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  #10861  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2017, 8:04 PM
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  #10862  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2017, 9:35 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Elrod View Post
Hi, could someone point me to a good summary of how the BRT line to Boulder turned out. I had to leave town 4 years ago for CLT and they're now having a BRT discussion and I thought it was a decent comp to what is happening here.
Well, I can't answer your question since I'm also not in Colorado, but is the BRT line Charlotte wants to build on a limited access highway (ie an interstate or similar) or an arterial road? Because the Boulder line is really only a decent comp if Charlotte's is on a limited access highway.
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  #10863  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2017, 10:30 PM
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The 36 "BRT" to Boulder is interesting. I take it quite often as I work in Boulder, but live in Denver. Honestly, I find it to be a pretty nice bus service. Now, it's not true "BRT" obviously as it still has to deal with traffic. However, in the future, if traffic begins to impede the bus service enough, I would think RTD could amend the road slightly to make it a true BRT. For now though, things tend to stay on schedule. I can't comment on ridership, but seems to be pretty popular from my experience. Drive to Boulder in the morning from Denver and leaving in the evening from Boulder is no fun task.....
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  #10864  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2017, 10:46 PM
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Originally Posted by seventwenty View Post
Looks like they've got their 'ducks in a row' plus there was a boatload of BID approvals. Eh, all in a good day's work.
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  #10865  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2017, 11:26 PM
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Originally Posted by twister244 View Post
And... while this doesn't directly tie to the I-70 expansion, it would appear this is one less thing to snag the construction timeline:

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/26...ject-approved/
Yeah, that was nice to see. I'm sure this ruling was anticipated but it's good to have it banked. And props to da judge for being tactful. He didn't address the conspiracy theory between CDOT and Denver but simply stated it was 'beyond the scope' in this case. I loved this quote:
Quote:
“As the city showed during the trial, harmonizing stormwater management and recreation in urban parks is a best practice that Denver, and cities around the world, are utilizing to create great public spaces that provide a multitude of environmental benefits,” the statement says.
Speaking of roads and especially roads made for Self-driving cars:
Here’s where you’ll live when self-driving cars rule the roads
Oct 25, 2017 By Andrea Riquier and William Davis - MarketWatch
Quote:
Since the U.S. car fleet went fully automated a few years ago, the speed limit has increased and congestion has eased, so your trip will take less than an hour. Today’s cars and trucks aren’t just faster and more efficient. Their very shapes have changed, turning them into spaces to work or rest as you travel.

They’re also safer — so much so that municipalities have cut police and first responder budgets in half. Auto insurance costs a few dollars a year. And many people now use shared “transportation as a service” networks instead of owning a vehicle, saving them thousands.
IIRC, Cirrus mentioned this is where he hopes to live some day.


Photo credit: Getty Images via MarketWatch
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  #10866  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2017, 7:13 PM
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  #10867  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2017, 7:38 PM
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Originally Posted by seventwenty View Post
I wonder how the 39 gates will be allocated. It's the 3rd gate expansion for DIA, after the RJ gates on the east end of B and the 5 gates on the west end of C.
Flight Global has an answer

Quote:
The $1.5 billion works will add 12 gates to concourse A, 11 gates to concourse B and 16 gates to concourse C by 2023, Denver City Council documents show and the airport confirms. The additional gates will be added to each concourse by extending them to the east and west of their existing footprint.
No one else reporting the breakdown, so we'll see. Currently there are 37 gates on A, 70 gates on B, and 27 gates on C. That's gonna put 49 gates on A, 81 gates on B, and 43 gates on C. Bit curious as what happens to the prop farm on the east end of A and the RJ farm on the east end of B. The 2012 masterplan says there's not much room to expand on the west of B, but the RJ farm is not even 15 years old.

Further, since about 20-25 of B's gates are in the RJ farm, there are currently about 50 or so mainline gates currently on B. So in the future, A will be roughly the current size of B (sans RJ farm), with C not too far behind.
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Last edited by seventwenty; Oct 28, 2017 at 7:58 PM.
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  #10868  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2017, 12:05 AM
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You can buy RTD single day passes on your smartphone starting Wednesday

Friggin finally.

