DENVER | Transportation Thread

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I think labeling the hospitals wrong goes to show you how rushed this decision was on RTD's part. They didn't even have time to take stock of what they might be missing by relocating the line.

True, though I was referring to the girl you've been dating. Can't walk a 1/2 mile through what is mostly a campus setting? That's weak.

[bunt_q]

Nothing north of the old hospital building is a campus setting. It's actually quite desolate. I might not walk it either. It certainly doesn't give the impression of being safe.

[Brainpathology]

Nothing between any of the hospitals is a campus setting. The in-between spaces are all desolate. It wasn't all THAT pleasant just to walk from CHC to University Hospital. Or to Building 500 or to anything else. There needs to be serious work on that "campus" to make it seem friendly to walk anywhere let alone down Colfax a couple blocks from the station.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Nothing north of the old hospital building is a campus setting. It's actually quite desolate. I might not walk it either. It certainly doesn't give the impression of being safe.

I spent a few years around that area and I actually think that the walkability has gotten worse as the reconfiguration of the streets north of Building 500 have been cut off and haven't been rebuilt. Hopefully it get rectified in the next couple of years as it's been pretty lousy for the last five years. But unsafe? If a two-hundred foot walk from an apartment complex to the medical school by a couple of empty lots makes it feel unsafe than we might as well just give up Fitzsimmons to Phoenix now.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

But unsafe? If a two-hundred foot walk from an apartment complex to the medical school by a couple of empty lots makes it feel unsafe than we might as well just give up Fitzsimmons to Phoenix now.

It's actually about a 4,000 foot walk. And if I were a young woman, I'd think twice before walking 400 feet across any empty field in Aurora. If girls can get raped in the middle of the CU campus in Boulder, with blue phones every 50 feet and people everywhere, it doesn't seem unreasonable to think it might happen behind a derelict old building, between a surface parking lot and a half-built VA hospital, three blocks off east Colfax.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

It's actually about a 4,000 foot walk. And if I were a young woman, I'd think twice before walking 400 feet across any empty field in Aurora. If girls can get raped in the middle of the CU campus in Boulder, with blue phones every 50 feet and people everywhere, it doesn't seem unreasonable to think it might happen behind a derelict old building, between a surface parking lot and a half-built VA hospital, three blocks off east Colfax.

Well one location is full of the worse kind of people imaginable who think that they are above of law, provide no benefit to society, and should be kept away from the rest of society by any means possible.

The other is a medical school.

[PLANSIT]

Hmm. Look what we have here...

Local transit, affordable housing, planners top Denver City Council budget priorities

Near the end of a five-hour annual budget retreat Friday, the Denver City Council had whittled down dozens of members’ pet issues to 18 priorities. All they had to do was rank them before submitting the list to Mayor Michael Hancock’s office and to city agencies as city officials begin working on the 2015 budget in coming months.

Easier said than done. Some of the 12 members present in the McNichols Civic Center Building, including Paul Lopez, suggested that narrowing the list further would do a disservice to the city’s 600,000-plus residents, since many might favor lower-ranked issues as important. In the end, they filled out paper scoring ballots — assigning each issue 0 to 18 points, with the total points determining rankings — with the understanding that even lower-ranked priorities still would get sent to the agencies.

Topping today’s list: Local transit. President Mary Beth Susman is among many of the members who are urging Denver Public Works to carve out money in next year’s budget to study ways to connect Regional Transportation District transit routes with Denver neighborhoods and destinations that are far away from them. And they want the city to examine potential ways to pay for local routes that might be covered by streetcars, more frequent buses or other transit modes.

Denver Post Article/Blog

[bcp]

they've been reading the forum..clearly...nice start!

[bobg]

Or some of us on this forum have been talking to our council persons rather than moaning on and on about the tyranny of the cycling lobby.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by bobg

Or some of us on this forum have been talking to our council persons rather than moaning on and on about the tyranny of the cycling lobby.

Some of us on this forum are capable of multi-tasking.

