DENVER | Transportation Thread

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by CharlesCO

I think the Colfax station is fine. The bigger travesty is putting the Fitzsimons station next to, well, absolutely nothing, instead of putting it through, you know, Fitzsimons...

I know and you're correct.

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Now lemme be positive for a minute: I'm very impressed by SLC's system overall. No other comparably-sized US city has anywhere near as robust a rail system. And unlike Denver's R-Line (which was doomed from the start because it's a bad route--notice nobody is defending it),

Originally Posted by Cirrus

It's also a very good TOD location. The R-line has serious other problems and really shouldn't have been built from a pure transit perspective, but I'm OK with this station.

The R-line has serious other problems and really shouldn't have been built the way that it was.

FTFY

I have no interest in re-litigating FasTracks so put away the textbook. I am always up for defending Aurora and the R Line's inclusion and *intent*.

wong... Any "inferiority complex" whether real or imagined is irrelevant. It's about the metro area's 2nd largest city being as deserving of light rail as any other FasTracks route aside from the "Train to the Plane."

While it already existed as a result of T-REX, since Nine Mile Station is the busiest station outside of I-25/Broadway and Central Denver, should establish Aurora's bona fides. But mistakes were made.

To visualize the potential for the R Line to be a shortcut to the A Line to the airport from Lone Tree or South Metro made all the sense. To expect those riders to endure the torturous path and slowness of going to the Aurora City Center made NO SENSE.

The A Line should have stayed along I-225 with one stop at the SEC of Alameda from Florida to the Colfax Station. I agree with COtoOC that at most the other stations should have been placeholders in the interim.

Any light rail to the Aurora City Center should have been a separate line/segment. The land along I-225 to Sable Blvd north of Alameda that is largely vacant or lightly developed provides a heck of an opportunity in the future but who knows when that may happen.

[CharlesCO]

The other (and bigger) issue is Aurora's continued poor planning (if you can even call it planning). Trying to build a greenfield "Downtown Aurora" around the mall is a mistake when the more natural place for a dense core is the area around Colfax and Dayton. That's the true downtown Aurora in my opinion, not any sort of long term infill plan for anything east of 225.

Fake city center for an already decentralized suburb + rail line built for political reasons only = waste of infrastructure all things considered.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by CharlesCO

The other (and bigger) issue is Aurora's continued poor planning (if you can even call it planning). Trying to build a greenfield "Downtown Aurora" around the mall is a mistake when the more natural place for a dense core is the area around Colfax and Dayton. That's the true downtown Aurora in my opinion, not any sort of long term infill plan for anything east of 225.

Fake city center for an already decentralized suburb + rail line built for political reasons only = waste of infrastructure all things considered.

Oh man, not even close.

Metro Denver has a population of 2.8+ million; the city of Denver has a population of 668 thousand. None of Denver's suburbs grew up around much density; Aurora may be one of the denser cities. Most of the suburbs lack any downtown of significance. Littleton has one but it doesn't amount to much. Acclaimed Highlands Ranch has no downtown. Lakewood, Arvada, Englewood, Centennial, Thornton, Westminster etc have no downtowns to speak of.

When you think of suburbs it's primarily about their schools and neighborhoods. The best part of Aurora, their heartbeat, is from Iliff Ave south to Arapahoe Rd. One of the best metro football stadiums is located east of 470 and south of the Aurora Reservoir at 25901 East Arapahoe Road. It's the bookend to the Stutler Bowl at Cherry Creek HS. The more mature and well regarded HS is Granview HS at 20500 E Arapahoe Rd.

RTD is a metro-wide agency and FasTracks was designed (mostly) to feed transit from the suburbs into downtown Denver with a hub and spoke configuration. However following the path of I-225 makes tremendous sense as it goes from the SE Corridor (Tech Center) through the 2nd largest city to CU Anschutz Medical Center and to the I-70 corridor A Line. The R Line makes no less sense than any of the other FasTracks lines aside from the A Line to DIA. However the R Line was designed and executed poorly. It is fixable.

[jubguy3]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

If you promise not to get defensive and turn this into versus debate about any other city:

The S-line is not a good line, and its main problems will not be solved by future phases extending it deeper into Sugar House.

