DENVER | Transportation Thread

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Denver's Colfax bus gets priority at green lights
Apr 12, 2018 by Jaclyn Allen/7Denver News

Will other routes be getting this?

Here's a schematic that shows how the tech works:


Source

Cirrus... what would be your experience/feedback with this stuff. Seems I recall reading that Los Ageles abandoned this on 'some' streets where they tried it.

So we can get the buses to work with this tech no problem, but the trains, it turns into a 2 year fiasco.

[Cirrus]

We use transit signal priority, although not as much as I'd like. It's not like an ambulance where you automatically get green. Basically it just holds a green a few seconds longer or switches from red to green a few seconds faster if there's a bus nearby.

On its own, the effects are nice enough but relatively minor. Fine, but sort of not worth the headache. Coupled with limited stops and bus lanes (or at least queue jumps) it's pretty powerful.

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Denver's Colfax bus gets priority at green lights
Apr 12, 2018 by Jaclyn Allen/7Denver News

Will other routes be getting this?

Here's a schematic that shows how the tech works:


Source

Cirrus... what would be your experience/feedback with this stuff. Seems I recall reading that Los Ageles abandoned this on 'some' streets where they tried it.

The Colfax TSP tech works a little differently. Works off Sprint wireless network. Bus passes a pre-determined geographic location (handled by on-board GPS), makes a call to the signal, determines if TSP is needed.

Coupled with the planned interim bypass lanes, queue jumps, and bus bulbs, this should increase speed and improve reliability. Then the BRT will come.

[Zmapper]

DEN: Are the new ground-level gates on Concourse A (odds A71-A81) in use? They are shown on the gate map of the airport's website, but a cursory check of airline departure boards has yet to show any flight scheduled to use these gates.

[DenvertoLA]

this hyperloop would be so dope. I'll believe it when I can board though

http://www.9news.com/article/news/lo...t/73-474823111

[Cirrus]

Latest addition to my transit fare media collection (penny for scale):

[seventwenty]

Neat. Also Cirrus, I had to go up to Aspen and took zero bus photos for you.

[Cirrus]

[Cirrus]

[Cirrus]

[TakeFive]

^^^
^^^^^
^^^^^^^



I do like the the Denver Tramway piece.

Originally Posted by PLANSIT

The Colfax TSP tech works a little differently. Works off Sprint wireless network. Bus passes a pre-determined geographic location (handled by on-board GPS), makes a call to the signal, determines if TSP is needed.

Coupled with the planned interim bypass lanes, queue jumps, and bus bulbs, this should increase speed and improve reliability. Then the BRT will come.

Thanks for the clarification.

Originally Posted by Cirrus

We use transit signal priority, although not as much as I'd like. It's not like an ambulance where you automatically get green. Basically it just holds a green a few seconds longer or switches from red to green a few seconds faster if there's a bus nearby.

On its own, the effects are nice enough but relatively minor. Fine, but sort of not worth the headache. Coupled with limited stops and bus lanes (or at least queue jumps) it's pretty powerful.

Exquisite reponse. So a little at the margin and something is better than nothing but as PLANSIT describes it will be a whole lot more powerful when combined with other improvements and when BRT on East Colfax is completed.

[TakeFive]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

Ridesharing is overtaking urban mass transit and we should rejoice, not mourn for the past
April 19, 2018 by Randal O’Toole, Opinion contributor/USA Today

Mass transit was developed for cities that no longer exist. A used car is far more useful to a poor person's job prospects than a free transit pass.

Interestingly, I've brought this up (at least) a couple of times with respect to the USC research paper of lower socioeconomic neighborhoods in San Diego including the importance of first- and last-mile access.

Thanks to new services such as Uber and Lyft, the nation’s transit industry is fading away, leading some people to declare an “emergency.” In fact, we should rejoice ... Ridership declines have prompted transit consultant Jarrett Walker to argue that “city governments have an urgent imperative to do what’s necessary to make it attractive for people to use” transit. Walker apparently believes that cities exist for the benefit of transit systems, rather than the other way around.

