DENVER | Transportation Thread

[Giovoni]

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

And what of people who can't afford to fly, when they go on vacation or visit relatives in other states? Would tolling the entire Interstate system, make it nearly as costly as flying? So they can still take secondary routes, but they can only afford to miss 4 days of work and you just increased their travel time each way by a couple hours. Too bad Amtrak really isn't an option for most destinations. An expansion of AmTrak, could be done along with Interstate tolling.

They can vacation closer to home then.. I don't know if you're kidding or not but goodness! Luxury isn't an inalienable right for Pete's sake! If you can't afford to fly for vacation then you DON'T. If you can't afford to take the days off then you don't. There has to be SOME incentive for working harder toward a better job. I'm not saying don't provide anyone anything at all from the gov't but there has to be a line somewhere. Now that I think about it I think maybe it's time for roads to be a luxury.. maybe I'm going to have to take back that idea being a joke!

[ski82]

Economic justice is a scary, scary term. The root of justice means equity and the enforcement thereof. Economic justice implies that there in an end goal of the enforcement of economic equity. Our country was founded on the principles that justice is applied to the rules that govern society, not the ends in themselves. And while I don’t think we’ve done a good job of justly enforcing rules, I fear that we will further move the idea of justice beyond the enforcement of rules and into the application of political ends with great consequence.

I’m a fan of policy that works. And while I like the theory of pay as you use roads, transit, etc., I also realize that policy would be a disaster if implemented with the infrastructure that was build with little regard to the free market and peoples demands. Square peg, meet round hole. Now, had we used this toll only method from the beginning, our cities would be much denser and the poor would not have to travel as far to work. We’d probably have more viable mass transit too.

[Giovoni]

You should write editorials for the Denver Post, they have the same attitude about not fixing something that isn't working because it would be too hard.

I don't understand your entire first paragraph either. I'm probably just sleep deprived but that seemed really really convoluted.

[SnyderBock]

Well, so does anyone have data on how the North EMU and US-36 failed to qualify for new starts federal funding and what exactly it would take to get them to qualify?

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

Well, so does anyone have data on how the North EMU and US-36 failed to qualify for new starts federal funding and what exactly it would take to get them to qualify?

From that link above

CRITERIA

49 USC §5309(d) establishes the criteria under which proposed New Starts projects are evaluated. The FTA evaluates the project justification and the local financial commitment according to the following measures:
Project Justification

* Mobility Improvements
- measured by travel time benefits per project passenger mile, low-income households served, and employment near stations.
* Environmental Benefits
- measured by change in regional pollutant emissions, change in regional energy consumption, and EPA air quality designation
* Cost Effectiveness
- measured as the cost per hour of travel time saved.
* Operating Efficiencies
- measured by system operating cost per passenger mile.
* Transit Supportive Land Use & Future Patterns
- measured by existing land use, transit supportive plans and policies and performance, and impacts of policies.
* Other
- includes a number of optional factors, including the projected economic impact of project.

In addition, SAFETEA-LU adds two criteria - Economic Development and the Reliability of Forecasts.
Local Financial Commitment

* The proposed share of total project costs from sources other than 49 USC §5309 New Starts, including federal formula and flexible funds, the local match required by federal law, and any additional capital funding.
* The stability and reliability of the proposed capital financing plan.
* The ability of the sponsoring agency to fund operations and maintenance of the entire transit system (including existing service) as planned, once the project is built.

Overall Evaluation

To assign overall project ratings to each proposed New Starts project, FTA considers the individual ratings for each of the project justification and local financial commitment measures. FTA combines this information into summary “finance” and “project justification” ratings for each prospective New Starts project. Individual measures, summary criteria ratings, and overall project ratings are designated as “high,” “medium-high,” “medium,” “medium-low” or “low.”

Table II-2 Cost Effectiveness Breakpoints
High $11.99 and under
Medium-High $12.00 - $15.49
Medium $15.50 - $23.99
Medium-Low $24.00 - $29.99
Low $30.00 and over

Here are the cost and ridership projections
http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/media/u...COG_Report.pdf

And here are how the other approved lines (West, East, Gold) were rated
http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/200...ual_Report.pdf

Most likely it was the cost per hour of time travel saved that would have put the NW and N lines at a low rating. They are expensive lines, and projected ridership is low. It sounds like RTD did not even apply for funds for those two lines since they probably knew it would be a fruitless attempt.