• The single track means it can never have headways frequent enough to justify the cost of rail, or be sufficiently practical for its intended function--local circulator type trips. 20 minutes is just not often enough to be worth it, for that sort of line.
• Combined with the 20 minute headways, the forced transfer to the rest of the system (despite being exactly the same vehicle) guarantees it will never be more than a low-ridership local shuttle.
• Despite having completely dedicated right-of-way (yay!), it still somehow manages to be as slow as mixed-traffic streetcars, defeating any benefit from running off-street rather than on 2100 S (where it also would've been slow but at least would've gotten more riders)

It was a good idea that was poorly executed, which is why its only getting 1/3 (maybe 1/2 now) of its projected riders, and ranks in the bottom quartile of US LRT/streetcar on a ridership-per-mile basis (ie even normalizing for how short it is, it's bad).

Now lemme be positive for a minute: I'm very impressed by SLC's system overall. No other comparably-sized US city has anywhere near as robust a rail system. And unlike Denver's R-Line (which was doomed from the start because it's a bad route--notice nobody is defending it), SLC's S-Line *could* have been good, had UTA designed it better. I'm not trying to hate on SLC here at all.

But UTA makes mistakes and builds dysfunctional lines, just like everybody else. And just like everybody else, I'm sure there are good political reasons for it.

I completely forgot about the S Line because it SUCKS so much. The problem with the S Line is that it runs through the middle of NOWHERE and we don't have the funding to actually turn it into a streetcar that goes down an actual street with actual density. I think there are like 1800 daily riders right now. The other problem is that even if it gets extended to 17th south you would have to go south half a mile, west a mile, north two miles, and east one and a half miles (5 miles) to make a half mile trip to the university on the S Line. I think it was poorly envisioned from the start, and the resources could have been better used on foothill TRAX or BRT. The bus next to the S Line is both faster and continues on from the central point station (at higher frequency) towards the University. It's just a poorly envisioned project.

Why is the R Line so slow? I don't get it, it seems like such an indirect, expensive route. You guys maybe just really like building fancy bridges lol

[DUPio]

Shout out to the R-line for making an already long commute longer by not timing the trains with the lights at 17th and Fitzsimmons parkway. Might be fine if it meant I could now take a reasonable alternative to work but the R-line is so damned unreasonable its not worth the effort.

[CharlesCO]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Oh man, not even close.

Metro Denver has a population of 2.8+ million; the city of Denver has a population of 668 thousand. None of Denver's suburbs grew up around much density; Aurora may be one of the denser cities. Most of the suburbs lack any downtown of significance. Littleton has one but it doesn't amount to much. Acclaimed Highlands Ranch has no downtown. Lakewood, Arvada, Englewood, Centennial, Thornton, Westminster etc have no downtowns to speak of.

When you think of suburbs it's primarily about their schools and neighborhoods. The best part of Aurora, their heartbeat, is from Iliff Ave south to Arapahoe Rd. One of the best metro football stadiums is located east of 470 and south of the Aurora Reservoir at 25901 East Arapahoe Road. It's the bookend to the Stutler Bowl at Cherry Creek HS. The more mature and well regarded HS is Granview HS at 20500 E Arapahoe Rd.

I don't really want to get into a suburb vs suburb debate. The Denver Metro area is still pretty much centralized around Denver, thankfully, and most of the suburb boundaries are pretty arbitrary, especially Aurora's. (And just look at Centennial's boundaries — you can't tell me that's a real town.) My point remains that Aurora is, like most suburbs, nothing to really celebrate from an urbanist's perspective. The idea of "let's keep building all the way out into the prairie" is an idea that's best left in the 1970s, which, coincidentally, is when Aurora grew the most.

I think it's probably best to keep building more density where there already is density, which is why I think building more around Colfax and Dayton would make more sense than trying to make something happen out by the mall. I would never suggest that the R line would then need to also serve my idea of a downtown Aurora there. If anything, all it would do is further a case for rail down Colfax to serve an even denser corridor (again, where density already feels more natural) out to Fitzsimons and ultimately connect to a more suburban-oriented R line right by Fitzsimons. Which brings me to...

RTD is a metro-wide agency and FasTracks was designed (mostly) to feed transit from the suburbs into downtown Denver with a hub and spoke configuration. However following the path of I-225 makes tremendous sense as it goes from the SE Corridor (Tech Center) through the 2nd largest city to CU Anschutz Medical Center and to the I-70 corridor A Line. The R Line makes no less sense than any of the other FasTracks lines aside from the A Line to DIA. However the R Line was designed and executed poorly. It is fixable.