Quote:
Starting Wednesday, RTD’s new mobile tickets app will be available for download, allowing Android and Apple phone users to buy either a local day pass or a regional/airport day pass.

. . .

So customers are supposed to download the app, purchase a pass with a credit card and activate the pass before boarding a bus or train. An activated pass is one with a timestamp that moves on the screen.

RTD spokesman Scott Reed says the timestamp moves to prevent taking screenshot of a ticket and sharing it with someone else or otherwise using tickets fraudulently.
But why must you buy the full pass? Why not a one-way pass? There's some security built in to prevent screenshooting passes. If they want more security, why not use a QR code that the pass checkers can scan to check validity? What about monthly passes? What about my pony?
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  #10869  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2017, 1:35 AM
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Originally Posted by seventwenty View Post
If they want more security, why not use a QR code that the pass checkers can scan to check validity?
Oh hey, I know this.

Based on this FAQ page (specifically the question Why does it take up to 72 hours for transactions to be updated in the system?), RTD's on-bus electronic beepers don't have immediate network access while out and about, so scanning a QR code or some such would be able to determine whether or not the pass was valid for the day, but not able to invalidate the code after use until the bus pulled into the garage.
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  #10870  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2017, 5:36 AM
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Thanks and welcome to the forum.

I dunno if the RTD explanation makes me more or less frustrated.
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  #10871  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2017, 3:59 PM
ddvmke ddvmke is offline
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Originally Posted by seventwenty View Post
Thanks and welcome to the forum.

I dunno if the RTD explanation makes me more or less frustrated.
Again begging the question why we didn't just license a system from a Ventra/Metrocard/etc. (who are now already going to contactless payments, once more leaving us in the dust), rather than spend all this money and time for one that doesn't even allow for loading passes on your card, or limiting to daily pass maximums if making more than 2 trips, or automatic reloads at a threshold, or...
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  #10872  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2017, 6:09 PM
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FWIW, I'll guess that Masabi's mobile ticketing will be the more widely used function once it becomes available.
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  #10873  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2017, 8:49 PM
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I'm surprised nobody posted this article....

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/21...ional-transit/

I can understand why Boudlerites/Longmont feels like they got the shaft. I still think the FF is an awesome service that save me a ton of time and money. Maybe Boulder could team up with Fort Collins to offer a train that ran from FoCo-Longmont-Boulder-Broomfield. Then RTD can meet them halfway and extend the B line up to Broomfield to connect the two. Just a thought....
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  #10874  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2017, 2:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by That article
Such a project would almost certainly not amount to a secession from RTD — though some City Council members did recently request information on that path’s feasibility — but rather the establishment of a complementary transit network, likely benefitting some combination of cities along the U.S. 36 corridor and in other parts of Boulder County.
In other words, sort of like what Denver is also doing with its internal transit plan.

Common story all over the US: The individual cities that want really good transit aren't getting it from the behemoth regional entities that are subservient to suburban voters, and are supplementing. The details are different (just as they appear different between Denver & Boulder), but the trend is happening everywhere.
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Last edited by Cirrus; Nov 1, 2017 at 2:48 PM.
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  #10875  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2017, 5:13 PM
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Common story all over the US:
Ofc I enjoy complicating things. It turns out that what was common 'conventional wisdom' in the Great American Petrie Dish is changing.

Renowned urbanist and author of the 2002 book "The Rise of the Creative Class," Richard Florida, has recently recanted his trend-driving concepts of the last decade. In fact I can recall then Mayor Hickenlooper heralding the title's concepts as many did. But as described by Noah Smith in his Bloomberg piece Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well.
Quote:
It’s the rare public intellectual who admits to making big mistakes. Usually, the rule is to defend everything you’ve ever said, in an attempt to maintain a reputation for wisdom. Richard Florida, the noted urbanist and professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, is among the select few to go back and reevaluate his big ideas.
So Florida wrote a new, follow-up book.
Quote:
In a new book titled “The New Urban Crisis,” Florida reverses much of his earlier optimism about the potential of knowledge-hub cities. These metropolises, he contends, have now become engines of inequality and exclusion.
Speaking of "equity," transit needs and strategies including city v suburbs, Richard Florida isn't the only person making observations.

