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  #12321  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2019, 9:41 PM
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It seems fair and obvious (as apposed to 'fair and balanced') that the city and the suburbs are two different environments. It seems equally logical that what works best for one may not work best for the other.

Rather than hating on Uber/Lyft and clinging to you grandfather's bus system why not learn and create the next gen transit system? This feels like such a simple question looking for a simple answer. That doesn't mean it would be simple to implement but you can either stay stuck in yesterday or catch up to what the tech world can bring to the equation.

Now that I've found my suburban hat let's see what happens.

That's all for today's boomer-land wisdom but I'll leave you with one classic boomer song done by an Italian at (Lake) Las Vegas. (Guy gets a Standing Ovation and can't even see it)
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  #12322  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2019, 3:22 AM
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10 consecutive posts by TakeFive. Why don't you just become a mod already. You practically live here.
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  #12323  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2019, 3:32 AM
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Cars are evil. Uber/Lyft use cars. Ergo, Uber/Lyft are evil. The urban ethos is not hard to follow.

But don’t be mistaken, nobody here cares what happens in the suburbs. Unless it’s something a shared government (read: CDOT) does that touches the urban. In which case, those things are also evil.

It’s actually not complicated. No more complicated than the mind of a Trump voter. Except, not evil.
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  #12324  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2019, 9:12 PM
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wong21fr wong21fr is online now
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^Don't forget, buses are also evil. Everyone should ride bikes and there should be trams on every street.

And people shouldn't reproduce and put all of their love and time into discovering trendy restaurant, posting on Instrgram, riding a fixie, all while tending to their shit-beasts.
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  #12325  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2019, 11:48 PM
mishko27 mishko27 is offline
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^Don't forget, buses are also evil. Everyone should ride bikes and there should be trams on every street.

And people shouldn't reproduce and put all of their love and time into discovering trendy restaurant, posting on Instrgram, riding a fixie, all while tending to their shit-beasts.
Jesus Christ, ya'll bitter. Keep them stereotypes coming, I love boiling down complicated and nuanced opinions or life philosophies into pseudo-funny soundbites that make it easy to marginalize a group of people. So edgy.

Back to the actual debate - bus routes need to be significantly optimized to begin with. We have too many bus stops that are too close to each other - half a mile between stops should be enough, rather than stopping every 400 feet. They should also follow major streets, rather than going deeply into neighborhoods that are already close to bus stops on main streets.

I don't mind taking a bus, if it adds a couple of minutes to my commute. The issue is that if the bus is 3 minutes late and I miss the light rail, it would add another 12 minutes to my commute. If both the buses and the light rail were much more frequent, the system would be more convenient.

I lived in a city with the population of 250,000 in Slovakia. The buses were so frequent, that one was never really worried when the next one is coming, as it was most like within the next 5 minutes. Same for trams. The lack of frequency (and I understand that frequency = a whole lot of money) is part of the issue.
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  #12326  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2019, 2:26 AM
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seventwenty seventwenty is offline
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Originally Posted by The Dirt View Post
10 consecutive posts by TakeFive. Why don't you just become a mod already. You practically live here.
I nominate The Dirt for secret mod. I demand edgy philosophical sound bites in his stump speech.
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  #12327  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2019, 4:25 AM
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Originally Posted by mishko27 View Post
Jesus Christ, ya'll bitter. Keep them stereotypes coming, I love boiling down complicated and nuanced opinions or life philosophies into pseudo-funny soundbites that make it easy to marginalize a group of people. So edgy.

Back to the actual debate - bus routes need to be significantly optimized to begin with. We have too many bus stops that are too close to each other - half a mile between stops should be enough, rather than stopping every 400 feet. They should also follow major streets, rather than going deeply into neighborhoods that are already close to bus stops on main streets.

I don't mind taking a bus, if it adds a couple of minutes to my commute. The issue is that if the bus is 3 minutes late and I miss the light rail, it would add another 12 minutes to my commute. If both the buses and the light rail were much more frequent, the system would be more convenient.

I lived in a city with the population of 250,000 in Slovakia. The buses were so frequent, that one was never really worried when the next one is coming, as it was most like within the next 5 minutes. Same for trams. The lack of frequency (and I understand that frequency = a whole lot of money) is part of the issue.
Deep and insightful. Real value add, thanks for that. There is no debate here. There’s a whole lot of preaching and judging, and very little in terms of practical solutions that don’t f*** average people. That’s progressive urban America.

