DENVER | Transportation Thread

[COS]

Even the BART from SFO into the city, through what is a beautiful area of coastal hills (albeit there's some industrial areas too), barely gets above ground or concrete retaining walls to provide any sort of touristy experience. Once you pop out of the subway in downtown though...wow! I would imagine people coming into Union Station feel a similar juxtapose after the ride in on the A-line.

As for the signs in DIA, as I was reading those ideas for improvement I found myself nodding yes, yes, yes...how is this not being done already?!

[CharlesCO]

Originally Posted by COS

Even the BART from SFO into the city, through what is a beautiful area of coastal hills (albeit there's some industrial areas too), barely gets above ground or concrete retaining walls to provide any sort of touristy experience. Once you pop out of the subway in downtown though...wow! I would imagine people coming into Union Station feel a similar juxtapose after the ride in on the A-line.

As for the signs in DIA, as I was reading those ideas for improvement I found myself nodding yes, yes, yes...how is this not being done already?!

BART's SFO/Millbrae line never gets very close to the coast. Most of the reason why so much of that line is underground (and takes a somewhat circuitous path to the airport) is that it was a way to appease the NIMBYS who didn't want the elevated viaducts destroying their precious suburbs, driving up costs and resulting in underperforming ridership for the first several years of service. Not to mention too that the spur into SFO is a really terrible design. Hmm, political appeasement on behalf of a regional transit agency isn't anything we're not familiar with...

DUS is pretty amazing as it is for Denver. It really has become a destination in itself, though it's still a ways away from being the transit backbone of the city like what BART is to SF. When I took the A line last from DIA to DUS to transfer onto the E line, I was somewhat surprised at how it was a standing room only 2-car train almost all the way. But it's still not quite like how downtown SF has two separate levels of trains across four downtown underground stations (plus others) with 10-car trains carrying close to 2,000 passengers every 2-3 minutes at peak hour! At least I suppose DUS has somewhat of a more viable political future than SF's analogue, the Transbay Terminal, has at the moment. DUS has the ability to build out and absorb a lot more service down the line, whereas the Transbay terminal is going to have a hard time getting electrified Caltrain to it, nevermind another BART tunnel. But I digress.

The DUS platforms themselves feel pretty quiet at peak hours by comparison to SF stations, though if you compare it to how DUS and the Market Street station were a decade ago, it's pretty impressive.

As for signage, I've long thought RTD's system should copy SF Muni Metro's parlance of referring to trains as either "inbound" or "outbound." It makes it so that it doesn't matter which cardinal direction the train is going — everyone knows that "inbound" trains mean they're going downtown and "outbound" trains are going out to the neighborhoods. It would work very well for DUS being an omnidirectional hub.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

Another part of the train ride that would have to seem strange to a tourist, is the beginning. The train meanders through open prairie for a really long time and even makes a couple stops in the middle of nowhere for seemingly no reason. I noticed people were actually getting on and off at those stops. A cheap place to park your car I suppose.

The A line ride into Denver is almost exactly the same as the experience taking the train from the Munich Airport into the city. Middle of nowhere; industrial; crappy housing; and sudden city.

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by mishko27

I second this. I was born and raised in Europe, have taken longer train rides weekly and the trains always go through the industrial back sides of the cities before ending up sorta adjacent to downtown. My experience is based on Slovakia, primarily, but Bratislava, Košice, Michalovce, basically most cities on the main East-West corridor across the country take you through their industrial parts. The rest of the rid is wonderful with amazing mountain views, through forests etc.

I've taken the train from Prague to Budapest that goes through Bratislava. It was a nice journey.

[Cirrus]

I agree this is much ado about nothing. The rail entry into most cities is industrial, because industry clustered around the tracks. That's the norm pretty much everywhere, including top-tier cities like Paris.

[seventwenty]

WELP.

What happens now that the Senate Finance Committee has killed the transportation deal

Originally Posted by Denverite

This was the deal that Colorado legislators and Gov. John Hickenlooper named as one of their top priorities for the 2017 session — a new funding source for roads and transit to start chipping away at the potholes and traffic jams that plague the state.

[HB-1242] died Tuesday evening in a 3-2 party line vote in the Senate Finance Committee. That means it won’t go to the Senate as a whole, where it may well have passed, and it won’t go to the voters in November.

