DENVER | Transportation Thread - Page 338

Cirrus · #**6741** Posted **Apr 15, 2014, 3:37 PM**

Brainpathology · #**6742** Posted **Apr 15, 2014, 7:10 PM**

LOL Awesome..

bunt_q · #**6743** Posted **Apr 19, 2014, 3:18 PM**

Another reason to get a city transit plan in place. We are busy completely repaving, top to bottom, York and Josephine. Any streetcar line to Cherry Creek is almost certain to need these segments. I wonder what the incremental cost would be to lay tracks now, versus ripping up pavement that probably has a 30 year design life later.

Wizened Variations · #**6744** Posted **Apr 20, 2014, 8:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Another reason to get a city transit plan in place. We are busy completely repaving, top to bottom, York and Josephine. Any streetcar line to Cherry Creek is almost certain to need these segments. I wonder what the incremental cost would be to lay tracks now, versus ripping up pavement that probably has a 30 year design life later.

Street cars can be built very simply- the proof of that being the entire streetcar age from about 1890-1930.

The problems arise when municipalities, property developers, etc., want to improve the waste water lines and fresh water lines; to run replacement power lines under the street; and to follow government regulation requiring X,Y, and, Z. If one were to build a street car line as was repeatedly done in the past, all one would need to do would be to remove pavement and trench about 1 foot further, deep enough to place ties (concrete or even treated wood), and the tracks, and then bury the track footing to the "V" groove in which streetcars run on street car tracks (they have a slightly different X section than do conventional railroad tracks) with asphalt/ballast/or cement.

Catenaries can be simple suspended single wires, and, supports what ever is available: power poles, ties to building structures, even something like old oil rig drill pipe with the catenary hardware simply welded on to the vertically placed pipe at the appropriate height.

However, as inferred above, streetcar construction has become somewhat of a building contractor's feast where capital improvements and regulation driven structural modifications of all kinds are bundled in with the street car construction costs. Agencies worried about the age and state of sewer lines, culverts, etc., tend to request repair inclusion as part of their agreement to build the streetcar (or light rail). Neighborhoods with "telephone pole" supported power lines might want to bury the lines under the street, and, as the streets are going to be torn up for sewer lines etc.,.....

Seriously, putting in a basic streetcar line along a street is very low tech and cheap. The technology is so simple that individual cities such as Denver and Minneapolis often built their own streetcars in house!

bunt_q · #**6745** Posted **Apr 20, 2014, 10:59 PM**

Naturally, it's all a conspiracy.

Cirrus · #**6746** Posted **Apr 21, 2014, 8:11 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by bunt_q

We are busy completely repaving, top to bottom, York and Josephine. Any streetcar line to Cherry Creek is almost certain to need these segments. I wonder what the incremental cost would be to lay tracks now, versus ripping up pavement that probably has a 30 year design life later.

This works if we raise all the money locally, but if we want any federal money then laying tracks before going through a corridor-level alternatives analysis will get us in trouble with the FTA.

Ask me how I know.

Actually, don't.

Cirrus · #**6747** Posted **Apr 21, 2014, 8:13 PM**

PS: On the other hand, you should absolutely take all repavings as an opportunity to reevaluate how roads are striped.

PLANSIT · #**6748** Posted **Apr 21, 2014, 9:33 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirrus

PS: On the other hand, you should absolutely take all repavings as an opportunity to reevaluate how roads are striped.

This.

Wizened Variations · #**6749** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 4:22 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Naturally, it's all a conspiracy.

No, most often it is willful ignorance.

You tend to overestimate competence while underestimating the informal power of the "good old boy network."

Bottom line, as a CEO told me, "Incompetence is no excuse."

This is true in building anything. The results speak for themselves.

wong21fr · #**6750** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 4:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

No, most often it is willful ignorance.

You tend to overestimate competence while underestimating the informal power of the "good old boy network."

Bottom line, as a CEO told me, "Incompetence is no excuse."

This is true in building anything. The results speak for themselves.