Wonder if Slovakia could afford all those buses if they had to pay for their own national defense.
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  #12328  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2019, 3:58 PM
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Originally Posted by bunt_q View Post
Deep and insightful. Real value add, thanks for that. There is no debate here. There’s a whole lot of preaching and judging, and very little in terms of practical solutions that don’t f*** average people. That’s progressive urban America.
Wonder if Slovakia could afford all those buses if they had to pay for their own national defense.
Hey considering we're cutting and running and leaving allies in lurches we won't need to pay for anyone's national defense pretty soon- ours included. It's a great deal! The deal of the century! No one is a greater warrior than Trump!

You know that average people are f**cked. They just are. Stop trying to bemoan the plight of the common man and just revel in the fact that you don't have to worry about them as you are above them. No one in this state wants to pay for a transportation system that would actually move them from point A to point B in an efficient manner with more than one mode. They don't want tolled lanes, they don't want an arterial bus system that's frequent and high speed, nor do they want a system that kills non-performing routes and leaves the option of on-demand transit, driving, or rideshares. Let's not mention that the average guy also wants to put in growth caps, while still being able to buy a house for $250K which they can then sell for $500K, and then buy a bigger house for $350K.

Colorado is a state that want to have it's cake and eat it too without having to pay for it. Until we untie that knot, the average guy is f**cked.
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  #12329  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2019, 4:03 PM
mishko27 mishko27 is offline
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Originally Posted by bunt_q View Post
Deep and insightful. Real value add, thanks for that. There is no debate here. There’s a whole lot of preaching and judging, and very little in terms of practical solutions that don’t f*** average people. That’s progressive urban America.

Wonder if Slovakia could afford all those buses if they had to pay for their own national defense.
Good point. Slovak Air Force does currently have all of 2 (possibly 3, it's kind of classified info, somehow) fighter jets. We did just buy 16 F-16s for over 1.5 billion euros, though. We do contribute 1.2% of our GDP to NATO (as of 2018), on par with Germany and more than Spain.

I do think a deep dive into the country budgets would be very helpful to determine how can a country of 5.5 million people (coincidentally, the size of Colorado) afford comprehensive public transportation system, public universities and healthcare, and many other services, while the income taxes are significantly less progressive than in the US (two tax brackets, 20% and 25%). All this with a balanced budget for the last 4 years. We're about to go into a slight deficit next year and are projected to be back to balanced budget by 2021.
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  #12330  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2019, 7:32 PM
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Originally Posted by mishko27 View Post
I do think a deep dive into the country budgets would be very helpful to determine how can a country of 5.5 million people (coincidentally, the size of Colorado) afford comprehensive public transportation system, public universities and healthcare, and many other services, while the income taxes are significantly less progressive than in the US (two tax brackets, 20% and 25%). All this with a balanced budget for the last 4 years. We're about to go into a slight deficit next year and are projected to be back to balanced budget by 2021.
This secession idea is coming more and more into focus. Slovakia is also a landlocked, rather mountainous state; I'm seeing many similarities. If your birth country can pull it off, then why not your adopted homeland? Let's get those 1% growth-cappers to start gathering signatures for this idea instead! Colorado loves a referendum.
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  #12331  
Old Posted Oct 17, 2019, 8:05 PM
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Originally Posted by mishko27 View Post
I do think a deep dive into the country budgets would be very helpful to determine how can a country of 5.5 million people (coincidentally, the size of Colorado) afford comprehensive public transportation system, public universities and healthcare, and many other services, while the income taxes are significantly less progressive than in the US (two tax brackets, 20% and 25%). All this with a balanced budget for the last 4 years. We're about to go into a slight deficit next year and are projected to be back to balanced budget by 2021.
20% and 25% income tax brackets plus a 20% VAT versus (for a comparative with CO) a 4.63% income tax and a 2.9% sales tax. That comparative difference right there is a very strong indicator on why we cannot have nice things.
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  #12332  
Old Posted Oct 18, 2019, 4:01 AM
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RTD Proposes ‘Significant’ Cuts To Bus And Train Service Over Driver Shortage

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  #12333  
Old Posted Oct 18, 2019, 7:34 PM
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Hell. Screw the 2-year "reimagine RTD" study. Looks like they fell on the solution right here:

1) Kill the R Line (B line is fine because DTP has found a way to keep their staffing levels up). Turn the line into a migrant detention facility as a revenue generator for RTD.