The bill called for a 0.5 percent increase in the state sales tax for 20 years (that’s less than the 0.62 percent increase that passed the state House because Republicans in the Senate Transportation Committee amended it) and a $100 million annual allocation from the general fund to support a $3.5 billion bond program. About half would have gone to CDOT and the other half would have been divided between local communities and transit projects.

. . .

Not necessarily, but this is a major setback. There are just 11 working days left in the 2017 session. While it’s not literally impossible for some new deal to be worked out, it’s not likely.

So what's next for this year?

Originally Posted by Denverite

Going through the legislature isn’t the only way to put a measure before voters. Paperwork has been filed with the Colorado Secretary of State for competing measures, one of which follows the language of the just-defeated HB-1242. The other, from the libertarian Independence Institute, calls for a $2.5 billion bond program to be paid out of existing revenue. It doesn’t include funding for transit or local communities.

Jon Caldara, executive director of the Independence Institute, thinks that if his measure is on the ballot, any tax increase is doomed. That hasn’t stopped members of the Institute from challenging the tax increase measure to try to keep it off the ballot.

Caldara sees roads funding as a simple matter of political will. In his view, state government is doing lots of stuff it shouldn’t be doing, whether that’s paying for inter-city bus service or expanding Medicaid eligibility, and if it funded the “core function” of roads first, there would be enough money.

“The reason our roads suck is the state is not spending money on this core function,” he said.

Rep. Millie Hamner, the Democratic vice chair of the Joint Budget Committee, said a mandate to spend more money on transportation without a new funding source would just exacerbate the challenging budget situation. Amendment 23 requires the state to increase spending on education each year, and K-12 education is taking up a larger and larger share of the budget. At the same time, the state doesn’t even fully fund its obligation, instead applying a “negative factor” to reduce the amount that would otherwise go to schools.

“People say, ‘Gee, if we only cut 1 percent from each department or 2 percent from each department, we would have enough money,'” she said. “That would mean that at a time when Colorado is growing, we would be cutting services.”

. . .

SB-267, sponsored by Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, a Sterling Republican, and Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzman, a Denver Democrat, has been delayed repeatedly in the Senate Appropriations Committee after passing the Finance Committee.

This is a potentially significant piece of legislation that would reclassify the hospital provider fee, a fee on patient revenue that is matched by federal funds and redistributed to hospitals for Medicaid patients, into an enterprise fund. That would take it out of the regular budget and free up money for other uses. However, Republicans want to see the revenue cap required by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights reduced in exchange for reclassifying the fee, and the whole thing has been on the verge of falling apart for about week.

This bill also generates $1.2 billion for transportation, with a focus on fixing rural roads, by issuing debt backed by state-owned buildings.

[PLANSIT]

Surprised no one posted this.

Denver’s bond measure target could hit $900 million after boost to property values

Denver’s planned fall ballot measures asking voters to approve borrowing for city projects could grow to as much as $900 million because of new tax assessments, a city finance official said Tuesday.

The new projected range — $800 million to $900 million — detailed by Denver’s chief financial officer, Brendan Hanlon, is a heady increase from the $500 million to $600 million in projected bond capacity previously cited by Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration.

But that was before metro-area assessors released new property valuations Tuesday. On tap are double-digit increases in valuations for median properties of all categories in Denver, including nearly 26 percent for the median single-family home...

Given that roughly half of BOND will go to transportation/mobility, this is a pretty significant increase.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

I can't think of any where the train ride into the city is a sequence of spectacular sights and vistas of the city's most impressive buildings, parks, and neighborhoods.

LOL! Well at least I’m not the only one here that’s overly dramatic. I’m not comparing the A Line to some impossible fantasy. I’m comparing it to lines that don’t happen to pass through the ugliest part of the city – like, oh I don’t know, every single other train in Denver.

When I’m taking the train into a city I haven’t been to before, I can’t help gazing out the window in wonder. My forehead is glued to the glass the whole trip. “Wow, this place is really green; they must get a lot of rain here.” “Wow, European suburbs are really dense.” “Holy crap, there’s that crazy giant power plant from the Pink Floyd cover!” “Crazy! Who’da thunk Brussels would have a red light district that’s in plain sight from the train!”