The North Line is projected to cost $924.4 million

The Northwest line is projected to cost $706.9 million

[Myomi]

Originally Posted by Giovoni

They can vacation closer to home then.. I don't know if you're kidding or not but goodness! Luxury isn't an inalienable right for Pete's sake! If you can't afford to fly for vacation then you DON'T. If you can't afford to take the days off then you don't. There has to be SOME incentive for working harder toward a better job. I'm not saying don't provide anyone anything at all from the gov't but there has to be a line somewhere. Now that I think about it I think maybe it's time for roads to be a luxury.. maybe I'm going to have to take back that idea being a joke!

Wait...Do you actually believe that people who work harder make more money, and thus the harder you work, the more money you make? So you actually thing that the construction worker working at midnight to implement all this great infrastructure plans doesn't work "as hard" as the person who owns the company that is building the road? Do you think the worker picking vegetables in the field during the middle of the day is not working as hard as the CEO making thousands of times more? Really? Hell, the man working at McDonalds at midnight is working hard too. Hard work has nothing to do with what you make. Supply and demand does, or more importantly, perceived supply and perceived demand. Not everyone is going to be rich, and the people who aren't rich are not so because of "not working hard."

I mean come on man, the entire concept of the subsidized road system comes from a desire to providing a means for cheaply moving materials and labor so that the people who "work hard" can take away more of the money from the products they sell, instead of having to pay for moving their goods and employees. The sheer insanity of tolling every road would cripple business everywhere, regardless of how hard you worked. And for what? A sense of perceived "economic justice?" I think I am not the only one here that realizes often times the people that work the hardest make the least amount of money. And roads aren't a luxury...

[BarbulaM1]

Flying is a luxury... the notion that it is not has led to an industry that barely stays alive despite being the backbone of much of our economy. (the airlines)

[SnyderBock]

Thank you EngiNerd, that was exactly what I was looking for.

[Giovoni]

Originally Posted by Myomi

Wait...Do you actually believe that people who work harder make more money, and thus the harder you work, the more money you make? So you actually thing that the construction worker working at midnight to implement all this great infrastructure plans doesn't work "as hard" as the person who owns the company that is building the road? Do you think the worker picking vegetables in the field during the middle of the day is not working as hard as the CEO making thousands of times more? Really? Hell, the man working at McDonalds at midnight is working hard too. Hard work has nothing to do with what you make. Supply and demand does, or more importantly, perceived supply and perceived demand. Not everyone is going to be rich, and the people who aren't rich are not so because of "not working hard."

I mean come on man, the entire concept of the subsidized road system comes from a desire to providing a means for cheaply moving materials and labor so that the people who "work hard" can take away more of the money from the products they sell, instead of having to pay for moving their goods and employees. The sheer insanity of tolling every road would cripple business everywhere, regardless of how hard you worked. And for what? A sense of perceived "economic justice?" I think I am not the only one here that realizes often times the people that work the hardest make the least amount of money. And roads aren't a luxury...

Your first sentence is why I'm so uncomfortable lately being a liberal. That attitude along with it's mirror on the right is like matter and antimatter. Together they will destroy everything around them. Having THAT version of dellusion is just as damaging as the right's dellusion that ALL poor people NEVER work and don't want to. For the most part, with few exceptions, yes I believe exactly what you've tried to make sound rediculous. Not to be harsh but exactly how "hard" is it to pick fruit? It sucks certainly, it's not a job I would EVER want. But to say it's "HARD" ?? Grueling, unhealthy, unwanted, unacknowledged, etc.. yes maybe, but hard is not something it has been or will ever be. Picking fruit is somthing humans have known how to do for hundreds of thousands of years. It requires an amount of skill that a trained monkey could manage. It's a job that shouldn't even exist and taxing road use isn't going to keep people from being brought in to pick crops. A construction worker working at midnight is not someone I would consider poor in the first place. But my first answer is that likely the CEO likely DID or does work just as hard or harder than his employees to at least get to the point of being CEO. Of course there are again exceptions but once again I'll say what I say often, people that look for and get 40 hour a week jobs get what people who work 40 hour a week jobs get. You WILL NOT FIND a CEO anywhere who works those few hours.