2) Knock off the bottom 10% of bus routes and replace the service areas with FlexRide. Which also knocks off the CDL requirement. Contract out FlexRide to to avoid union-imposed costs.
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All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. ~Albert Einstein

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  #12334  
Old Posted Oct 18, 2019, 9:28 PM
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10 consecutive posts by TakeFive. Why don't you just become a mod already. You practically live here.
I'm glad somebody's paying attention.

Actually, after a nice long summer's break that got extended 3 weeks past my drop dead date I wanted to get some of the info-data up to refer back to as my blogging time will be more limited going forward.

But I'm impressed you picked up on the number... was there any posts you liked more, not at all or was it a mixed bag?

In any case I guess that is quite an accomplishment; does that mean I get a brownie? I am partial to chocolate.
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  #12335  
Old Posted Oct 18, 2019, 10:46 PM
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Why do streetsbloggers hate ride-share, poor people and women?
Part One

Mostly for misguided reasons; they're paranoid that ride-share is a direct threat to transit. Only partially true they miss the more important points. Transit is what is killing transit. Starting with the millennial's the rest of us have moved on to the next century while transit is still stuck in the last century.

What about all that congestion caused by ride-share? For example, what about the new study that states over half the increased congestion in San Francisco is directly attributable to ride-share.

When analyzing studies with a suspected political agenda it's important to look for what they overlook or how they skew the data. There's several points to be made with that study including their primary focus on VMT or vehicle miles traveled. They always fail to mention that ride-share adds about 1-2 percent to the miles driven although it may be a bit more in San Francisco.

2010 used as the Base Year
Unemployment is always a lagging indicator and 2010 was likely the bottom for employment following the Great Recession. I recall reading that VMT was down quite a bit and that transit ridership was up. Primarily it was that with fewer people employed there was less need to drive.

Principle of Substitution
I would contend (and it's my experience) that most people (but not all) use ride-share as apposed to the hassle of driving and parking their own car. This would mean that there aren't more cars on the road in theses cases. That study doesn't even consider this point.

Congestion is caused mostly by growth in car ownership
They totally ignore this real world reality except for using employment growth within San Francisco but NOT the greater metro area to look at per capita data. They don't correlate increased congestion with the economy or increase in car ownership. Increasing car sales especially starting in 2014 is a much bigger factor.

I'd like to see 2014 used as a base year and increases in auto ownership for any study that wants to learn the Real Reasons for increasing congestion.
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  #12336  
Old Posted Oct 18, 2019, 11:36 PM
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Why do streetsbloggers hate ride-share, poor people and women?
Part Two

In looking at the importance of first and last mile access to transit (which I've pounded the table over), Marlon Boarnet also found where lower income residents in San Diego have up to 30 times better access to jobs when they own cars.

Who's Marlon Boarnet? https://news.usc.edu/126791/how-tran...he-difference/
Quote:
The researchers found that car commuters in low-income neighborhoods in San Diego have about 30 times greater job accessibility than those who take public transit... according to study’s lead author Marlon Boarnet, a professor of public policy and chair of the department of urban planning and spatial analysis at the USC Price School of Public Policy. Boarnet is an associate director of METRANS for the National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST), a research center headed by the University of California, Davis. METRANS is a member of the NCST consortium.
A study out of UCLA also showed where increasing car ownership as a result of the improving economy, much of it among lower-socioeconomic residents added to congestion and likely added to the drop in transit ridership in Los Angeles.

Poor people shouldn't be allowed to own cars or use ride-share. Rather they should be required to use transit; after all they're poor for gods sake.
(Note: Italic print denotes sarcasm)

There's more than one problem with this stinkin' thinking. Take Denver where growth in downtown employment is approaching 140,000 and there's good access via light rail or buses. The problem is that the metro area has employment of ~1,525,000 so downtown has close to but not even 10% of the jobs. There's a ton of retail employment for example. What if people find jobs elsewhere but transit doesn't go there?

Btw, more common sense facts that the bigger problem in causing congestion is car ownership and not ride-share.