Interesting how you contradict yourself from one sentence to the other. Your premise that the "good old boy network" overpowers competence is in direct contradiction to the statement, attributed to a nameless CEO, that "Incompetence is no excuse."

Which is it?

seventwenty · #**6751** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 6:32 PM**

People still engage Wizzy?

trubador · #**6752** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 7:53 PM**

Quote:

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.

sorry very late to the discussion. There won't be any empty fields to walk across as that is the driving range for the Fitzsimons golf course. If you exit at the station on Fitzsimons parkway, you will need to walk to Peoria or down to Victor Street, neither of which are super convenient to UCH. Hopefully they will extend Ursula to Fitzsimons parkway as there is already quite a bit of house north of building 500 that would make the walk safe and somewhat interesting.

Cirrus · #**6753** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 7:54 PM**

TRACKS

photo from RTD on flickr

wong21fr · #**6754** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 8:04 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirrus

TRACKS

And a $600 million dollar architectural boondoogle that will end up screwing DIA and Denver for decades to come.

When you are deferring maintenance at the airport to pour more money into a goddamn hotel and transit center with two tracks that probably costs more than Union Station there is something seriously wrong with your priorities. Day needs to be shitcanned now.

bunt_q · #**6755** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 9:11 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by trubador

sorry very late to the discussion. There won't be any empty fields to walk across as that is the driving range for the Fitzsimons golf course. If you exit at the station on Fitzsimons parkway, you will need to walk to Peoria or down to Victor Street, neither of which are super convenient to UCH. Hopefully they will extend Ursula to Fitzsimons parkway as there is already quite a bit of house north of building 500 that would make the walk safe and somewhat interesting.

A driving range is sort of the definition of an empty field. Fitzsimmons Parkway is simply FAR from the hospitals. I'd be surprised if more than 100 people per day walk from that station to CU or Childrens. It's a total waste. Even moreso than wong's DIA boondoggle, which I'd rather build 10 of than the I-225 line.

wong21fr · #**6756** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 9:47 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by bunt_q

It's a total waste. Even moreso than wong's DIA boondoggle, which I'd rather build 10 of than the I-225 line.

10 overpriced airport hotels at DIA would be your preference? That's not the rational, common-sense Bunt that we begrudgingly love.

bunt_q · #**6757** Posted **Apr 22, 2014, 10:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by wong21fr

10 overpriced airport hotels at DIA would be your preference? That's not the rational, common-sense Bunt that we begrudgingly love.

It's sort of rational. Overpriced hotels are prrrrrty, and the public loves them, even if they make no fiscal sense. The public loves lots of things that make no fiscal sense. Like the Navy. On the other hand, one light rail line that nobody rides can tarnish transit's good name forever.

LAM · #**6758** Posted **Apr 23, 2014, 3:57 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by bunt_q

A driving range is sort of the definition of an empty field. Fitzsimmons Parkway is simply FAR from the hospitals. I'd be surprised if more than 100 people per day walk from that station to CU or Childrens. It's a total waste. Even moreso than wong's DIA boondoggle, which I'd rather build 10 of than the I-225 line.

Last I heard, the golf course will be replaced by the Colorado Science + Technology Park at Fitzsimmons. Of course, until then, it is a complete waste of money to build the station now. I suspect anyone going to the hospitals would just use the Colfax station. The hospitals to the west are a bit of a walk, but the VA will be pretty close.

Didn't this conversation happen once before?

DenverInfill · #**6759** Posted **Apr 23, 2014, 4:11 AM**

Yeah, everything north of Montview is basically history, including the golf course. The plan has relatively high density development all the way up to the Parkway. Long-range planning.

The Dirt · #**6760** Posted **Apr 23, 2014, 4:54 AM**

It seems like the campus is big enough that a circulator that hits both the Colfax and Fitz Pkway stations would be a no-brainer. Hopefully, something will be set up in the future. If CU Boulder can afford to bus students from Williams Village into the main campus, they should be able to do this.