Quote:
Originally Posted by bunt_q
Good for them, it's a shame that will never ever be operating at a time when I will be downtown. Sorry, 9 to 5, Monday through Friday transit service doesn't interest me, no matter how sexy the bus.
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The issue boils down to the infrastructure that is built. If the infrastructure is built for high average speeds system wide, for ease of entry and exit from vehicles, and, interconnects a significant portion of where users want to go, the transit system operating on the infrastructure works.
And, regrettably, the problems accumulate around infrastructural deficiencies like layers of ice grow atop one another in hail stones.
The downtown transit problem simply is that the light rail as built does not have the capacity to move more people via both of it's approaches. Had RTD had the foresight and the money to bury the Stout and/or California approaches into downtown from Colfax as a subway, then all the traffic generated by the W,C,D,E,F,and H lines could be handed via a 1 loop.
DUS simply compounds the problem, and, if the economy declines further and people are FORCED to use transit into and/or through downtown then DUS will become a rat warren, with ridership over expectations cramming the Mall Shuttle and these cute new buses.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the new train shed at Union Station will be underutilized for years as the real crowd problems will involve the Underground bus station and capacity problems at the light rail Station.
Problems outside of suburb to downtown connections simply have not been addressed.