It isn't really my intent to accuse streetsbloggers of intentional discrimination and desire to limit poor people's personal freedom but it's the irony of hypocrisy that infects groups when they obsess over a particular agenda. Same thing happens on the right around the hypocrisy of the "Right to Life." There's also this creeping nannyism that suggests that "we know what's better for you than you do."

Time to watch the Avalanche
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  #12337  
Old Posted Oct 18, 2019, 11:39 PM
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Kind of surprising to me that no one has tried to organize a “transit riders union” in metro Denver over all these years.
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  #12338  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2019, 7:37 PM
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TakeFive TakeFive is offline
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Originally Posted by wong21fr View Post
Hell. Screw the 2-year "reimagine RTD" study. Looks like they fell on the solution right here:

2) Knock off the bottom 10% of bus routes and replace the service areas with FlexRide. Which also knocks off the CDL requirement. Contract out FlexRide to to avoid union-imposed costs.
You're on the right track, no doubt. Apparently not everybody agrees - but I would.

Crisis Or Crossroads? No One Wants To Solve RTD’s Driver Shortage With Service Cuts
October 23, 2019 By Nathaniel Minor - CPR
Quote:
Just a few minutes into the RTD board’s discussion on a proposal to significantly cut service because of a pressing workforce shortage, one thing was clear: no one wants them.

Not the union reps, some of whom are drivers themselves, who sat in the audience of the Tuesday meeting. Not the staff who put together the proposal as more bus and trains runs are unexpectedly canceled. Not the riders, who board members noted rely on those buses and trains to get around. And certainly not RTD’s board of directors, who’d ultimately have to sign off on any service cuts.
What's wrong with this picture?
Drivers on the ride-share blog often complain "There's too many "ants" out there." Ride-share drivers refer to their fellow drivers as "ants." "I drove over to XYZ and there were ants on every corner."

Back to bus drivers; Nathaniel Minor/CPR has their back.

RTD’s Pre-Boom Driver Deal Is Part Of Why Your Train Didn’t Show Up Today
October 21, 2019

It's the classical Union wage plus nice benefits package that is the issue, always.

In any case I'm with you; have RTD cut 20% of their service and have a very well-paid team of professional drivers. That should fix everything?

Future Tip: there's another piece of your post that's spot-on I'll speak to later.
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  #12339  
Old Posted Oct 24, 2019, 6:06 AM
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Doobie: You ever think about the basics of life?
Well Buddy, not a lot but food and water comes to mind.

Yes, water. Have you ever had your water cut off? It's a real pain even if it's only for a few hours. Take the Denver Water Board.
Quote:
Denver Water proudly serves high-quality water and promotes its efficient use to 1.4 million people in the city of Denver and many surrounding suburbs. Established in 1918, the utility is a public agency funded by water rates and new tap fees, not taxes. It is Colorado's oldest and largest water utility.
How about electricity, Buddy. That seems like a basic necessity.
Exactly. Total aggravation if you lose your electricity for a stretch. It's amazing how reliable it is on the whole though.

Electricity, supplied (mostly) by Xcel Energy is a utility holding company. Both our water and electricity are not paid by any taxes but rather by user fees. Both Denver Water and Xcel Energy are required to be financially strong and reliable, plan and invest for the future. Both do an impressive job all things considered.

Anything else you're thinking of Buddy?
No, that's all for now, Doobie.
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  #12340  
Old Posted Oct 24, 2019, 7:32 PM
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Doobie: You ever think about the basics of life?
Well Buddy, not a lot but food and water comes to mind.

Yes, water. Have you ever had your water cut off? It's a real pain even if it's only for a few hours. Take the Denver Water Board.


How about electricity, Buddy. That seems like a basic necessity.
Exactly. Total aggravation if you lose your electricity for a stretch. It's amazing how reliable it is on the whole though.

Electricity, supplied (mostly) by Xcel Energy is a utility holding company. Both our water and electricity are not paid by any taxes but rather by user fees. Both Denver Water and Xcel Energy are required to be financially strong and reliable, plan and invest for the future. Both do an impressive job all things considered.

Anything else you're thinking of Buddy?
No, that's all for now, Doobie.
I would like to argue that having your internet cut off, even for a short time, is equally as impactful in today's society, as having your water or electricity cut off. Internet is a utility.
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