DENVER | Transportation Thread

[Cirrus]

PS: If you want to learn more, the gold standard for US bikeway design is the beautifully-illustrated NACTO bikeway design guide.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by bobg

Prior to this bike lane that drop off zone was rarely used. Now it's magically overflowing with cabs/cars who frequently double park in the bike lane. To my knowledge no drop off zone was taken away nearby so it's interesting to see a bike lane encouraging usage of a drop off zone.

I think this could be said for our downtown streets in general. They used to be rarely used. Now they are magically overflowing with cabs/cars who frequently park...everywhere.

It might be because we're adding thousands upon thousands of downtown residents. And as popular as a Denver Urbanism post touting a 20% increase in bicycle mode share might be, it's still only a 2.9% mode share that bicycles are getting. I'll give you three guesses how most of those new central Denver residents are getting around. (Any developers here? You know, the ones who are still building more parking than the city requires... I bet they can answer correctly on their first guess.)

I got a good chuckle out of the 14th street bike lane this weekend. I think there is some truth to the notion that the bike lane is encouraging drop-off uses - you could see it clearly on 14th around the theaters and convention center. Where once upon a time, you'd be blocking a traffic lane and/or parking if you stopped - now there's a ton of space for it. There were cars, buses, you name it. The bike lane makes a perfect "sheltered" stopping place.

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

PLANSIT's answers to Ryan's questions are good. But there are some things about it we should talk about:

1. The red is unusual, but it's an interesting experiment. The normal way to do a buffer like that is just with white hashes. But maybe the red will be better, since it's more solid and different. I'm OK w/ it.

2. Do we know why they haven't put up some flexposts? I don't see any reason not to. Yes, you'd have to leave them out at the left turn mixing zones, but that's OK.

3. Speaking of the left turn mixing zones, they're OK in principle, but the design is weird. The standard way to do that looks like this (left instead of right, but you get the idea). Cycletrack design is still an emerging field and there are alternate mixing zone designs floating around out there. But the advantage of the standard one is it makes it completely clear that car drivers are supposed yield before entering the bike lane. The Denver design looks like any regular lane, so it's easier for drivers to forget bikes are there and merge over at higher speeds without looking to yield. It's not as good.

1. Denver uses white hashes for previous iterations of buffered lanes. The red was an experiment.

2. As stated, the whole corridor will get flexposts in the spring.

3. Both of those examples are wider than what the city had. City had about 11ft to work with. The first example you show looks upwards of 20ft.

Although, I do like the second example. It looks as though they narrowed the adjacent traffic lane as it approached the intersection, giving the mixing zone an extra couple of feet to allow for the green lane on the right. I like it. Edit: Doing some digging, they had about 14 ft for their mixing zone.

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I think this could be said for our downtown streets in general. They used to be rarely used. Now they are magically overflowing with cabs/cars who frequently park...everywhere.

It might be because we're adding thousands upon thousands of downtown residents. And as popular as a Denver Urbanism post touting a 20% increase in bicycle mode share might be, it's still only a 2.9% mode share that bicycles are getting. I'll give you three guesses how most of those new central Denver residents are getting around. (Any developers here? You know, the ones who are still building more parking than the city requires... I bet they can answer correctly on their first guess.)

I got a good chuckle out of the 14th street bike lane this weekend. I think there is some truth to the notion that the bike lane is encouraging drop-off uses - you could see it clearly on 14th around the theaters and convention center. Where once upon a time, you'd be blocking a traffic lane and/or parking if you stopped - now there's a ton of space for it. There were cars, buses, you name it. The bike lane makes a perfect "sheltered" stopping place.

There's a growing desire to move the bike lane on 14th to the left (possibly protected) based on the issues you've just raised.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by PLANSIT

There's a growing desire to move the bike lane on 14th to the left (possibly protected) based on the issues you've just raised.

