DENVER | Transportation Thread

[lumos]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Yes. And just like with travel agents, pocket pager salesmen, and video store employees, it's going to happen anyway.

True of course, but one must also consider the increased productivity generated by not having to drive, find parking spaces, take car to the shop. Also according to the McKinsey report from June 2015 http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/a...tomotive-world autonomous cars could reduce parking space requirements by 5.7 billion sq feet in the US alone, partly because they need 15% less space as they do not need room to open the doors.

They calculate that there will be a drop of $190 billion in accidents in the US based on 2012 accident costs.

Finally that report considers the advances in technology that trickle down not other parts of the market such as robotics.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by lumos

They calculate that there will be a drop of $190 billion in accidents in the US based on 2012 accident costs.

Great, so now we're also going to lose millions of jobs for EMTs, police officers, tow trucks, body shops, helicopter traffic reporters, trauma surgeons, and insurance adjusters. There's a real price to pay in reducing accidents. Why don't people realize that not all progress is a good thing?

[Hatman]

:

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Great, so now we're also going to lose millions of jobs for EMTs, police officers, tow trucks, body shops, helicopter traffic reporters, trauma surgeons, and insurance adjusters. There's a real price to pay in reducing accidents. Why don't people realize that not all progress is a good thing?

Without war, millions of people are going to loose good high-paying jobs building tanks and guns and bombs! Doctors won't have as many wound soldiers to treat and funeral home owners won't have all the casualties they need to remain in business! Why don't people realize that not all peace is a good thing?

/Sarcasm

Sorry for butting in, but autonomous cars are kind of my "thing" .

[bunt_q]

Mine was sarcasm too. Good lord.

[Hatman]

Oh. Forgive my passion on this subject. I interact with far too many people who say what you said but without the sarcasm.

[RyanD]

38th and Blake! CHOO CHOO!!!!

Fastracks Progress: 38th and Blake

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

A big event on a midweek workday would be a prime record-setting formula. I can't find anything that tells me RTD's daily light rail record, but its average per day is 86,000 trips.

It's not going to be anywhere near a million, but it's not inconceivable that the parade might have been, say, Denver's first ever day above 100,000 trips.

Looks like RTD did 140k+ for LRT trips.

[Cirrus]

Wow. Is that a record?

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Wow. Is that a record?

Yup. Overall trips at 409k. Also a record. The MallRide saw 48k trips and it was closed for a significant portion of the day.

Denver Post Article


Source

[Cirrus]

That's incredible.

[transistor]

Just chiming in my with my light rail rant.

I rode the light rail for 3 years from Dayton to Downtown using H line and it was a somewhat pleasant experience. Since I got a job in Golden, I sometimes ride the W line, and let me tell you about how much more it sucks.

1. There is no density along the line. I remember looking out the windows at some point and seeing creeks and forests and grasslands. Also, why do a bunch of single family homes in the suburbs need a light rail station.

2. It goes slow as hell.

3. There are a ton of transfers and the transfers are often poorly timed, leading to delays, although this could just be not optimizing my route.

4. The transit app refuses to acknowledge the existence of the W line and instead wants to send me on the 16L train to Golden.

5. Why did they build this piece of shit first... I always thought it was because they already owned the land is this correct?

[Scottk]

Originally Posted by transistor

Just chiming in my with my light rail rant.

I rode the light rail for 3 years from Dayton to Downtown using H line and it was a somewhat pleasant experience. Since I got a job in Golden, I sometimes ride the W line, and let me tell you about how much more it sucks.

1. There is no density along the line. I remember looking out the windows at some point and seeing creeks and forests and grasslands. Also, why do a bunch of single family homes in the suburbs need a light rail station.

2. It goes slow as hell.

3. There are a ton of transfers and the transfers are often poorly timed, leading to delays, although this could just be not optimizing my route.

4. The transit app refuses to acknowledge the existence of the W line and instead wants to send me on the 16L train to Golden.

5. Why did they build this piece of shit first... I always thought it was because they already owned the land is this correct?

6. The fact that it takes 2 transfers to get to downtown littleton is downright criminal. The train goes with in 200 yards of the 10th and osage station but instead forces you to transfer onto the E line at Auraria West and then transfer AGAIN at broadway to catch the D line.

7. After the Oak Station the train is like a very slow moving roller coaster. It aimlessly snakes around with no real purpose.

8 - Anywhere after the federal center is single tracked.

[hammersklavier]

Can I ask a couple of incredibly obvious questions?

1. Why doesn't the Gold Line go all the way to downtown Golden?
2. Why isn't the line out to Brighton tapped for rail service (while the one that meanders through random northern exurbs is)?
3. Why are most of FasTrack's routes north-south in scope? What about connecting Denver and Aurora together?
4. Why isn't there any proposed service to Cherry Creek?

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

Can I ask a couple of incredibly obvious questions?

Sure, I'll offer my brief opinion.

1. Why doesn't the Gold Line go all the way to downtown Golden?

Money. The cost benefit in terms of increased ridership wasn't there. However, the ROW to go all the way into Golden was purchased.