Further, you can argue about how unfeeling and mean I am as much as you want if you think what I just said reflects everything I believe. What is really sad is that you've bought into the assumption that a car on a road is the only way EVER that anyone, including the poor, will ever get anywhere; and taxing their use is tantamount to amputating the legs of everyone who won't be able to afford a car and use fees. This attitude would make the CEO's, that you so obviously hate, at Exon, Toyota, Honda, Conoco, ect VERY happy, not to mention the very highly regarded intellectual powerhouses at places like the independence institute. All your argument lacks is Reverend Lovejoy's wife screaming "would somebody please think of the children" in the background.

[Pizzuti]

There is no way to measure "easy" and "hard" work, honestly.

I would say that the "difficulty" of a job is the amount of motivation and effort to do its implicit tasks, minus your intrinsic level of motivation to do those tasks in and of themselves.

If you are an absolutely enthusiastic, avid gardener, and you open up a greenhouse and run your own business selling plants, that work is going to be "easy" for you because its so fun for you that you'd do it for free. For another person, that job might be the most grueling, gritty, backbreaking work, and he/she might find being a math professor to be much easier.

It's really impossible to measure difficulty since every person's skill set as well as interest set are so different. I would be a shitty janitor because it would be so boring to me; I'd be much more motivated in a job that most people consider "hard."

So I would say that it's not the government's position to determine which jobs constitute hard work and which jobs constitute easy work. Beyond a certain obligation to support each person's access to basic needs (which is as much a requirement of a country's stability as a recognition of those individuals' rights), we don't need to be trying to right the wrongs and lower a manager's salary to that of the workforce. I'm not out to argue that rich people are lazy bums.

But therein lies the rub, because, as I see it, politicians have operated under the assumption that low-income people are somehow deficient, in character, from wealthy people since the Reagan Revolution, and on many occasions before. Meanwhile, society makes a tacit assumption that working-class people are somehow "best fit" for the jobs at MacDonalds and in factories or wherever it is that they happen to work. We just kind of assume, with our racist and classist opinions, that if they're working there, it is because they weren't smart enough to do better, or that they were just not ambitious or determined. To an extent, working-class people even buy into the myth. But if you were really intellectually honest with yourself, you'd realize those assumptions lead to some pretty nasty and offensive views on ethnicity when you discover how much income levels differ on racial lines generation after generation.

I see liberalism as a willingness to deconstruct the cultural narratives that shape reality. You are going to be critical of a population's assumptions on race, on gender, on family income, etc. And the positions that are appropriate and relevant today might not be the positions that are appropriate 100 years from now (as in, "liberalism" isn't always siding with the poor; that's "leftism." Liberalism is siding with the one who is being treated unfairly, which, in most societies, including ours, is low-income people.)

The ultimate goal, I think, is to improve access and mobility, which makes it easier for each person to find the life that makes him or her most useful and productive. A huge proportion of our public policies instituted since 1980 have been based on the myth of poor people being lazy, or somehow genetically or characteristically inferior, which is morally atrocious, in my opinion. And totally contrary to every experience I've had befriending people from families that were in poverty for generations, who just "got stuck" in something they had no idea how to get out of.

[bcp]

^ yah, what giovani said...great point that CEOs work HUGE hours and that they have done many jobs on the way to the top.

you guys need more adjectives that just "hard"...the complexity of higher level jobs is 100x that of fruit-picking...the skill for good construction workers is highly valuable (especially if they are the show-up-everyday-type)...the scarcity of people smart enough to get us to Mars etc...

bear in mind that it is an enormously valuable skill to make a hard job look easy - see "CEO" and many other higher-paying jobs.

saying that all jobs are "hard" and that maybe the folks at the bottom of the income list have "harder" jobs that CEOs gives me visions of this insanely crazy world where wages are turned upside down and the tail is wagging the dog (oh, modern day unions!)...

so what is more important? they 20 workers or the 1 person that created those 20 jobs?

they can't be equal or everybody would be a fruit-picker or a CEO, and intelligence, opportunity and attitude aren't distributed equally.

