a city that's not a green space does the same thing. And with autonomous vehicles, you could easily convert some or many streets to ped/bike only without losing anything, especially since one won't need to worry about parking a car right next to their destination. drop off locations and such could easily be designed to integrate with a multi modeled approach.

[bulldurhamer]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

Those are all fair points although your numbers are a little off. Ride-sharing is popular for legitimate reasons and I don't expect those reasons to disappear. However, my interest is in having a city, like San Francisco or New York, where you have options. Rail is not the sole solution but a tool upon which to direct future development of the city alongside other multimodal options, such as ride-sharing, bikes, scooters, buses, regular cars, etc... I would just like to avoid the car-dependent fate of Los Angeles and Houston. I think that is desirable for a litany of important reasons.

if we want to make trains viable in the near/medium term going forward, we have to force uber to compete fairly. i just don't see the political will to do so from our city, even though we'd all benefit. this really goes to the unequal economy we face and the desperation that drives people to drive for uber in the first place.

i've been very outspoken about uber for a long time and right before covid i put my money where my mouth was and signed up to be a driver to see firsthand what was going on. everything i'd read about it was true. you don't make any money at all when considering expenses and depreciation, and the riders are absolutely getting from point a to point b at artificially low rates, in large part supplemented by the unsuspecting driver.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Pro-employer biases in our labor laws (employee vs independent contractor) seems to subsize the cost of ride-sharing. Many of us here would also argue that there are many other built-in subsidies that make driving a car much less expensive than it should be if all the externalities are accounted for.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

If you want a fun fact RTD did look at tying into the CBD with LRT down Broadway in the early 2000's. You would have rail from I-25 & Broadway going past the Capitol, Civic Center Station, and tying into the existing downtown loop. There were concerns about wires disrupting the view of the Capitol from Civic Center Park, along with other issues, and RTD ultimately went with additional trackage in the CPV.

I'll be darned; I did not I know that.

Of course, it's all about those views.

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

Interesting comments, TakeFive. I didn't know about those service reductions. Imagine how much better the system would work if the south corridors went underground at I-25 and Broadway and went straight North with stops at Broadway and Alameda, Broadway & 6th, Denver Art Museum/Denver Public Library, Civic Center Station, 16th and Stout/Convention Center, 16th and Market, and then Denver Union Station. Fun to retrospectively envision those possibilities but we have to work around the system that we have.

It's easy to forget as wong points out with respect to the T-REX SE Corridor project how much has changed since then.

It was also the early 2000's when the FasTracks plan was created for a 2004 vote approval. At that time, there's wasn't that much density downtown; but it was the hub for (most) all the government employment as well as typical banking and other professional services.

Now, fast forward to include all the changes in density (patterns) including the growing density along So Broadway. Really, light rail would still be your best choice. The growing density along So Broadway, mostly north of Speer would make the route part commuter, part local service. Putting the train underground wouldn't speed up trips unless you're spacing out your stations which would be counterproductive in serving local neighborhood traffic including businesses.

Not to be a Spoilsport by why not?

The biggest obstacle would be funding. The 7-county RTD district wouldn't be interested in funding Denver city center subways. That means it would be up to the City of Denver taxpayer-voters; I don't see Denver city-wide voters wanting to cover the significant costs for a 'neighborhood' subway either.

No harm in speculating about what could have been, of course.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mr1138

This is definitely fun to imagine - though it makes me question if at this point service along Speer connecting to Cherry Creek (or somehow through Cap Hill) wouldn't be more useful given the redundancy of the C,D,E,F,H lines all connecting to I25/Broadway anyway.

As I pointed out above, currently, there is no C Line nor any F Line service. The E and H Lines ofc diverge at I-225.

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

i've been very outspoken about uber for a long time and right before covid i put my money where my mouth was and signed up to be a driver to see firsthand what was going on. everything i'd read about it was true. you don't make any money at all when considering expenses and depreciation, and the riders are absolutely getting from point a to point b at artificially low rates, in large part supplemented by the unsuspecting driver.

Won't say it's easy but down here many are still making $1,000 to $1,500 per week or maybe I should say in a good week. The key is that as much as 40% of your income should come from the various bonus options, add in tips and you may need to drive as much as 50 hours a week.

You do make some great comments above and I'd agree with much of what you've pointed out.

With Rideshare the convenience is huge and as you point out can often be just as economical.

bunt also alludes to a couple of things beyond convenience and that is safety and privacy along with the ability to zone out on your cell phone or review work.

At one end of the spectrum, strippers may expose everything but when it's time to go home they want the privacy, safety and ability to zone out that rideshare gives them. Same goes for many food service workers. They may even take a bus to work but AFTER work they want a rideshare trip home for any combination of the above reasons and the gals are very concerned about their safety.

BTW, one of my (blog) friends has shifted to Uber Eats delivery from rideshare. He works the area where he lives: businesses and mostly single family neighborhoods. He's making the same money with much less wear and tear on his vehicle. Uber is just trying to survive these COVID times like everybody else.

Soon as I get my vaccine shots, I can't wait to get back out there. I won't make as much money as others since I'm not interested in driving full-time hours.