How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West • Hacker News Board

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#31

Post by saosebastiao » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 4:53 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #21

saosebastiao wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, SLC is the ultimate counterpoint to the whole "Republicans are destroying transit!!" hysteria. SLC's core is definitely left-leaning, but just a few miles outside the city center it is pure Republican territory. And despite the heavily skewed demographics, they are voting in massive numbers to extend rail transit to their cities. It is quite amazing what will happen to voting trends on transit investment when…

Do you have any idea why this is the case? Some aspect of Mormonism?

I would say that Mormonism would make it even less likely. In my experience (I was raised Mormon), they tend to be even more ideological than southern protestants. That being said, the TRAX does connect with Temple Square, which I'm sure provides some utility to Mormons even if they only use it to avoid parking problems for General Conference (2x per year).

Honestly, I think the defining attribute about SLC was that they did what they set out to do, they did it within budget, and they exceeded ridership expectations. It basically silenced all the ideological opposition and let the projects be judged on their merits.

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#32

Post by davemel37 » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 5:02 AM UTC

All I know is that this car problem is growing rapidly in Colorado. As a Denver native, living in NY for the last decade I finally moved back to get away from the traffic. Unfortunately there are way more cars on the roads (and what feels like worse drivers) than I recall from a decade ago.

I won't even go up to the mountains during the weekend because I can get stuck in traffic on I-70 for 3-4 hours heading back to Denver on a Sunday afternoon/evening. It should take half that time.

I'm glad Colorado is investing in Infrastructure and passing laws to accommodate Uber, etc...

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#33

Post by saosebastiao » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 5:15 AM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #17

saosebastiao wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, SLC is the ultimate counterpoint to the whole "Republicans are destroying transit!!" hysteria. SLC's core is definitely left-leaning, but just a few miles outside the city center it is pure Republican territory. And despite the heavily skewed demographics, they are voting in massive numbers to extend rail transit to their cities. It is quite amazing what will happen to voting trends on transit investment when…

SLC light rail is significantly cheaper than RTD. The furthest zones in Denver are $10 round trip. When I was in SLC it was $2.50 round trip for anywhere on the entire line (I'm sure it's more by now). Personally I believe that public transportation pricing should be based on an algorithm to maximize ridership rather than on being self-sustaining. Since the point of public transit is to reduce traffic, people that pr…

Scaling costs for cars is linear (no congestion) to polynomial (congestion), whereas transit has scaling costs that are a step function on the level of an individual vehicle, and somewhat resembling a logarithmic scale in aggregate. That in itself isn't interesting until you understand the implications of subsidy policies.

For example, if you subsidize auto travel, you may pull people away from walking, cycling, or transit, and put them onto a congested freeway. Every marginal person that moves towards car use increases the costs of car use for every other car user. Transit, on the other hand, gets cheaper, on a per rider basis, with each new rider (although this can be muted if transit ridership is heavily biased in one direction, which can be the case for cities with strong central cores and no outer job centers, as half the buses may be riding at capacity while the other half are riding empty).

I essentially agree with you, but I'm of the opinion that if we would stop subsidizing cars, some small percentage of drivers would move back to transit, and that small percentage could be enough to make transit self-sustaining.

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#34

Post by abduhl » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 5:21 AM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #14

Will metro residents give up their cars? I wonder if the rise of Uber will affect this. When I lived in Seattle, I noticed that a lot of people didn't commute to work via car but had one anyway, usually for one or two trips per week. Public transportation (buses and later light rail) were pretty good from about 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. or so during weekdays but were horrible the rest of the time. Bikes could be used intermit…

The mountain states are car states. Denver is not a city like New York where people go without getting their license until they are in their mid-20s.

Having Uber or great public transportation will not change the fact that much of the draw of Colorado is that you can drive two hours and end up in the mountains or on the plains. Colorado self-selects for cars and they will not be going away any time soon.