Of course there is. But I'll bet nobody has given any thought to the possibility that maybe it's indicative of a need to accommodate car/drop-offs better. Because that's not the "favored use." Reality is a real bugger.

[Cirrus]

OK. How shall we accommodate car drop-offs better? We could:

1. Suburbanize all new buildings with larger setbacks to accommodate off-street parking lots, ruining the walkability of the city.
2. Designate curb space on every block as short-term loading zones, dramatically reducing the amount of on-street parallel parking.
3. Eliminate the right-most travel lane and designate it as a loading lane, leaving with 1 or 2 fewer through lanes on every street.
4. Put up barriers or ticket cameras where you really don't want people to double park, and accept that people will do it everywhere else.

Some combination of #2 and #4 is the usual answer. If anyone has better ideas, I'm all ears.

[PLANSIT]

There is already a drop-off/unloading zone along 14th in front of the Convention Center. I guess Bunt is advocating for more?

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by PLANSIT

2. As stated, the whole corridor will get flexposts in the spring.

Oh sorry, I missed that.

3. Both of those examples are wider than what the city had. City had about 11ft to work with. The first example you show looks upwards of 20ft. 2nd example had about 14 ft.

Fair point. So, in that case, that's where I'd have used more green.

I'm not down on the design at all. It's a good progressive step forward, and most of the weird issues with it are either useful experiments or explainable in context. I also admit that yourRyan's pictures are the best look I've gotten of it. But mixing zones are tricky, and I think better markings there is a valid criticism. For the record, I made the same comment when DC opened its most recent one.

[bobg]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I think this could be said for our downtown streets in general. They used to be rarely used. Now they are magically overflowing with cabs/cars who frequently park...everywhere.

It might be because we're adding thousands upon thousands of downtown residents. And as popular as a Denver Urbanism post touting a 20% increase in bicycle mode share might be, it's still only a 2.9% mode share that bicycles are getting. I'll give you three guesses how most of those new central Denver residents are getting around. (Any developers here? You know, the ones who are still building more parking than the city requires... I bet they can answer correctly on their first guess.)

I got a good chuckle out of the 14th street bike lane this weekend. I think there is some truth to the notion that the bike lane is encouraging drop-off uses - you could see it clearly on 14th around the theaters and convention center. Where once upon a time, you'd be blocking a traffic lane and/or parking if you stopped - now there's a ton of space for it. There were cars, buses, you name it. The bike lane makes a perfect "sheltered" stopping place.

To my knowledge Brooks Tower hasn't added units so I am not sure that more residents in downtown accounts for the increased utilization of the drop off zone in front of Brooks Tower.

Yes 14th had a few errors. The biggest one IMO is they took away a drop off area right in front of the DCPA and replaced it with a bike lane and wider sidewalk. Shockingly[Sarcasm] people still use the bike lane where the drop off zone used to be as a drop off zone. I think moving the bike lane to the left as has been mentioned, and restoring that drop off area would help with the DCPA.

The convention center on the other hand just needs a better system for dealing with the cabs, as they are not just blocking the bike lane. During some of the larger conventions I have seen cabs block Stout, car lanes on 14th and even the LRT. IMO they need to use one of the unused loading areas on Stout or Welton as a cab staging area so they are not clogging up 14th fighting over the dozens of spaces in front of the convention center. They could also free up more space on 14th for other cars picking up and dropping off people as cabs would need less space on 14th to wait. Of course that would require resources to enforce the cabs going to the staging area first so unless there's some way to recoup that cost it isn't likely to be done.

[PLANSIT]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Oh sorry, I missed that.

Fair point. So, in that case, that's where I'd have used more green.

I'm not down on the design at all. It's a good progressive step forward, and most of the weird issues with it are either useful experiments or explainable in context. I also admit that your pictures are the best look I've gotten of it. But mixing zones are tricky, and I think better markings there is a valid criticism. For the record, I made the same comment when DC opened its most recent one.