[bobg]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Some of us on this forum are capable of multi-tasking.

That explains why the quality of your anti-cycling rants went down to the point they were no longer worth arguing.

[bobg]

Anyone know why Morrison Rd is on the DP's list of busy corridors Denver might want to focus on? Is that just Paul Lopez pushing it at that meeting or is there something behind that transit wise?

[seventwenty]

Originally Posted by bobg

Anyone know why Morrison Rd is on the DP's list of busy corridors Denver might want to focus on? Is that just Paul Lopez pushing it at that meeting or is there something behind that transit wise?

Dunno. We're too busy focused on bicycles.

[The Dirt]

Anyone else going to the RTD meeting tonight at the Stapleton library to see the final design for the Central Park (aka Stapleton) station? It sounds like the biggest change is the configuration of the parking structure but, I'm curious if RTD will present an updated conceptual future phase plan.

[idiot206]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

This is nonsense. Both the US and world are full of streetcar lines that are not in wealthy, white, millenial-dominated locations. The only way to claim otherwise is to ignore everything except Portland and Seattle, which would be disingenuous and misleading in the extreme. I'll be happy to provide examples if you like.

Both Seattle and Portland are disproportionately wealthy, white and millennial-dominated just about anywhere within city limits.

That said, Seattle's First Hill streetcar opening this year goes through Pioneer Square, Chinatown, Little Saigon and Yesler Terrace - some of the poorest and most diverse parts of the city. The Link train made an expensive and time-consuming detour through the Rainier Valley on the way to SeaTac specifically to serve the poorest quadrant of the city (and the most diverse zip code in the U.S., they claim).

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by idiot206

Both Seattle and Portland are disproportionately wealthy, white and millennial-dominated just about anywhere within city limits.

That said, Seattle's First Hill streetcar opening this year goes through Pioneer Square, Chinatown, Little Saigon and Yesler Terrace - some of the poorest and most diverse parts of the city. The Link train made an expensive and time-consuming detour through the Rainier Valley on the way to SeaTac specifically to serve the poorest quadrant of the city (and the most diverse zip code in the U.S., they claim).

Political compromise can produce weird results. In order to gain support from one or more city council members, cities often will have to create a least a light rail or a street car segment that might serve a given ethnic set of demographics in order to get approval for the bigger package.

This type of practice is inevitable in city, country, and, metro level transportation projects as the fundament driving forces are political donors and voters. Donors seek to increase the value of their investments through route positioning and station location. Likewise, the lower classes want routing and station locations in their neighborhoods. Regrettably, the resulting compromise often produces mediocre route layout and station location.

Lost in the process is the age old thesis of building infrastructural that will either make money on receipts alone or, when combined with tax subsidy.

[idiot206]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

Political compromise can produce weird results. In order to gain support from one or more city council members, cities often will have to create a least a light rail or a street car segment that might serve a given ethnic set of demographics in order to get approval for the bigger package.

This type of practice is inevitable in city, country, and, metro level transportation projects as the fundament driving forces are political donors and voters. Donors seek to increase the value of their investments through route positioning and station location. Likewise, the lower classes want routing and station locations in their neighborhoods. Regrettably, the resulting compromise often produces mediocre route layout and station location.

Lost in the process is the age old thesis of building infrastructural that will either make money on receipts alone or, when combined with tax subsidy.

I actually believe running the Link train through the Rainier Valley was a good decision. My only regret is that it's not tunneled or elevated. This is one of the few at-grade sections of Link.

[Brainpathology]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

This type of practice is inevitable in city, country, and, metro level transportation projects as the fundament driving forces are political donors and voters. Donors seek to increase the value of their investments through route positioning and station location. Likewise, the lower classes want routing and station locations in their neighborhoods. Regrettably, the resulting compromise often produces mediocre route layout and station location.

Gerrymeandering?

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Brainpathology

Gerrymeandering?

Awesome. I am stealing this.

[Brainpathology]

It's so obvious a pun I seriously doubt I'm the first person to use that word. Feel free to steal it though!