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  #11021  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2018, 8:36 PM
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Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
I don't think so. If anything they may be reducing it to "park-and-ride-based systems are bad and walkable systems are good."
Nope... but true that's a part of it. Here's what irritates.

Streetsblog is certainly an 'echochamber.' Agree? Agreed! It's not the substance that bothers me and I still can learn from that. For example, sidewalks is a cause-celebre. All my long life I've scarcely given sidewalks a passing thought. But I've come to see the wisdom so I'm still learning. At the least I'm like OK, knock yourself out over sidewalks and certainly within the city center it makes lots of sense.

It's not the substance but the style that irritates. As a member or at least consistent with Streetsblog thought you prolly don't even see it.

The strategic approach in the Streetsblog echochamber is right out of the 'talk radio' playbook; it's a carbon copy. Especially for its two stars, Angie Schmitt and David Sachs.

First thing is to identify a boogieman and then proceed to denigrate and destroy it. Then offer a talking points magical fix. All you have to do is spend a gazillion $'s and trust them. And just like Talk Radio there's no compromising and "one size fits all." The only difference between Angie and Sachs and Sean Hannity is topic and medium (and paycheck). The propaganda formula is otherwise the same and I find both irritating. I'm old fashioned and prefer reporting with integrity, not half-baked presumptions and misleading, cherry picked 'facts' used to connect dots that don't.

BTW, how timely is my Nine Mile Park N Ride solution? Point being that many places, like Denver don't have the needed density - yet. So if Park N Rides help to solve that critical first and last mile access, then they're important until the requisite, preferred density arrives.
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  #11022  
Old Posted Jan 9, 2018, 5:32 PM
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My gosh it's now 2018?
Yup
Must mean we have an election coming?
Yup

Colorado Senate Republicans will introduce road-bonding bill on Legislature's 1st day
Jan 8, 2018 By Ed Sealover - DBJ
Quote:
Because of the improving economy and federal tax reform, Colorado is expected to bring in as much as $1 billion more in uncommitted funds between this current fiscal year and the fiscal year that begins on Jan. 1 — and Grantham said a significant portion of that money should be going toward the $9 billion backlog in transportation needs that the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) projects over the next 10 years.
Republicans are trying to put Dems into a road-building box and for the first time in a long time there's excess money in the legislature to make their case to the voters. Problem is they want to seek voter approval for ~$3.5 billion in bonding while committing the legislature to the 30-year payback. To be fair "no new taxes" is an easy sell if this gets to the voters.

We've seen this song and dance before and Dems will never agree nor should they. Interestingly most of the backlog of projects is outside of Denver. While they deserve their turn this dog won't fly.

Political strategy and nothing more?
Yup

As Colorado/Denver becomes ever more liberal, many Republicans are betting that they can present the more centrist and electable candidate. No doubt AG Cynthia Coffman could have wide appeal to voters but the question is could the Republican 'core' of primary voters fall in love with centrist Cynthia?

So once again needed transportation funding falls victim to stupid politics?
Yup
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  #11023  
Old Posted Jan 9, 2018, 8:40 PM
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Originally Posted by TakeFive
The propaganda formula is otherwise the same and I find both irritating.
Certainly echo chambers can be bad. But 1) I don't think Angie is the same as David, and 2) The Streetsblogs of the world aren't really there for convincing moderates. They're home base for true believers.

To make an analogy, sending an atheist to Sunday church would probably just piss the atheist off, but Christians enjoy church and find it useful. So home base is not itself so much the problem as people's increasing ability to close of outside voices. If you never leave church then you end up thinking a lot of socially unacceptable things. And if you never leave Streetsblog it's the same. Please note I am not calling urbanists a religion. It's an analogy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TakeFive
if Park N Rides help to solve that critical first and last mile access, then they're important until the requisite, preferred density arrives.
You're being too reductionist with the park-and-ride thing. Even most hard core urbanists agree that *some* park-and-rides make sense. Most end-line stations should be PnRs, as well as occasional stations where major highways come together. Any *big* PnR is probably OK. The problem is the little ones.