What about growing congestion, Randal?

Nor does transit particularly relieve congestion or, as Jarrett Walker puts it, “use space efficiently.” In fact, transit often makes traffic worse: Lumbering buses, streetcars and light-rail trains usually contribute more to congestion than the few cars they take off the road.

While I haven't (yet) jumped on the O’Toole Train he is able to make more substantive and less ideological arguments here.

But life is rarely limited to just black and white and like Barack Obama I'm an 'all of the above' kind of guy.

[TakeFive]

Buses are going to save the world


Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry
April 25, 2018 by By Jeremy Hodges/Bloomberg

Electric buses were seen as a joke at an industry conference in Belgium seven years ago when the Chinese manufacturer BYD Co. showed an early model.

“Everyone was laughing at BYD for making a toy,” recalled Isbrand Ho, the Shenzhen-based company’s managing director in Europe. “And look now. Everyone has one.”

Where are we now? Btw, BYD is making RTD's electric buses for the 16th Street Mall. BYD was also featured when Warren Buffet flew to China and became a BYD investor a few years ago.

The numbers are staggering. China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Suddenly, buses with battery-powered motors are a serious matter with the potential to revolutionize city transport—and add to the forces reshaping the energy industry.

The energy industry; how so?

For every 1,000 battery-powered buses on the road, about 500 barrels a day of diesel fuel will be displaced from the market, according to BNEF calculations. This year, the volume of fuel not needed may rise 37 percent to 279,000 barrels a day because of electric transport including cars and light trucks, about as much oil as Greece consumes, according to BNEF. Buses account for about 233,000 barrels of that total.

[TakeFive]

The Perfect Storm that Cirrus warned about has landed in Seattle

$930 million Move Seattle levy falling behind on project promises, review finds
April 25, 2018 By David Gutman/Seattle Times staff reporter

Move Seattle, the $930 million transportation levy approved by Seattle voters in 2015, is falling behind on a number of its promised street and sidewalk improvements, and funding shortfalls will likely force some projects to be downsized or abandoned, according to a new review by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).

OMG, What went wrong?

The agency also undersold the costs of the projects it was promising during the push for public approval in 2015, SDOT officials said. “We do not have enough funding right now to do everything that was promised, we just don’t,” SDOT interim Director Goran Sparrman said Tuesday

For example...

For instance, the levy originally estimated that bike lanes would cost about $860,000 to build, per mile. While costs vary significantly by project, a nearly complete four-block extension of the Seventh Avenue protected bike lane through downtown has cost about $3.8 million to build, or nearly $13 million per mile.

The recently completed Second Avenue protected bike lane cost $12 million a mile, Sparrman said.

What about those new RapidRide routes that were planned.

The levy committed to transforming seven bus corridors into RapidRide lines, with bus-only lanes, priority for buses at traffic lights, roadside fare-card readers and electric arrival signs.

The new review says SDOT can do things like add card readers and arrival boards... “I thought the mayor was going to have a heart attack when I showed her,” he said.

What about those anticipated Federal grants?

SDOT officials said it’s not that funding has been cut, but that grant money isn’t being distributed as quickly by agencies like the Federal Transit Administration. SDOT originally estimated about $450 million in matching levy funds, but now says they’re estimating about half that.

This is interesting since last November Denver voters approved $937 million in bond funding for various projects about half of which were for transportation.

[TakeFive]

Followup of Nashville transit proposal vote

Nashville voters overwhelmingly reject transit referendum
May 1, 2018 by Joey Garrison, USA Today Network - Tennessee

Nashvillians resoundingly defeated a controversial plan that would have raised four taxes to fund a transit system anchored by light trail, voting against the historic referendum by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

It was a sweeping rejection, with only five of 35 Metro Council districts, covering parts of East Nashville, Inglewood, downtown, 12South and Belmont, voting for the referendum.