I wouldn't say building a rail line along the 225 corridor doesn't make sense on principle. It absolutely does. I think building mass transit along existing commute corridors is smart, especially given the political and financial constraints of building TOD or park-n-ride oriented suburban rail lines. The issue is that the largest municipality through which it travels is attempting to build a (in my opinion) misguided town center in a very unnatural location for one, and because of this, we get a very unnatural and pointless detour off right in the middle of what otherwise could have been an effective rail line.

[TakeFive]

CharlesCO... Good comment, well stated.

I still have high hopes for Old Aurora. With nearby neighbors like Lowry, Anschutz, Stapleton and a slowly improving East Colfax corridor, there's plenty of reason to think that some day Old Aurora will be nice again.

The difference between North Aurora and South Aurora due to different school district is like night and day. I'm not sure what it will take for North Aurora to become attractive.

North Aurora does have one good ace in the hole though. It could become a dense area for new, more affordable housing. Nothing wrong with that; in fact Deneer is dying for more affordable market rate housing. Then when you consider it's easy access to downtown, the I-70 industrial corridor, the east 6th Ave/Buckley Rd business corridor including defense contractors as well as DIA... it may just be enough to catalyze the area into a more urban-style density. That's the fantasy.

[CharlesCO]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

North Aurora does have one good ace in the hole though. It could become a dense area for new, more affordable housing. Nothing wrong with that; in fact Deneer is dying for more affordable market rate housing. Then when you consider it's easy access to downtown, the I-70 industrial corridor, the east 6th Ave/Buckley Rd business corridor including defense contractors as well as DIA... it may just be enough to catalyze the area into a more urban-style density. That's the fantasy.

Totally. I can see the energy from Stapleton heading eastward. In what is technically Aurora, I was pretty impressed at what they've done at the Stanley Marketplace. It's a former hangar from the old airport that has been turned into a mix of hipsterized retail, restaurants, and, of course, breweries that are very much in the same style as the Source et al. That's the kind of infill Aurora needs more of — not any sort of "feels like Anytown USA" infill that will go in around the mall. (Not that there's anything wrong with that itself — it's just that it's going to take a while before any of that land around the R line gets developed into anything the city is currently dreaming of.)

[Cirrus]

TakeFive, "the R line was a bad idea" and "Aurora should not have rail" are not remotely the same statement. You're arguing against the latter, but I said the former.

The problem with the R line is not that it goes to Aurora. It's that it's circumferential, with no strong transit attractors anywhere along the route. Colfax aside, Aurora probably should've been served via a spur from the A line, which could have ended somewhere near Alameda at a joint transfer station with light rail coming up from the south.

[TakeFive]

Get 'em While They're Hot

Every January Yonah Freemark/Transport Politic posts an updated list of rail project openings and starts in North America. According to his good efforts there are 80 major lines under construction estimated to cost $78 Billion. It will total 797 new miles of which 110 miles will be heavy rail, 182 light rail miles, 20 miles of streetcar, 250 miles of BRT and 235 miles of commuter rail. Note: North America means Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Denver upheld its end with the inclusion of the G and R lines. There are 9 U.S. cities with scheduled openings of BRT routes.

When you get to the list of construction starts things get a little murky. Of the few that I'm aware like the Maryland/DC Purple Line which is currently in perpetual holding waiting on da judge. Minneapolis SW Green Line has issues both political and funding. Not all of the listed BRT projects are solid either.

[Cirrus]

We also maintain a similar list (only for construction, and minus BRT) right here on SkyscraperPage. In fact, we updated it today because just yesterday Detroit opened a streetcar line.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

We also maintain a similar list (only for construction, and minus BRT) right here on SkyscraperPage. In fact, we updated it today because just yesterday Detroit opened a streetcar line.

Cool beans; I actually like the list clarity and upkeep.

[TakeFive]

I'm Ready for a Rant
Waiting for the Rockies to find where they left their bats this weekend will do that to a guy

For pointing the way I've picked two cities as "model" or focus cities with respect to looking at Denver: Seattle and Phoenix.

Is there a valid purpose and function for Denveright?
Ofc there is. Consider Seattle's Prop 1 which was approved by voters in 2015. That was after opponents assumed that Seattle already suffered from "tax fatigue" and would never approve it. So much for all of the Nancy's.

Move Seattle provides $930 million in new revenue to be spent over 9 years, $385 million of which is for road repaving and bridge maintenance. The rest would go for various transit and mobility projects. Sounds a lot like Denver's GO Bonds package - still being worked out.

Then This Happened
Last November metro Seattle passed ST3 which provides the fantasy for $54 billion in transit investments over the next 25 years. At a minimum they expect $27 billion in new dedicated revenue to work with over that time period.