If we’re talking about European cities, from my limited experience, the trains tend to stop in real places where there’s some residential buildings and people walking around – not a sprawling surface parking lot out one window and some beat-up metal buildings out the other. When I rode the A Line for the first time (during daylight) I was pretty disappointed by the scenery – as I know others on this forum have been. I guess I’m an overly hometown-conscious Denver Braggart (which I’ve already admitted) who’s worried about stuff he shouldn’t be worried about. I’ll stop worrying about it.

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

It never crossed my mind that anyone would have the reaction you have...

I guess I should’ve waited until the next time someone on this forum comments about the ugly train ride to join the conversation instead of choosing this random moment. Man, what a mistake that post was. Nevermind everybody! Just forget what I said!

[wong21fr]

If you think the A Line scenery is ugly, just wait until the N Line opens. With views of the Suncor Refinery, Cherokee Generation Station, sewage treatment plant, numerous asphalt emulsion plants, junkyards, garage transfer stations, etc. it's going to be downright picturesque.

[seventwenty]

nvm. too lame.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

If you think the A Line scenery is ugly, just wait until the N Line opens. With views of the Suncor Refinery, Cherokee Generation Station, sewage treatment plant, numerous asphalt emulsion plants, junkyards, garage transfer stations, etc. it's going to be downright picturesque.

Interesting. I never really looked closely at that route, but you're right. My concern about the A Line was more about it being an introduction to the city since it's an airport line. (But again, I'm not worried about it anymore. Y'all have changed my perspective a bit.)

Another thing I didn't consider: Warehousing tends to get developed near airports.

[twister244]

I can understand being a bit frustrated with the kinds of neighborhoods the A-line runs through. However, this will most likely change with time. The property around the RiNo station is already well on it's way to becoming more attractive (Denver WTC, HUB, amongst a couple other projects). The A-Line will also go right by the proposed Rock Drill proposed project (assuming it gets off the ground). I also suspect other TOD will occur along the line with time as more people begin to use it.

[mr1138]

I can't help but feel that when it comes to the question of land use around each station, it is really a question of whether the chicken or the egg comes first. And I think what is frustrating to many people is that the many variables that influence this question are completely different today than they were 100, or even 50 years ago.

Older, more established urban places seem to have often had the dense land use before they had the transit - but these places were often built before the automobile and the economic implications of that mode of travel. Now, it seems that the transit needs to come before the density - if the transit isn't there, the developers won't bite. Auto-oriented suburbia tends to result in "garden style" apartment complexes and strip malls along major arterial roads. And we don't have any neighborhoods along rail corridors with the kind of density that you see in a place like Chicago or Boston, or other places with established commuter rail systems.

Now, if all of these station areas are still nothing but parking lots and warehouses in 30 years, I will get worried. But we're talking about a BRAND NEW commuter rail line here. And it does look like developers are interested in these areas. I think it is more than a bit premature to talk about these stations feeling like they are "in the middle of nowhere."

[COtoOC]

I took the R line end to end this morning for the first time. I drove to the park and ride (took 5 min) at Peoria/Smith Rd., got my ticket, and then the train departed about 5 min. after I boarded. Then took the Link shuttle to my work building on the other end. Total timing was about 1 hour, 15 minutes from my house to the office.

Overall, it was fine. But the R line is SLOW going around Anschutz and the Aurora mall area. Once you get past the mall, it went fast. We stopped twice up north for no apparent reason. Then the first 3 or 4 stops seemed almost unnecessary. A couple stops, nobody was even there (not even a prairie dog boarded!)

Seems to me that they could have just saved a placeholder for at least a couple of these stops until the areas built up. And I really don't get the big "bridge over Colfax" stop. There's no parking, and it's a long walk from there to anywhere in Anschutz. When we stopped at Colfax, I think 1 or 2 people got on. Seems like a lot of buck for not much bang.

If I'd have driven, I probably would have saved at least 20 minutes and $7 (my cost is around $2 round trip in my car for gas). The only thing it saved me was the stress of driving, which is a plus for me.

[lumos]

BTW, David Sachs recently reported at StreetsblogDenver that RTD is getting close to adopting London-based Masabi's mobile ticketing/payment app already being used by many U.S. transit systems. Final approval should come with the next board meeting.[/QUOTE]

London uses the Oyster Card system that they have licensed to Cubic to distribute. I believe that Masabi are a competitor to Cubic. I believe that Masabi is a barcode scanning technology whilst the Cubic Oyster system is near field communication so in London I can use any credit or charge card (all contactless), oyster card, Apple Pay on my phone but of course the best is Apple Pay on the Apple Watch. Travel on Tubes, trains, buses and boats, eat at most restaurants, enter most attractions with just a watch. I recall that the Thames Clipper boat service uses Masabi and it is in use in NYC, LA, Athens and Boston. Masabi are a Massachusetts company.