It turns out the Mr Fancy Pants from NYC, Jon Orcutt, may have led the effort to design a wonderful urban transit system but he's a lousy politician. The voter turnout was impressively large.

Actually, it's kinda sad since I'm sure a lot of hard work went into this and they had the backing of most of the business community and had great momentum coming out of the gate.

I checked into this recently to get a sense of things. Since this was a city center focused system they lost (apparently big) in the surrounding outlying areas.

The transit plan was successfully framed by skeptics as a project that primarily benefited downtown neighborhoods to address a traffic problem that is regional.

Sometimes politics creates the strangest bedfellows. In Nashville there was a lot of distrust among the minority community largely due to an organized anti-gentrification effort from a fear of TOD.

At times the transit fight exposed a sharp divide — one between younger Nashvillians flocking to gentrifying neighborhoods closer to downtown who have embraced the idea of transit and others who feel the transit plan went a step too far.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

It turns out the Mr Fancy Pants from NYC, Jon Orcutt, may have led the effort to design a wonderful urban transit system but he's a lousy politician. The voter turnout was impressively large.

You mean an overly ambitious transit plan that relied on massive tax increases who's main proponent resigned in disgrace for screwing here bodyguard was a risky proposition? Perish the thought.

The regressive sales tax increase alone on this proposal probably doomed it. It would have made Nashville extremely uncompetitive with surrounding municipalities.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

You mean an overly ambitious transit plan that relied on massive tax increases who's main proponent resigned in disgrace for screwing here bodyguard was a risky proposition? Perish the thought.

The regressive sales tax increase alone on this proposal probably doomed it. It would have made Nashville extremely uncompetitive with surrounding municipalities.

I recall now you had a laser beam focus on those sales taxes. Given that it was a veritable 'perfect storm' I think adding that to the mix of problems makes sense.

There was a lot of business and tourist focused taxes as well but they needed everybody to chip-in in some way. In hindsight they probably tried to do too much for their size and density.

There's an old saying in sales that says "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." We may decide to buy a new car for good reasons but what we actually buy has more to do with how much we like the sizzle.

Consider FasTracks. People bought the sizzle because they were getting steak. Trains were the sizzle and a majority felt they would get a benefit in that their city/county was part of the party.

Too many people in Nashvile, like a large majority (for an election) didn't feel like they were getting any benefit. If there's no steak why should they pay for somebody else's sizzle?

I wondered about Mayor Barry's mess but at the end of the day I believe it came down to old fashioned politics. Put simply "People vote their pocketbook" which encapsulates both of our views.

[TakeFive]

Interesting piece in the DBJ about crafting a transpotation bill. As always it's way too much about politics. The Aurora Sentinel put a nice wrap on the current state of things.

Democrats should be lauded [for] stepping up as the adults in the room and ensuring a roads bill doesn’t further jeopardize already ailing state education and health programs. But it may be time to get what we can for now, and come back for a better solution when the political weather at the Capitol is better.

Getting back to my poker game, the Republicans are still playing their cards of 'wanting what they want' and being childish. The Dems have called their bluff by being the adult and offering a reasonable compromise.

In simpler English, for the Republicans to get what they want they will have to support a Denver Chamber etal voter initiative to raise taxes and revenue in addition to what the legislature comes up with. Republicans fear it won't pass. Eh, what they really hate is supporting tax increases. Without their support, of course the initiative won't pass in all likelihood. Grow up Republicans, it's what you want that's on the line.

[Scottk]

So union station is now a homeless shelter?

And RTD has cut service so much that there is only 1 southbound train per hour on weeknights towards mineral ?

Is this serious ?


No wonder RTD is failing if they cannot even be bothered to operate somewhat frequent service on the light rail


And union station at night is now more dangerous than maket street station ever was?


Maybe if Bunt makes some condescending posts while cirrus supports him it will make it all better ?

[The Dirt]

Link to source?