2. Why isn't the line out to Brighton tapped for rail service (while the one that meanders through random northern exurbs is)?

Money. I believe the ROW out to Brighton was secured as part of FasTracks but it wasn't intended to be built out as a rail corridor until sometime after post FasTracks.

FasTracks has to be constructed under a very, very, very hard fiscal ceiling due to Colorado's TABOR. There's a fixed bonding limit that cannot be expanded without a general election vote and no one seems to think that they can get such a vote passed by the residents in RTD's service area. So, when the costs of the lines began to escalate, it only put more pressure on RTD to just get the basic components of FasTracks built. There's a lot more to it than that, but that's for another post.

3. Why are most of FasTrack's routes north-south in scope? What about connecting Denver and Aurora together?

FasTracks is a political payout just as much as it is a transportation project. So each city in the Denver Metro Area had to get their choo-choo even though it might not make the best sense as to what connections were prioritized. You'll note that our system is pretty much a commuter rail system and there wasn't really any kind of intracity transit that was included in FasTracks. Only now are we having any kind of meaningful discussions on that portion or our system.

4. Why isn't there any proposed service to Cherry Creek?

Hell, we can't even get a streetcar along our busiest transit corridor (Colfax) and you think that we'll do something that obvious?

It's being talked about as becoming an enhanced bus corridor, but that's still in the study stages. It comes down to, again, money and the focus of RTD on being a commuter transit system first and intracity transit second. Which isn't something that I can totally fault RTD with. They need to show that they can build their initial system first to have any sort of chance of expanding it post FasTracks. To get improvements to transit corridors such as Colfax, Broadway, Speer (to Cherry Creek), etc. it's probably going to be the City of Denver that gets the ball moving.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Money. The cost benefit in terms of increased ridership wasn't there. However, the ROW to go all the way into Golden was purchased.

This sounds like a pretty good rundown to me. I'm curious about the specific quote I highlighted. I didn't realize this was done. Do you know where exactly it goes? Where a future station would be? I've looked before and could never quite figure out if there's room to the north of Coors to bring it all the way into town.

[transistor]

Originally Posted by mr1138

This sounds like a pretty good rundown to me. I'm curious about the specific quote I highlighted. I didn't realize this was done. Do you know where exactly it goes? Where a future station would be? I've looked before and could never quite figure out if there's room to the north of Coors to bring it all the way into town.

The biggest and best stop would connect Mines to Denver. As it stands, and I say this as a grad student there, Mines is extremely annoying to reach by public transport. It limits the ability of poorer individuals to attend (assuming that they can afford the exorbitant tuition to begin with) and continues to keep Mines as a school primarily for the children of the affluent. Which is a shame, because engineering degrees are great for improving economic mobility.

Connecting downtown Golden would be possible, but most of the tourists are probably driving anyway. Furthermore, I am sure the NIMBYS in Golden would put up a fight about how if the line is extended "inner city youth" would bring crime and vagrancy to Golden, ruining the character of the historic city.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by transistor

The biggest and best stop would connect Mines to Denver. As it stands, and I say this as a grad student there, Mines is extremely annoying to reach by public transport. It limits the ability of poorer individuals to attend (assuming that they can afford the exorbitant tuition to begin with) and continues to keep Mines as a school primarily for the children of the affluent. Which is a shame, because engineering degrees are great for improving economic mobility.

Really, so good transit helped DU become more affordable? Thank God the train helped there.

Mines will always be what it is. White and male where the odds are good but the goods are odd for the ladies. No number of trains in the world will change that.

Connecting downtown Golden would be possible, but most of the tourists are probably driving anyway. Furthermore, I am sure the NIMBYS in Golden would put up a fight about how if the line is extended "inner city youth" would bring crime and vagrancy to Golden, ruining the character of the historic city.

It's more likely that the train would go to downtown Golden than to Mines because the Gold Line does have the ROW to go there- probably somewhere around CoorsTek (10th & Ford).

[Scottk]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Hell, we can't even get a streetcar along our busiest transit corridor (Colfax).

For fucks sake the sidewalk along colfax becomes intermittent after Kipling.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

I could see that. But since no GOPer worth their party card is going to touch that fee this year (and their bullshit solution is getting no traction since it slashes maintenance funding for a short-term new construction burst), I can see the transportation interests pulling the trigger on this.

Well one GOPer was at least willing to say the hospital provider fee is legal. May still have a chance...

[hammersklavier]

I can't help but think something seems wonky with RTD's ridership modeling here.

- Golden is a natural terminus with a dense downtown and an easy walk to the Colorado School of Mining. University connections often drive outsize ridership.

- Similarly, Brighton is clearly an established center (ridership driver) which the line being developed does not have.

The problem is that we don't really have a good model for the centrality effect ... It pops up in ridership numbers, in which mass transit investments turn out to be good investments (hint: not Dallas'), but AFAIK (and my knowledge may be a bit out of date), we haven't been able to accurately model why this effect seems to occur.

So to my eyes, what it looks like is that the routes with the lower long-term ROI are the ones getting developed first ... not the ones that have the highest ROI long-term and are therefore the best investment.