Quote:
Originally Posted by CharlesCO
These rants are commonplace over in the Denver forums— fanciful ideas that are based on theory but offer no realistic responses to the very real transit and budget problems that we're all trying to address. At least not everyone over there thinks this way.
But your points are absolutely correct. The Bay Area's problems are very different from Denver— there's incredible demand for rapid transit in the Bay Area, and there's not enough of it to go around. San Francisco is figuring out how to manage so many transit riders, while Denver is just trying to figure out how to attract them. RTD is to today what BART likely was in the early 1970s, but at least I'm confident that Denver (among other cities) has learned from BART's many early mistakes. RTD has chosen to go with inexpensive, off-the-shelf technology, and RTD has chosen appropriate gauges for each corridor. The Denver airport line actually makes some sense, and Denver doesn't have the huge geographic problems that the Bay Area has to encounter. RTD is incredibly frustrating at times, especially for us transit boosters who often get dismayed by their compromises, and suburban extensions are being built at the expense of more attention to central Denver, but overall, I think RTD is a very pragmatic agency.
Calling for a second Transbay Tube is not unlike the discussion of a subway down the 16th Street Mall— both are projects that will have a huge, positive impact on transit ridership and will likely happen sometime in our lifetimes (or at least mine), but both are irrelevant to the problems that we need to address in the next 2-3 decades. While BART management still seems to be delusional in continuing billowing projects in the suburbs, some of their other projects and proposals will certainly make BART more efficient at the core, and at somewhat reasonable pricetags. |
I have to disagree with many of your assertions here.
A) BART was designed as an integrated system, such as it is, and, remains in a superior league from RTD's system. BART is a unique system that bears more resemblance to modern systems built in East Asia, than to US systems such as RTD.
B) Unlike BART in SF and Oakland, RTD's Denver urban core facilities and track were (and are being) built on what was a very large vacant railroad yard in 1988. The opportunity to provide to for future same seat boarding and platform to platform transfer was not lost due to huge costs associated with tearing down existing buildings or building an underground NYC style complex*. Instead, the station complex was put in a minimal footprint as part of a master development involving new streets, sewer, water, etc., covering many acres. In the new Denver Union Station complex, a user will have to walk 350 meters through an underground bus station to travel either south or east/northwest through the station (from the heavy rail complex covering east and northwest to the light rail covering points south, southeast, southwest, and, west).
C) RTD, was forced to make multiple route-changes to facilitate future property development, again in this vacant railroad, to maximize the future growth potential of AEG (those of you in LA and Sacramento know this business) as well as to accommodate secondary property moves by the Auraria educational complex and other property developers.
Lessons that SF and Oakland should learn from RTD
1) There are great efficiency perils when publicly funded transportation either chooses to, or is forced to, deal with very deep pocketed property developers. While short term bottom line costs appear to drop, longer term problems such as misaligned right of way, poor station foot-print and design, and poor branch to main track switching not only can take away short term benefit, but will end up costing huge amounts of additional monies down the line. In addition, infrastructural improvements directly relating to improving the value of property adjacent and close to transit properties; such as new storm sewers, fresh water lines, buried power lines, streets, and, sidewalks will tend to be rolled into project costs.
2) Engage in continuous public discussion and put long term pressure on politicians. While this appears obvious, too often the end product of discussion is a third rate product based on what the 'few' want, rather than public need. Too often the 'ideal system design', while presented as one of multiple proposals, is discarded and a least effective design choice made after much 'song and dance.' Politicians count on the public loosing interest and that legal challenges to their preferred plans will fail, as most court challenges seem to be raised by idealists with little money.**
3) Often in the case of 3rd tier steel rail transit in smaller metro areas or in small cities in a metro area outside the multicounty transit system, transit engineers and planners seem to be fairly unaware of systems being built internationally. Instead, most seem to go with those equipment suppliers whose products have already been used, such as Siemens, and copy too many design aspects from transit operations on which equipment vendor vehicles, signally systems, etc., operate. By doing so, engineers and planners are steered towards building a "second" San Diego or a "third" MARTA, rather than to copy methodologies as used in Japan, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and, China.
Public discussion about BART and Bay Area transportation is far more sophisticated than such public discussion is in Denver. The highly educated debate I find in websites dedicated to California HSR, Caltrain, the California Amtrak lines, Muni, bus routing, pedestrian friendly urban design in California cities, and, transit scheduling simply has no equivalent in cities like Denver. Instead, most such discussion here consists of 'party line' boosterism, a kind of informal infomercial for how things are GOING TO BE. Most 'pertinent debate' just does not happen.
Yet, all here is not completely compliant. We have a few bloggers who are independent thinkers, but, when the blogging community is expanded to include sites interested in intercity passenger rail and other transportation concepts, the press, radio and TV, we are a tiny part of a small community.
Our overall transit literacy is about where the northern Bay Area transit literacy was in 1965.
*We never had a Bay to cross. All our obstructions are man made, and less than 20 years old. The problems SF and Oakland face are more equivalent to what Denver will face, when, and, if, all public transit, including buses, into and through the Denver Union Station exceeds 15 or 20K per hour, and solutions will have to either go through buildings, above streets, or underground.
**This is the exact flipside to the California HSR argument, and, is directly connected to the outcomes resulting from a concentration of private money intent on property development in a small area, not expense to "taxpayers."
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