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#35

Post by julienchastang » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 5:56 AM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #3

The 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…

Also longtime Boulder resident here. Yes, agreed 100%. Boulder and surrounding NW communities really got the shit end of the stick here. The phony BRT seems little different than what is in place now (just replace the ABX sign with BRT, and there you go), but something that we will probably have to live with for a generation at least. I don’t have high hopes for how the buses will perform during snow storms (unlike rail which has fewer problems in inclement weather). How will this be considered an improvement is beyond me. What is really disappointing is Boulder residents and politicians are just rolling over dead instead of either demanding the service they were promised and voted for or trying to get their tax money back. And I don’t expect RTD will ever be able to pass another tax increase ballot measure ever again. The rest of Denver-metro has their train (already or soon), so they won’t vote for another tax increase and neither will Boulder given how much they have been shafted in the past.

Apart from the NW corridor complete fiasco, yes FasTracks is really quite nice in other areas of Denver-metro.

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#36

Post by WildUtah » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 6:21 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #21

saosebastiao wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, SLC is the ultimate counterpoint to the whole "Republicans are destroying transit!!" hysteria. SLC's core is definitely left-leaning, but just a few miles outside the city center it is pure Republican territory. And despite the heavily skewed demographics, they are voting in massive numbers to extend rail transit to their cities. It is quite amazing what will happen to voting trends on transit investment when…

Do you have any idea why this is the case? Some aspect of Mormonism?

SLC is heavily Democratic, like a little San Francisco, while the outer suburbs are the most Republican urban areas in the USA. Utah County's suburban voters make it the most Republican urbanized place in the USA with frequent 80+% results for Republican candidates.

But both areas -- Salt Lake and Utah counties -- vote for transit.

Part of the reason is that there is no Religious Right in the Utah Republican Party. The local Republicans are libertarians, western Republicans, country club Republicans, and big business Republicans. But that cultural revanchiste Religious Right just doesn't have a foothold in Utah. The organizations that promote it are unrelentingly hostile to the Church (Specifically the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).

My theory is that the people who hate transit are linked to the Religious Right cultural suburbanists and possibly the Neocons. Utahns may happen to live in suburbs, but aren't emotionally invested in hating the kind of people who ride the train. Also, Utah suburbs tend to be close knit because of the prevalence of one church where the community meets regularly.

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#37

Post by bfwi » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 6:28 AM UTC

It seems no article can positively describe a city, without mentioning that it's also a tech cluster. Is there a city that doesn't claim to be a tech cluster? We need to recalibrate that term.

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#38

Post by bignaj » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 6:37 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #9

bignaj wrote: post #6

Funny 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.

Yeah, but you don't have to deal with it every single day. Metro offers pretty horrendous bus service especially considering their cost per passenger one of the highest in the country. Recently voters thwacked a measure seeking more funding for Metro and one of the main reasons I think (among others like aversion to car tab expenses) was anger at mismanagement.

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#39

Post by bignaj » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 6:40 AM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #28

bignaj wrote: post #6

Funny how Seattle was left out of the comparison to other PNW cities. I'm not surprised... Seattle's transportation situation is abysmal.

Transportation of all types in Seattle is abysmal, because Seattle has so many waterways, steep hills, etc. that can only be crossed via a small number of routes. They're always terribly congested.

Subway service would do wonders but knowing Seattle it will never happen.

Re: How Denver Is Becoming the Most Advanced Transit City in the West

#40

Post by techsupporter » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 7:08 AM UTC

bignaj wrote: post #38

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but you don't have to deal with it every single day. Metro offers pretty horrendous bus service especially considering their cost per passenger one of the highest in the country. Recently voters thwacked a measure seeking more funding for Metro and one of the main reasons I think (among others like aversion to car tab expenses) was anger at mismanagement.

I deal with it every single day (living in the CD, working on the Eastside) and I like it. I use it as my primary mode of transportation, with Car2Go a distant second. The measure seeking more funding for Metro (I assume you mean King County TBD Prop 1) was to replace funding that got crushed in the economic downturn and resulting plunge in sales tax. Funding transit by sales tax is unstable but it's all the legislature gives us, other than vehicle registration fees that everyone seems to hate. Prop 1 passed 2-to-1 in Seattle and, if a similar plan goes to the city voters in November, I bet it passes.

Metro's "mismanagement" is because it is directly accountable to the King County Council and, thus, to politically-motivated voters. One look at route 2 and its difficult, congested routing across IH-5 shows a prime example. Sound Transit, on the other hand, has an appointed board and can move much more quickly.