The problem is putting a tiny PnR every half mile and thus making it harder for people to walk or for TOD to happen at all those stations, when drivers could just as easily drive to a single big PnR 2 miles away. Yeah, you want drivers to be able to get there, but you accomplish that at strategic locations rather than assuming it by default for all/most stations. And you *definitely* shouldn't decide the route of your entire line based on the assumption that every station should have a PnR (or if you do, you space the stations further apart and use diesel trains).

Yes, it's true that sometimes you can use a PnR as land bank until TOD is practical. But that's both wasteful and risky. The land would be used for TOD sooner if it didn't have the transit agency middle man, and oftentimes neighborhood politicians (or the DOT itself) won't let the PnR go once its there. They say "it's always full, you can't reduce parking!" But it's full because it's tiny, and meanwhile the gigantic PnR a mile away that takes 5 minutes longer to drive to has 1,000 empty spaces.

So Denver's problem isn't exactly that it has park-and-rides. It's that we built lines using a train type and station-spacing that's optimized for pedestrians, but put lines in locations and oriented the stations around driving. The result is a system that doesn't work particularly well for either drivers (it's too slow) or pedestrians (it's too hard to access). This is why I say we'd have used DMU and had fewer stops if we did it all over again.
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  #11024  
Old Posted Jan 9, 2018, 10:46 PM
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So Denver's problem isn't exactly that it has park-and-rides. It's that we built lines using a train type and station-spacing that's optimized for pedestrians, but put lines in locations and oriented the stations around driving. The result is a system that doesn't work particularly well for either drivers (it's too slow) or pedestrians (it's too hard to access). This is why I say we'd have used DMU and had fewer stops if we did it all over again.
I totally agree and back when I was doing part-time consulting on the SW Corridor I even suggested DMU's as opposed to electric LRT but RTD seemed to be stuck on the LRT scenario at the time (at that time Dallas was buying 13 RDC's-Rail Diesel self-propelled Cars from Via Rail Canada and refurbishing them for use on the Trinity rail line and I thought why not do some of these on the SW Corridor as well-would have saved some $$$).

Last edited by CastleScott; Jan 10, 2018 at 7:33 AM.
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  #11025  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2018, 1:05 AM
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Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
Certainly echo chambers can be bad. But 1) I don't think Angie is the same as David, and 2) The Streetsblogs of the world aren't really there for convincing moderates. They're home base for true believers.
Couple of points: I'm experiencing some short-term memory loss. Partly it's typical of my age and partly it's hereditary. Not important particularly but I enjoy blogging partly to keep my analytical skills up. I also enjoy keeping my critical thinking skills sharp so I'm prolly more sensitive than the average bear.

Since I know Denver well when Sachs states something that seems 'to me' blatantly disingenuous and wrong I can't help asking myself "If your cause is worthwhile then why not use arguments that can stand up to sunshine?"

Ofc when I ask myself how many Sean Hannity fans ever fact-check one thing he says, I know the answer is virtually zero.

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Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
Even most hard core urbanists agree that *some* park-and-rides make sense.
Does that happen in private?

What's a bit interesting is that while I've got you in one ear I've got USC professor Marlon Boarnet in my other. Accessibility to light rail and how we get ridership up is an obsession. Wishing the system were different won't solve anything and this is solvable. I figure 95% of the population has never tried light rail or there may be some who've tried it but don't otherwise have good access.

Well this is cool. I wanted to double-check the parking at Florida on the R Line, thinking there is none although the ridership is decent. RTD has this format that I found that provides an easy bullet-point description of each station. Since it's the R Line it also shows (many) SE Corridor stations as well. Hopefully they'll do this for all the lines; tried the W Line and nope.

I quickly can see that Nine Mile has 10 bus routes feeding into it. No wonder it does so well; I had guessed as much but now I can see the info w/o more tedious searching. Peoria is served by ony four buses so the fact that (not counting DUS) it's now the 5th busiest station is especially impressive. Florida has no parking and only one bus so coming in 29th out of 59 stations is mighty respectable. It is now the end of the H Line station.

