Quote:
Originally Posted by Octavian
Actually bunt, from the EIS, one of the reasons the BNSF alignment was chosen was that. From the Final EIS, Alternatives
2-84:
"Western and central rail lines would attract a similar amount of ridership. However, the western rail lines would cost approximately 35 percent less than a comparable length of central rail line because the western line would utilize the existing BNSF rail line while the central line would require construction of new track."
("Western" here refers to the BNSF rail line, while the "central rail lines" can be basically understood to be an I-25 alignment). I've seen this movie before.
Even sharing ROW isn't so smart. RTD has to use much heavier and expensive trains because it shares a freight corridor and the railroads made RTD comply with FRA Tier II buff strength requirements that cut down on speed and increase operating costs. This is OK on the commuter rail lines, but it has a lot more impact on longer distance service like this.
This document is already obsolete. They talk about how awesome it will be to transfer in Longmont to the NW rail line going to Boulder from Ft. Collins.
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So the transfer becomes BRT, so what? That's not a big deal, and planning always deals with moving targets.
I think you're reading the wrong part of the EIS. That section explains how alignments were compared, and I am sure that was a factor when comparing like alignments. But once you select an alignment, you still have to drill down into detailed operations. On 2-70, the description of the preferred alternative, it seems like they considered both double and single track alternatives within that alignment, and decided that in conjunction with express buses, single track would be adequate. It seems to imply a new track in the existing ROW.
As for the rolling stock they choose to use... people make way too much of that. We can find something that works. ROW, however, is much more difficult to conjure up. If you have a better idea for ROW, I'm sure they'd like to hear it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cirrus
In short: Do the problems with the RTD NW corridor plan apply to a Fort Collins train that might use existing tracks in that same ROW?
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See above. Also see 2-22 and 2-23 in the EIS. That describes the single-tracking (low cost option) that was not included in Package A, but was preserved for the Preferred Alternative in conjunction with I-25 corridor express bus service. In other words, this *is* new track, in the railroad ROW.
Also, let's not discount the fact that CDOT is not RTD. RTD has been able to get ROW, just not shared track; CDOT certainly will be able to.
(EDIT: Cirrus, to answer your question, the problem with Package A was that the rail headways with single tracking weren't enough to meet transit demand, without also adding the parallel bus service. I imagine Boulder would have the same single-tracking problems, only much much worse. You just couldn't do the headways you'd need and people would expect. Hence the forced transfer in Longmont - to rail, BRT, whatever. Besides... how much of our travel demand is really between Boulder and Longmont/Ft. Collins? Not so much that a BRT transfer in Longmont would be killer, I don't think. Especially if they're talking real BRT on the Diagonal Highway.)
Seems to me, $900 million in BRT in the US 36/SH 119 Denver-Boulder-Longmont corridor, plus $2.1 billion for I-25 north highway improvements, including commuter rail from Denver-Longmont-Loveland-Ft. Collins, plus BRT from Denver-Ft. Collins, Denver-Greeley, Greeley-Ft. Collins, and both Ft.-Collins/Greeley-DIA... all of that for ~$3 billion is pretty good deal for Colorado taxpayers. You'd be able to get from Denver Union Station to *everywhere* north of town on pretty decent transit in dedicated (or mostly-dedicated, if you include the HOT traffic) ROW. So what if it isn't the latest and greatest in Chinese high speed rail? It'll be much faster than the auto, it'll be comfortable, it'll be affordable (versus the $40 projected fares in the HSR study), it'll actually go into the cores of these cities, and we might actually be able to fund it sometime in the next 30 years. That's good enough for me. Ideal? No.. but good enough, and realistic (something we haven't yet fully figured out how to embrace yet, when we're still seriously discussing $14 billion rail lines.) I'm not willing to wait another 50 years for transit of any sort. If it's a rapid bus and the occasional commuter rail, so be it.
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I honestly can't believe there are people on this site of all sites arguing against a desperately needed rail transit expansion
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