[Strange Meat]

CEOs still don't deserve the pay they, in general, get.

300x more than the average worker (the largest gap, by far, in the western world, mind you... it's about 10x larger than what they see in europe or japan)

[Giovoni]

Originally Posted by Snodrifter

CEOs still don't deserve the pay they, in general, get.

300x more than the average worker (the largest gap, by far, in the western world, mind you... it's about 10x larger than what they see in europe or japan)

You're absolutely right.

And yet average workers outnumber CEO's in this country maybe serveral thousand to one. Why they continue to vote candidates into office at every level of government who allow and actually tip the balance even more toward this situation is a subject that could fill an entire bookshelf.

But the fact that CEO's are perhaps overpaid doesn't really apply to the argument about road use I don't think, so I didn't bring it up. If anything it illustrates just what the incentiver to work that much more/harder than the average worker to get to that point would be.

[Paulopolis]

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

Well, so does anyone have data on how the North EMU and US-36 failed to qualify for new starts federal funding and what exactly it would take to get them to qualify?

Wait, does this mean that RTD/FasTracks didn't get the $1 billion in federal funds they applied for? What are you refering to Snyder?

[Paulopolis]

Jesus, I hope not.

Moving walkways may be stripped from Union Station plan
By Jeffrey Leib
The Denver Post
Posted: 12/04/2009 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 12/04/2009 01:00:08 AM MST


Officials planning the $500 million redevelopment of Union Station are proposing to delete moving sidewalks from the design of a 783-foot-long underground bus station and concourse that will link the project's light-rail and commuter-rail platforms.

The proposal could be controversial because the board of directors for the Regional Transportation District wanted the moving sidewalks as a way to help travelers, especially those hauling luggage, get to and from the commuter train to Denver International Airport.

On Thursday, Denver Union Station Project Authority board member Robin Kniech said she reluctantly decided that two moving walkways would be more of a bottleneck than an aid to travelers.

Kniech said the moving sidewalks, which would cost $2 million to build and an "unknown but expensive amount to maintain," would cover only about 217 feet, or about 27 percent, of the length of the underground bus station and public concourse.

The automatic walkways, if installed, would constrict the flow of pedestrians not using them and reduce seating space for bus terminal patrons and the area where riders line up to board buses, Kniech said.

The extreme narrowness of the moving walkways — 3 feet wide in each direction — would further diminish their usefulness, she added.

"Our good intentions in the beginning can't be fulfilled," Kniech said about the hope that the moving sidewalks would help elderly and disabled travelers and those hauling luggage to and from the DIA train.

Critics of the Union Station redevelopment plan have said the distance between its light-rail and commuter-rail platforms — roughly 1,000 feet — will inconvenience many travelers.

The Colorado Rail Passenger Association, an advocacy group, has sued the Federal Transit Administration, which approved a Union Station environmental study, in an attempt to halt station redevelopment and reconfigure the plan in a way that might shorten the transfer time between light rail and commuter rail.

"The key word is connectivity," said rail association president Ira Schreiber. "Passengers should be able to step off one rail platform and onto another."

Of the proposal to remove moving sidewalks from the design of the bus station, rail association board member Edie Bryan said, "Everything they change seems to make it more inconvenient for the passenger."

Marla Lien, lead attorney for RTD, told others with the station authority that RTD's directors expected moving sidewalks would be part of the design and they would likely have to sign off on any proposal to eliminate them.

The station authority will officially take up the proposal to remove the electronic walkways at its Dec. 17 meeting, but RTD's board might not be able to consider the issue until early next year.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by Paulopolis

Wait, does this mean that RTD/FasTracks didn't get the $1 billion in federal funds they applied for? What are you refering to Snyder?

He is saying they only applied for federal funds for the West, East, and Gold lines, and wanted to know why none of the others qualified. The West line was approved for the funds, and thus the current construction. The other two are still waiting for their final approval from the Feds, they have basically been shortlisted for it.