No slight intended to Move Seattle whatsoever, it will provide lots of useful improvements, but which revenue stream approved by voters would you suppose will be the most impactful: the city funded plan or metro funded plan?

[TakeFive]

Let's Peek in on and review City of Phoenix

On Aug 25, 2015 city voters approved Prop 400 tax increase (over 30 years) or Move PHX transportation proposal which will raise $17 billion hoping for as much as $32 billion in investments. While a lot of this is for maintenance backlogs and new roads in a still growing city, much of it will go for transit capital investments. Considering that 30% of Mag's (Maricopa Assoc of Gov'ts) $22 billion funding over 20 years or ~$7 billion, is reserved for transit, Phoenix has an automatic funding partner on their speed dial.

According to Valley Metro: http://www.valleymetro.org/projects_and_planning/project_detail/south_central

In December 2015, the South Central light rail extension was approved by the Federal Transit Administration into the Project Development phase of their Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program.

In January 2016, the Phoenix City Council approved accelerating segments of the future high-capacity/light rail transit system to advance into the Regional Transportation Plan, which includes the South Central light rail extension.

In early January 2017, the Federal Transit Administration announced the Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) on the South Central light rail project.

We move from the summer of 2015 to this year... http://www.valleymetro.org/pressreleases/detail/south-central-extension-moves-forward

South Central Extension Moves Forward

On April 19, the Phoenix City Council approved a $50 million agreement with Valley Metro to fund final design and pre-construction activities on the five-mile extension on Central Avenue between Jefferson Street and Baseline Road.

... Council also approved issuing a ... (RFP) for a partner to assist city and Valley Metro staff with the South Central Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Grant. The $2 million federal grant was awarded last October and allows Phoenix and Valley Metro to begin business assistance earlier than previously done.

Phoenix hopes to break ground on this project in 2019.

The Takeaway
With a dedicated City revenue stream for transit and an automatic funding partner from MAG's metro area transit revenue stream, it sure makes life easier. It's also why Tempe could go from start to breaking ground in June on their streetcar in a few short years.

Lastly, the Rockies found their bats today.

[BG918]

o Denver has a population of 2.8+ million; the city of Denver has a population of 668 thousand. None of Denver's suburbs grew up around much density; Aurora may be one of the denser cities. Most of the suburbs lack any downtown of significance. Littleton has one but it doesn't amount to much. Acclaimed Highlands Ranch has no downtown. Lakewood, Arvada, Englewood, Centennial, Thornton, Westminster etc have no downtowns to speak of

Both Arvada and Englewood have old downtowns. Of the two "Olde Town" Arvada is one of better suburban downtowns in the metro. Downtown Englewood has a Station on the C/D Lines and Downtown Arvada will have one on the G Line.

Lakewood created a downtown with Belmar and Westminster is creating one on the old mall site on 88th. Of course these are not "real" downtowns but more mixed-use retail centers that somewhat function as a central core.

[CharlesCO]

Originally Posted by BG918

Both Arvada and Englewood have old downtowns. Of the two "Olde Town" Arvada is one of better suburban downtowns in the metro. Downtown Englewood has a Station on the C/D Lines and Downtown Arvada will have one on the G Line.

Lakewood created a downtown with Belmar and Westminster is creating one on the old mall site on 88th. Of course these are not "real" downtowns but more mixed-use retail centers that somewhat function as a central core.

I'm really impressed how much Englewood has picked up. The civic center and light rail station are nice — though admittedly if they were redeveloping Cinderella City now as opposed to 20 years ago, they probably would not go for a solution that involves big boxes. But what's really vibrant is the stretch of Broadway from Jefferson to Floyd and Old Hampden east all the way to Downing. That area has more energy than I've ever seen with lots of new businesses and things that don't look a decade or two behind the times, which is typically what Englewood was known for.

Englewood is hip!

[Cirrus]

Has anything been added to Englewood light rail station in, oh, the last 10 years? If so, please show us! I want to see!

Englewood has a nice layout, with a good mix of developable open land near (ie parking lots) near the LRT and older buildings along Broadway. I feel like if they ever allowed decent density there, it could be a really nice TOD. But they've got to let buildings go taller than 2 or 3 stories for it to happen.