Oh, no doubt. I think mixing zones are still a big issue moving forward. I think the city will take what they've learned here and apply it to the next one and/or look for an opportunity to improve the current design.

Thanks for the examples BTW, always nice to see additional images of things in practice. Gives better perspective of use.

[Cirrus]

From RTD's flickr account:


link


link

[bcp]

those are badass...cant wait to see silver / steel trains in Denver!

maybe they will paint (or strip down) the rest of the livery to match

[bunt_q]

Those trains are super sexy.

I just got this email, thought others might be interested (probably not allowed to share, but oh well). If you don't have a Car2Go membership, this is effectively them paying you to sign up:

For a limited time get a car2go Exclusive Membership and 30 minutes of drive time for only $10 with promo code CAR2GOLIFE. Don't wait; this offer is valid only for a limited time.

[bobg]

I only signed up to Car2go because B-cycle had a code for a free 45 minutes and free registration (unfortunately it expired). I wonder if this is their standard marketing strategy for every city Car2go enters in or if we are just having a slower than expected adoption rate. Anecdotally I only know one person who uses it with any degree of regularity in spite of almost everyone I know fitting the target demographics/psychographics.

[bunt_q]

I know people who use it. Maybe when the weather sets in and people realize riding a bicycle sucks. And that you look ridiculous doing it. Even more ridiculous than driving a smart car.

[bcp]

HA...those b-cycle bikes are a bit awkward to ride....

I love car2go...use it at least 1/week instead of a cab.

[RyanD]

I use both B-Cycle and Car2Go.. I love both.. Since June 30th I've done around 175 miles on B-Cycle which is quite a lot considering you have to stay in the city and joy rides aren't really encouraged due to time restrictions.. Car2Go is just.. Fun. I use it to get to work sometimes (~97 cents to get there), and if I'm feeling lazy and am in like Jefferson Park, I'll take it home.

[Interzen]

Originally Posted by RyanD

.. Car2Go is just.. Fun. I use it to get to work sometimes (~97 cents to get there), and if I'm feeling lazy and am in like Jefferson Park, I'll take it home.

97 cents?! It seems to cost me that much just to get through the unlock,enter condition, end trip and re-lock process. I think the least expensive trip I've made so far was $1.86. I'm going to have to work on my times and see if I can decrease the overhead a bit.

[Brainpathology]

Originally Posted by bcp

chris - can you comment on the accuracy of the above statement? what RTD elements will be in the historic station? I seem to recall hearing about ticket sales for RTD, info counter and a big-board..

Close enough to 0 that if I ever live in Denver again (and I plan to) I will never be voting for any bond/borrowing/taxing measure put forth by RTD again. And they aren't alone. I'll never support tax money for a stadium again either (if they can sell the name of the stadium to whatever private interest they want then they can find all private money to build the next one).

At least when I buy a car the car doesn't change to a different model sometime after I drive off the lot which ignores everything I went into the lot looking for in the first place.

[bunt_q]

Not sure that's true. My mother's midlife crisis Mercedes stopped being a Mercedes when it left the lot. Now it looks like every other white lemon sitting dead on the side of the highway.

They're talking about the northwest rail line on the radio. Numbers they are using are $1.4 billion to build it, projected ridership of 8,900. I won't say I will never vote for an RTD initiative again, but I will certainly require a bit more persuasion than somebody like me should. You could build a lot of streetcar for $1.4 billion... and since that ridership is one-third of a Colfax bus, I don't need very sophisticated modeling to know the streetcar would provide better value. We have to draw the line on "something for everybody" somewhere. I'm not sure that is much better than a bridge to an Alaskan island, and nobody seems to question cutting that.

My crotchety no vote of the year will be on a billion dollars for schools. The last thing we need is to pump another billion dollars into schools. If parents give a damn, their kids can do just fine in the schools we have. And if they don't give a damn, no amount of money is going to make a difference. Americans seem to think that if we throw enough money at intractable problems, they will fix themselves. That hasn't worked yet.