I do not wish to appear churlish, any kind of payment system that means I do not have to by a ticket or manually charge up a card is good for me.

[CurtisParkChris]

Denverite commented on the new RTD map, inclusive of FF bus route and dotted lines to show where extensions/expansions will occur in future (Link)

Why, may I ask, is the Central Extension "L Line" not included in this new map? Frustratingly slow progress/attention to this important link and I don't see any funding listed with projects on new bond measure.

[ddvmke]

Originally Posted by lumos

BTW, David Sachs recently reported at StreetsblogDenver that RTD is getting close to adopting London-based Masabi's mobile ticketing/payment app already being used by many U.S. transit systems. Final approval should come with the next board meeting.

FINALLY modernizing some of the ticketing process. While my hopes were immediately raised that they'd be writing off the ridiculous process they've gone through with Xerox over the past few years and take over an Oyster card-like technology, it appears this is just for mobile use and we'll still be waiting for the (now essentially outdated) smart card system to burn through some more money. I don't believe this is the same vendor, but there is a similar process in place for the Metra in Chicago incorporated with the Ventra smart cards and it works wonderfully.

I've always thought this would make by far the biggest near term impact (second is revamping bus routes/frequency i.e. Houston) toward getting more people on the bus/train. Making it easier for people who want to pay for and ride transit to do so has always been one of my biggest comments to surveys from Denveright/RTD. Looking forward to not having to stop by the ticket machine, buy ticket books, or carry exact change in the near future!

Originally Posted by CurtisParkChris

Denverite commented on the new RTD map, inclusive of FF bus route and dotted lines to show where extensions/expansions will occur in future (Link)

Why, may I ask, is the Central Extension "L Line" not included in this new map? Frustratingly slow progress/attention to this important link and I don't see any funding listed with projects on new bond measure.

To be honest, sort of happy that line extension isn't being pushed for funding in the last iteration I saw. It seems pretty ridiculous to me to have to transfer (1) from the light rail to a single car circulator for only a few blocks, and (2) from the circulator across the street to the A Line; unless they have that timed absolutely perfectly, I imagine you could walk (15min) it faster - not to mention there's already a bus transfer that will do it in 7 minutes. I would much rather see that money spent on a line turning and going into Whittier/Cole/Clayton.

[CastleScott]

If you think the A Line scenery is ugly, just wait until the N Line opens. With views of the Suncor Refinery, Cherokee Generation Station, sewage treatment plant, numerous asphalt emulsion plants, junkyards, garage transfer stations, etc. it's going to be downright picturesque.

That sounds cool and you guys should take those trains to do a Denver grit pic thread-I would enjoy it as a Denver native. And oh btw industry is very much part of Colorado history-my dad worked at Coors in Golden almost 30 yrs before retiring as well as I during summers for college tution cash. I use to enjoy taking photos of Denver area grain elevators as I use to do local rail fanning trips when I lived there..

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by ddvmke

To be honest, sort of happy that line extension isn't being pushed for funding in the last iteration I saw. It seems pretty ridiculous to me to have to transfer (1) from the light rail to a single car circulator for only a few blocks, and (2) from the circulator across the street to the A Line; unless they have that timed absolutely perfectly, I imagine you could walk (15min) it faster - not to mention there's already a bus transfer that will do it in 7 minutes. I would much rather see that money spent on a line turning and going into Whittier/Cole/Clayton.

RTD will be killing the D Line going to 30th/Downing later this year and it will instead terminate in the downtown loop. In it's place the L Line will run around the downtown loop, up to 30th and Downing, and (eventually) to 38th & Blake.

[seventwenty]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

RTD will be killing the D Line going to 30th/Downing later this year and it will instead terminate in the downtown loop. In it's place the L Line will run around the downtown loop, up to 30th and Downing, and (eventually) to 38th & Blake.

I honestly hate this. If you're going to 30th/Downing to Broadway, it's now a connection. Is RTD retiming trains through the downtown loop, though?