How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
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Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#2Looking forward to being able to get to DEN via train.
Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#3The Northwest suburbs (Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, Longmont) got quite screwed over in this deal - we approved and paid into the 0.4% sales tax in 2004, but ended up with only years of disruptive highway construction leading to a privatized tollway and fake Bus Rapid Transit. We didn't even get real BRT as the buses run in the private toll lanes rather than their own grade and the buses board and deboard just like a normal bus (supposedly the "train style" buses couldn't make it up a hill on the highway).
The Denver area really does have good mass transit, though - the Southwest suburbs are now well-served by light rail, the airport will have rail service soon, and the bus system is reasonable (as bus systems go), albeit with extremely high fares.
Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#4The Northwest suburbs (Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, Longmont) got quite screwed over in this deal - we approved and paid into the 0.4% sales tax in 2004, but ended up with only years of disruptive highway construction leading to a privatized tollway and fake Bus Rapid Transit. We didn't even get real BRT as the buses run in the private toll lanes rather than their own grade and the buses board and debo…
Thank you for pointing this out. Denver has great transport because they haven't broken ground northward yet.
Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#5Salt Lake City (also "in the West") already has ~45 miles of light rail track [1], 88 miles of commuter rail track [2], ~3 streetcar track miles [3], and 69 transit stations. It was named as one of the top transit systems in north america for 2014 [4].
This was approved in 2008 by voters in Salt Lake County [5]. Already under works are plans to expand the commuter rail beyond Ogden to Provo (from 88 to 135 miles) and expand the streetcar concept. Additional lines are also currently being studied [6].
Of course, when Fastracks is done, it may have more "track miles" but that will be mostly due to the airport being so, so far away from the city center (~23 driving miles from Denver to DEN compared to ~6 from Salt Lake to SLC).
I'm excited for Fastracks. Can't wait to never have to fill my rental car out at that single, lonely Conoco gas station by DEN again.
1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAX_(light_rail)
2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FrontRunner
3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Line_(UTA)
4 - http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865605797/UTA-named-one-o...
Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#6Funny how Seattle was left out of the comparison to other PNW cities. I'm not surprised... Seattle's transportation situation is abysmal.
Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#7The Northwest suburbs (Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, Longmont) got quite screwed over in this deal - we approved and paid into the 0.4% sales tax in 2004, but ended up with only years of disruptive highway construction leading to a privatized tollway and fake Bus Rapid Transit. We didn't even get real BRT as the buses run in the private toll lanes rather than their own grade and the buses board and debo…
36 is starting to show a lot of progress for the dedicated bus lanes and the train tracks which will eventually go to Longmont. It was always the plan that the south and airport would go first. The north is scheduled to be done in 2017 I believe.
Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#8The Northwest suburbs (Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, Longmont) got quite screwed over in this deal - we approved and paid into the 0.4% sales tax in 2004, but ended up with only years of disruptive highway construction leading to a privatized tollway and fake Bus Rapid Transit. We didn't even get real BRT as the buses run in the private toll lanes rather than their own grade and the buses board and debo…
Not that they can easily solve this, but unless you live very close to a station or do the park n ride thing (no good if using for parties) - the southbound rails leave you in the middle of dark suburbia. So yes, you can skip out on a bit of driving down I-25. It's neat but I'd be surprised to hear that a significant percentage of the population is "well served".
Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#9Funny how Seattle was left out of the comparison to other PNW cities. I'm not surprised... Seattle's transportation situation is abysmal.
Metro/ST isn't that bad, I take it rather than rent a car when in Seattle, but I don't venture out of the West Seattle-Seattle-Bellevue core where service is pretty good.
Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West
#10What I've always wanted in colorado is a japanese style bullet train across the front range. It makes so much sense since most of the population in colorado lies in a pretty narrow north-south axis, and there is more than enough open space.