Going through various stations in my mind, it seems to me that some stations that should or could become walkable (to use the proper buzzword) just haven't gotten there. I think or assume it's just going to take more time.
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  #11026  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2018, 4:00 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TakeFive
Wishing the system were different won't solve anything
No, but it sure is instructive when other cities plan their own systems. We all learn from each other.
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  #11027  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2018, 11:12 PM
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No, but it sure is instructive when other cities plan their own systems. We all learn from each other.
Hmm, yes and no; no for many reasons. Just a couple:

How does one judge RTD's rail system before it's had the 15 years it needs to season?

Every place is unique and has it's own issues.
Consider transit sweetheart Portland for example. It's a fiefdom and doesn't need voter approval. Plus the esteemed transit guru lives among them so they pretty much could take a carte blanche approach. Yet, today they're dealing with problems and issues that were not anticipated. BTW, I like Jarret; he tends to be non-judgmental and respect that every place is unique with different challenges.

What about most places that need voter approval? How many transit systems didn't take advantage of low hanging fruit of existing ROW's if they made any sense at all?

Everybody's entitled to be a critic but I have a high degree of confidence that in 15 years Denver will once again by the apple of everybody's eye.
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  #11028  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2018, 11:38 PM
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APTA has new numbers

The 3rd quarter's star has to be DC with an amazing 47.5% light rail ridership increase and over 75% YTD. Word on the street, in fact the whisper is spreading that it's all about Malouff Magic.

Not to be overshadowed, Denver's commuter rail is up a healthy 23% for the quarter and up 90% YTD.

Denver's light rail ridership is up a respectable 5.6% in the 3rd quarter after an awful start to the year leaving it down less than 2% for the year.

Denver bus ridership is down exactly 5% for the quarter which was exactly the average of all reports. The seasoned DC bus system was down a plump 8.55%.

Phoenix was once again one of the few (four) on the positive side rising 6.41% for the quarter. This goes to their 2015 voter approved $17 billion Prop Transportation 2050. Bus darling Houston was down 8%.
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Last edited by TakeFive; Jan 11, 2018 at 12:25 AM.
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  #11029  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2018, 3:33 AM
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Inspiration from Seattle?

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Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
Ouch.
This is the transit system they are recommending Nashville model theirs after?

"Seattle's S.L.U.T. Streetcar Causing a Stir"
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/20841428/n.../#.WlPmVKom7mI

Think we should look at the recent RTD survey of passengers think of Denver's transit systems.

"RTD says ‘passengers are extremely happy with our services’"
https://www.denverite.com/rtd-says-p...3/?src=parsely
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  #11030  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2018, 4:04 AM
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The SLUT is almost irrelevant to a discussion of Seattle transit. If you want to copy something, copy the idea that rail goes through neighborhoods (albeit at astonishing cost when it's tunnels), and buses might be the best in any non-obvious US city.

As for Portland, nice system in some ways, but its commute shares are fairly low.
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  #11031  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2018, 4:08 AM
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Originally Posted by HighRanch View Post
This is the transit system they are recommending Nashville model theirs after?

"Seattle's S.L.U.T. Streetcar Causing a Stir"
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/20841428/n.../#.WlPmVKom7mI

Think we should look at the recent RTD survey of passengers think of Denver's transit systems.

"RTD says ‘passengers are extremely happy with our services’"
https://www.denverite.com/rtd-says-p...3/?src=parsely
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  #11032  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2018, 4:32 PM
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Yeah, saying Seattle is bad because of the SLUT is like saying Denver's bad because nobody uses Mile High light rail station at rush hour. It's missing the forest to focus on one tree.

But yes, hello.

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  #11033  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2018, 5:07 PM
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Originally Posted by HighRanch View Post
Think we should look at the recent RTD survey of passengers think of Denver's transit systems.

"RTD says ‘passengers are extremely happy with our services’"
https://www.denverite.com/rtd-says-p...3/?src=parsely
Interesting breakdown of the respondents demographics. Seems like it models RTD's commuter lines pretty well, but missed the mark on local and limited route ridership.

So, RTD is pretty good at getting choice commuters to their workplace from Park-n-Rides according to these riders, but it misses how people who ride 'da bus feel.

Oh, welcome.
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  #11034  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2018, 5:22 PM
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A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

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Rapidly rising US construction costs, especially for transit, are a big problem. There's not a simple or easy solution. As far as I can tell it's a perfect storm of like a dozen different issues.
It's been a long time since we've experienced 'meaningful' inflation but it's possible that you "ain't seen nothing yet."