Study points to inefficiencies in Dallas mass transit
October 24, 2017 Provided by: University of Texas at Arlington
Quote:
"The city of Dallas could experience an even higher concentration of poverty if transportation practices remain the same," said Hamidi, who also is a UTA urban planning assistant professor in the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs. "From the planning perspective, these trends would cause the city to be more spatially segregated, especially in economic terms, and consequently the city could experience even more isolation of areas with poverty concentration."
Turns out that a majority of Dallas jobs are in the suburbs. Not a big surprise for Dallas but what about urban poster child Portland?

TriMet: Ridership down because riders changing
October 05, 2017 by Jim Redden - Portland Tribune
Quote:
New demographics show need for transit from inner to outer areas as regional transit agency plans for the future

Put simply, the newest residents in Portland's inner neighborhoods don't ride buses as often as the former residents who have been displaced to East Portland, Gresham, and parts of Clackamas County. And the creation of self-sufficient walkable neighborhoods has reduced the need for bus trips even more.
What about Denver peer city Minneapolis?
Low-wage jobs are moving to distant suburbs. How will workers get there?
OCTOBER 30, 2017 By Eric Roper - Star Tribune
Quote:
The Amazon bus arrives before dawn each day in the Cedar-Riverside area of Minneapolis, delivering workers from a night of packing orders at the company’s Shakopee warehouse. Around the corner, day-shift employees climb aboard another coach headed south.
While Amazon can afford to do this what about the rest?
Quote:
At the same time, an increasing number of blue-collar jobs are moving outward to burgeoning job centers near the metro’s edge, upending a downtown-centric transit system that once reliably served factories in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
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  #10876  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2017, 6:50 PM
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Rendering courtesy DIRC Homes

Transit-oriented development West Line Village begins construction
October 20, 2017 by Megan Arellano - Denverite
Quote:
A new set of for-sale housing less than 10 minutes walk from the W Line’s Sheridan Station has begun construction.

And by spring 2018, some of the 176 rowhomes and duplexes of West Line Village will be ready for occupancy, says builder DIRC Homes. The homes at W. 10th Avenue and Depew Street range in size from 788 to 1,750 square feet, and include studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom layouts. All include some type of garage and outdoor space, according to the team behind the development, which includes Trailbreak Partners and T.O.D. Properties.
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  #10877  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2017, 8:12 PM
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What are you complicating, exactly? That suburbs have increasing transit needs?

That's conventional wisdom too, because it's also conventional wisdom that low-wage service jobs are an increasing proportion of the economy, and that as cities become wealthier the poor will move to suburbs.

It doesn't really change what I said. If you want to quibble maybe I should've said "The individual jurisdictions that want..." It's also a common story all over the US that suburbs build, operate, and are rapidly improving their own transit networks. Metropolitan Denver, with its single unified behemoth that does everything for everyone, is actually a bit of an oddity. Most metro areas already have more than one transit operator.

But I tell you want. If you want to see an example of learning on this very subject, read this, then after you're done read this.
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  #10878  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2017, 10:23 PM
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Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
What are you complicating, exactly? That suburbs have increasing transit needs?

That's conventional wisdom too, because it's also conventional wisdom that low-wage service jobs are an increasing proportion of the economy, and that as cities become wealthier the poor will move to suburbs.

It doesn't really change what I said.
Well heh, my apologies for not clarifying that I wasn't trying to 'enlighten' you; the comment was intended generally and I just used your post as a jumping off spot. In fact if you think about it, my post is actually compatible with yours - Not conflicting. But so far as conventional wisdom goes I gotta say it seems to be a new revelation to the places noted. Portland, for example, claims to have just figured all this out recently.