[CharlesCO]

I had a whole post planned, and then in the middle of me compiling it, I found this nice page on the city of Englewood's website that lists projects under construction/approved/etc. Anyway! Some of them are boring, like the new Chick-Fil-A and Dunkin Donuts, and some of them I'm still not sure are happening, so I'll still highlight the larger ones that I've also seen with my own eyes. Warning: This also veers on not really being transit related either, so I won't tell you how to do your moderator job if you want to move it.

As far as development goes, I don't think too much has happened in the immediate area around the LRT station and the civic center. It's all there, and it's not bad, but it's not much different from what it was 15-20 years ago.

According to the city website above, Medici Communities (the same developer who did the Evans Station lofts) is building a multi-unit apartment building at the southwest corner of Broadway and Girard/Englewood Parkway. RNL is the architect. Rendering taken from the city website.


http://www.englewoodgov.org/inside-city-...evelopment-projects/broadway-acoma-lofts

Off the top of my head, as of April, they've made significant progress on construction. I don't remember it being as sexy looking as that rendering, but it still looks like a really nice project in a pretty good location. City documents also make it look like the second phase may eventually develop the parking lots behind it.

Traditions at Englewood: 180 unit low income senior apartments at Old Hampden and Sherman where the Masonic Temple used to be. As of April, construction either was complete or close to complete.


http://www.englewoodgov.org/inside-city-...nt-projects/traditions-at-englewood-2418

Streetview as of September. I think they may already be moving tenants in by now.


The Foundry: 70 unit low income housing at Bates and Elati, former General Iron Works site

http://englewoodherald.net/stories/Foundry-Apartments-now-leasing-units,242432

Flood Middle School at Jefferson and Broadway has been demo'd and in its place, this apartment complex, currently branded Bell Cherry Hills. I want to say this has been completed for a while now. The white rich thot in me is appalled at them using the Cherry Hills branding in a place that is most definitely not Cherry Hills, but they're not the first, and they're certainly not the last. Not much of a street-facing presence, but I suppose it's not too bad for medium-density apartments in what is still the suburbs.


http://www.bellapartmentliving.com/co/englewood/bell-cherry-hills/

At the very east end of Englewood, Continuum Partners finally redeveloped the former Denver Seminary site into Kent Place, a mix of relatively high density apartments, some retail, and the new bougie sub-brand of King Soopers. I was a huge fan of Patxi's Pizza when I used to live in N. California, so I was so pleased to see their first out of state location come here. The place is an absolute mess to get in and out of by car, but I still think it turned out pretty well, especially considering that for a while, all it was going to be was the grocery store. Count that as a win for the rare case in which wealthy white people lobbied for (and got) high density housing in a project. I guess it helps that the ones doing the lobbying lived in Cherry Hills Villlage across the street, and the project is technically in Englewood, but I digress.


http://continuumpartners.com/project/kent-place/

A few other Englewood things worth mentioning:

Swedish Hospital is expanding, just as hospitals are always expanding all the time. No exceptions. I don't really know what they're doing; I just know that Clarkson isn't really a through street anymore with all the construction.

There have been some interesting adaptive reuses into more contemporary businesses. This bakery on Hampden and Elati used to be a frumpy, brutalist-looking bank:


https://www.yelp.com/biz/corner-bakery-cafe-englewood-2

...versus what it looked like when it opened as a bank in 1968:

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news...ational-bank-of-will-picture-id161901078

The chef of the Highlands'/LoDo's wildly acclaimed Squeaky Bean opened up a hipster taco restaurant and tequila bar at an old Philips 66 gas station that sat vacant for years at Old Hampden and Downing. Englewood is officially hip! They did a nice job with the interior too.



I'm not joking. It was a disgusting off-brand gas station not too long ago:



There are a few others too: the old Chrysler dealership and Hollywood video at Broadway and Floyd has been turned into a hipster whiskey restaurant, and Moe's BBQ next to the Gothic is holding steady. The thai place across the street from Cochino is also one of my favorites.

But that's enough from me for now. If there's nobody to shill for Pueblo on here anymore, well, I'll gladly shill for Englewood. Again, I don't think there's much going on as far as transit and TOD goes, but there is development happening, and there's more energy and vibrance in Englewood happening now than I've ever seen in my lifetime.

[Cirrus]

Nice. Thanks. Wish we could get buildings this tall next to the rail.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Nice. Thanks. Wish we could get buildings this tall next to the rail.

You could today. Englewood just wrapped up an apartment project by the Oxford Station that's much larger than what they did next to the Englewood Station back in the day. No way they'd build that TOD at such a low density if we were just doing the Cinderella City redevelopment now.