In recent years there were always global soft spots: Southern Europe, So America especially Brazil (nobody cares about Venuelaza) Russia etc. Now the whole globe is at least stable, doing Okay and Euro countries, especially Germany are saying that their manufacturing capacity is "constrained" meaning they have little ability to handle increased orders - beyond normal. In the U.S. it was the energy patch and farming that were soft.

Commodities have been in a slow crawl upward for an extended period now. Crude oil has been rising at a energetic pace of late. Copper and other (industrial) metals are at their highest in several years and rising.

Should voters give Nashville the go-ahead I see light rail costs of $250 million per mile. That means they would need 4X the ridership as RTD for the same ridership return on investment.

Bird in the hand, my friend, bird in the hand.
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  #11035  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2018, 8:13 PM
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Props to Ashley Dean at Denverite

For the 1st time - at least for me - she does a fine job of explaining RTD's fares and pass programs and the changes being contemplated. She constructively adds context too. It's a good read.
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  #11036  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2018, 8:52 PM
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Exciting news for Denver - LH DEN-MUC is switching partially to the A350-900 on March 26th. I am not sure if this is replacing the A340s on certain days or A330s on certain days, or if it's every day. But it will still bring a capacity increase. First scheduled A350 in DEN!
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  #11037  
Old Posted Jan 12, 2018, 1:17 AM
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Exciting news for Denver - LH DEN-MUC is switching partially to the A350-900 on March 26th. I am not sure if this is replacing the A340s on certain days or A330s on certain days, or if it's every day. But it will still bring a capacity increase. First scheduled A350 in DEN!
Wow. We need more DC-10s in Denver. @ChristopherHerndon and @StacieGilmore and their gradual phase-in of A-350 service to daily service by July are taking Denver in the wrong direction. Old planes need to be utilized!
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  #11038  
Old Posted Jan 12, 2018, 8:42 PM
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Wow. We need more DC-10s in Denver. @ChristopherHerndon and @StacieGilmore and their gradual phase-in of A-350 service to daily service by July are taking Denver in the wrong direction. Old planes need to be utilized!
I agree too! Too bad that FEDEX, UPS and the Forest Service has bought up so many of em (here in Sac I see the Air Force's DC-10 refueling tanker do touch and goes at the Sacramento airport on occasions).
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  #11039  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2018, 6:55 PM
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SB18-001:Transportation Infrastructure Funding


Quote:
Originally Posted by SB18-001
Concerning transportation infrastructure funding, and, in connection therewith, requiring the transportation commission to submit a ballot question to the voters of the state at the November 2018 general election, which, if approved, would authorize the state, with no increase in any taxes, to issue additional transportation revenue anticipation notes for the purpose of addressing critical priority transportation needs in the state by funding transportation projects; would exclude note proceeds and investment earnings on note proceeds from state fiscal year spending limits; would repeal an existing requirement that the state treasurer execute lease-purchase agreements for the purpose of funding transportation projects; and would require ten percent of state sales and use tax net revenue to be credited to the state highway fund for the purpose of repaying any notes issued and funding transportation projects.
All Republican sponsorship on the bill. So this probably dies or changes significantly once it hits the House, especially with House Democrats saying that the new tax windfall needs to cover education and other state expenses. The tax windfall can be up to $300 million a year, and the Republicans want to spend a large chunk of it, and possibly all of it, on road bonds.

CPR write-up

DBJ write-up

Denver Post write-up

Western Slope Now write-up
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Last edited by seventwenty; Jan 15, 2018 at 7:10 PM.
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  #11040  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2018, 8:26 PM
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A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
- Some proverb


Of course, that's true for transit too. And zoning and pollution and schools and lots of other things.

Absolutely give Denver credit for starting when Denver did. Of course, starting 20 years earlier would've been better still. And 20 years from now, if Nashville's thing gets built, we'll be praising them for doing it in 2018 while dumb dumb Memphis dilly-dallied until 2038.

But that point's not super relevant to the quality of what gets built, except to the extent that cities are influenced by federal design guidelines. The various criticisms and praises are all still true. And if we don't talk about them, we don't learn to do things better over time.
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