For the moving walkways, so they just keep making it less and less convenient to transfer from LRT to Rail out to the airport, how nice of them. Hopefully someone wakes up and doesn't let removing them come to fruition. Its bad enough that they place the LRT platform 3 blocks away from the heavy rail terminal.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

For the moving walkways, so they just keep making it less and less convenient to transfer from LRT to Rail out to the airport, how nice of them. Hopefully someone wakes up and doesn't let removing them come to fruition. Its bad enough that they place the LRT platform 2 blocks away from the heavy rail terminal.

Maybe it is time to restart again from scratch. I never liked having the light rail platforms a thousand feet away from the commuter rail platforms, with bus platforms in between.
According to the news article, the moving walkways in the bus platform area took too much space away from bus patrons and operations. Well, the moving walkway wouldn't be needed in the bus platform area if the bus platform area wasn't placed between the commuter and light rail platform areas.

I also believe it is vitally important to build a train station first, then build the transit oriented development around it, not the other way around. It appears Denver is going about it completely wrong. $500 Million is a significant amount of cash to waste building the wrong thing, they should be concentrating on building a train station.

[glowrock]

No moving walkways = epic FAIL. This IS a joke, isn't it? A 1000 ft walk from light rail to commuter rail is ridiculous for those who aren't in the best of health. Sounds like absolutely NO planning went into the bus terminal, completely unacceptable!

Don't start over, but this part needs to be addressed, and addressed now!

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Pizzuti]

Originally Posted by electricron

Maybe it is time to restart again from scratch. I never liked having the light rail platforms a thousand feet away from the commuter rail platforms, with bus platforms in between.
According to the news article, the moving walkways in the bus platform area took too much space away from bus patrons and operations. Well, the moving walkway wouldn't be needed in the bus platform area if the bus platform area wasn't placed between the commuter and light rail platform areas.

I also believe it is vitally important to build a train station first, then build the transit oriented development around it, not the other way around. It appears Denver is going about it completely wrong. $500 Million is a significant amount of cash to waste building the wrong thing, they should be concentrating on building a train station.

Eh, I'd rather have a less-good project now than wait another 4 years for all the typical evaluations of some epic redesign that will most likely have just as many problems, if not the same problems, as the first one. If we're waiting for it to be "perfect," we will never have anything.

[SnyderBock]

Originally Posted by Paulopolis

Wait, does this mean that RTD/FasTracks didn't get the $1 billion in federal funds they applied for? What are you refering to Snyder?

Nah dude, I'm talking about the North Metro and US-36 BRT corridors, not the East and Gold corridors expecting $1 billion from the feds. Those two are still in line to land their Federal funding, they are really just waiting on the US congress to put together the new 6 years transportation spending bill first.

As far as starting from scratch... Construction is underway now. Construction can not be delayed, because it has to be completed in time for the other rail corridors. Building the TOD before the transportation elements? They aren't doing this. The TOD around the station isn't anywhere near starting construction. Union Station enters full construction next year (2010). The TOD's are not likely to start until 2011 or 2012 and won't be completed for at least 7-8 years. The station is being built before the TOD.

The station is a great design and starting from scratch will not produce a more effective station without exceeding the budget. It is vital the moving walkways remain, however. There must be massive public outrage for any proposal to remove the moving walkways. And their comment that the moving walkways only cover 217 feet (27%) of the distance, simply means they made them too short. The could design them longer, but with more side openings along the way.

Moving walkways to connect the station into one identity and easily navigable structure is important. remember, this was a concession the developer had to make to RTD, to get RTD to accept this plan of placing the Light rail so far away. If the developer really never had any intention of committing to this idea, then they were just playing with RTD and the public. Playing mind games with them is not cool. RTD should not make this concession, no matter what kind of compelling argument the developer presents to them. It's bad enough RTD allowed the canopy to have a hole in it, to allow 3 feet of snow to dump all over the platforms and rail lines every time a major storm hits. I'd like to know how expensive that snow removable would be and how many years it would take in snow removal savings, to recover the cost of enclosing the entire canopy. Screw the view ordinance, change the ordinance. A low-lying transparent arch canopy wouldn't block much of the historic station. Glass wind-breaks around the perimeter of the canopy to keep cold wind out wouldn't hurt either. The designers think Denver is San Diego, that's my biggest disagreement with the design--it's not enclosed from the elements enough.