As for Boulder more power to whatever they wish to do. I would point out that after a decade of trying to set up their own utility they now have a better understanding out how tricky it can be to go it alone.

With respect to Denver that is a discussion for tomorrow.
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  #10879  
Old Posted Nov 2, 2017, 3:11 PM
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As someone with a bit of knowledge about what's going on in Boulder right now, I can add a little to the discussion that might not have been mentioned yet. It's about a lot more than the B-line, and lack of clarity on funding for future regional routes like a State Highway 7 BRT line.

A lot of this is coming from RTD's attempts to chip away at Boulder's Community Transit Network (the branded buses like the Skip, Jump, etc.). Last year they attempted to do away with the branded buses altogether, and instead use generic white livery or simply the RTD branded buses. After negotiating for over a year about this issue, and the matter of putting bus ads on the branded buses, Boulder finally succeeded in getting them to agree to put new vehicles into service with newly designed bus wraps - only to then turn around and run the wrong vehicles on the wrong routes as if the branding is just some silly thing that doesn't matter (Skip buses on the Jump route, FF buses on the Longmont route, Stampede buses on the Skip route, etc.), with no recourse for the city, which puts in its own city money to both purchase vehicles and more service. They have also been cutting buses and frequency from many routes in a way to shave off operating costs - in spite of the fact that branded buses and high frequency lead to very high ridership in Boulder, and the fact that Boulder "buys up" more service frequency. The Skip currently runs on 7.5 minute peak hour frequency, and this is now slipping backward because of cost cutting measures, even though the city's "buy-up" remains the same.

Add to this the fact that they CAN take money from bus service (essentially their regular operating budget) to supplement Fastracks overruns, but they cannot by law take Fastracks money to use for standard bus service, and what we see is that this trend of cutting service is likely to continue. Their new rail lines are physical real estate assets, and the buses are not. Plus their revenues don't keep pace with inflation, and it is hard to imagine Denver area voters increasing their taxes to make up for this any time soon. Unless something happens to give RTD a financial windfall, this trend of cutting bus service to prop up rail service is likely to continue.

Communities like Boulder that want to see routes like the Skip continue to have success or add new service may have to go it alone - Boulder already contracts with a different operator - Via Mobility Services - to run our original branded route, The HOP, which is about to be split into 4 routes with service extended into new parts of town. A new RTA doesn't necessarily mean seceding from RTD altogether (I'm not even sure how that would work since RTD is a legal district with taxing authority independent of the city government), and they would likely continue to run regional routes to Denver like the FF. But I'm really starting to agree that a layered approach of transit agencies like we see in many other larger urban areas makes sense, with regional authorities serving niche markets like the Boulder CTN routes, or perhaps Denver's future inner-city ambitions.

Last edited by mr1138; Nov 2, 2017 at 3:27 PM.
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  #10880  
Old Posted Nov 2, 2017, 3:19 PM
ddvmke ddvmke is offline
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Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
In other words, sort of like what Denver is also doing with its internal transit plan.

Common story all over the US: The individual cities that want really good transit aren't getting it from the behemoth regional entities that are subservient to suburban voters, and are supplementing. The details are different (just as they appear different between Denver & Boulder), but the trend is happening everywhere.
I think it's also compounded by the fact that regions/cities are going with the most politically easy and cheap option by using freight right-of-ways and not rocking the boat shaking up decades old bus routes that no longer align with the density/employment and entertainment centers of a city, rather than actually looking at what the right option might be. I'd hope Denver's plan would focus on people that WANT to use public transport, as well as connecting areas where it will be most used to start to build that culture before expanding and using it as an economic development tool which RTD seems content to do.

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Such a good looking project for that area. Would love to see more of this scale for sale and pedestrian focused around our closer in stations (i.e. you could put up dozens of them this size around Lamar, Alameda, 41st, Westminster, and Englewood stations while we wait for these decades long master plans to materialize)
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