DENVER | Transportation Thread

[Cirrus]

^
Look closer. The "coming" is crossed out and the word "here" is written in a different font above. :-)

(It's more apparent in the printed version I scanned this from.)

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by CameraShy

The side of the bus says: "Light Rail is Coming"

Source

As they say; the more the merrier.

Originally Posted by Cirrus

My thoughts on scooters:

Always enjoy reading your experienced impressions on things.

Oh oh
Stalls, stops and breakdowns: Problems plague push for electric buses
MAY 20, 2018 By PAIGE ST. JOHN/LA Times

But largely unbeknownst to the public, BYD's electric buses are contending with a record of poor performance and mechanical problems.

A Times investigation found its buses stalled on hills, required service calls much more frequently than older buses and had unpredictable driving ranges below advertised distances, which were impaired by the heat, the cold or the way drivers braked.

Hmm, So how pervasive is this?

A federal testing center and transit agencies across the country logged driving ranges that were dozens of miles short of company claims, limiting the routes they can handle and requiring passengers to shuffle onto replacement buses when the batteries go low.

I hope RTD's Mall shuttles are having less problem with their BYD buses?

The article is somewhat extended but an interesting look into the (political) history of BYD including incentives (their factory is in L.A.).


A Proterra promotional but really cool video...
that our sister site in Salt Lake City featured some time ago.

• Video Link

[comoneymaker]

So what is going on with I-70? Any work started yet?

[twister244]

I think they are still doing a bunch of "prep" work along 70. I am sure they will have an official "ground breaking" at some point this summer that will be advertised.

[TakeFive]

* Thanking this space for it's temporary placeholder status *


Image courtesy The FREE RIDE

The Free Ride brings 6-person shuttles to Denver
June 8, 2018 by Kate Tracy/BusinessDen

The Free Ride, a New-York based startup that provides shuttles in six-person electric vehicles, is adding three vehicles in downtown Denver.

“We really wanted to be able to service a downtown area where there’s a lot going on, somewhere where there’s a walking culture, but also a place where someone would want a quick ride,” said Alyson Brown, chief marketing officer.

Never heard of this one?

In 2011, James Mirras and Alex Esposito founded The Free Ride in New York as a way to transport New Yorkers around the Hamptons and alleviate parking issues... The electric cars are manufactured by General Electric Motors.

Why Denver?

“We originally were founded as a beach shuttle, but it has since expanded to a downtown mobility solution,” Brown said. “We’re really looking to be a solution to that 1- to 2-mile gap.”

The Free Ride has hired 10 drivers in Denver that will operate the vehicles from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, concentrating on most of downtown, including between Speer Boulevard and 20th Avenue, as well as up Broadway to Colfax Avenue. Riders can flag a driver to hitch a ride, or download the company’s app to request one.

Outside of the Right Coast, the Left Coast and Texas, it looks like Denver is the first landing spot in flyover country.

[seventwenty]

TakeFive, I get we like to Denver megapost and banter, but that's way off topic.

[PLANSIT]

Yeah, that was nonsense.

[The Dirt]

I'm reporting you.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

The Free Ride brings 6-person shuttles to Denver

We have these too, but they have clearly not been a success here. One has been driving around right outside my office all the time for a year or two now, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone on it. I assume it is only a matter of time until it stops.

I'll be interested to hear if the Denver experience is any different.

[seventwenty]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

We have these too, but they have clearly not been a success here. One has been driving around right outside my office all the time for a year or two now, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone on it. I assume it is only a matter of time until it stops.

I'll be interested to hear if the Denver experience is any different.

The Denver Pavillions one putts along all day between 15th and 17th from what I gather. No one really rides until 5 or so.

[CameraShy]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

As they say; the more the merrier.

Thanks for the welcome! Glad to be here. Have always loved buildings, and have been on the roof of both the WTC (1989) and Republic Plaza (1986).

[TakeFive]

It was only fitting that I actually give transit a try...
... and I made it thru 4 days with no car.

Sunday started off at 6:30 a.m. when I walked four blocks from my hotel to the Silverthorne transit station where I caught the Summit Stage shuttle over to Frisco. From there I jumped on Bustang for the ride to DUS.

At DUS I walked down to the light rail station and caught the W Line out to the Taj Mahal. When I arrived back at DUS I walked over to the Milk Market to grab some grub.

After the rain storm passed I caught the H Line at 18th and Stout. At the end of the H Line at Florida I transferred to the R line up to Peoria where I caught the A Line back to DUS.

Next, I found Track 7 where I jumped on the B Line to Westminster. After returning I walked over to Track 1 for the return trip to the airport.

Impressions and feedback pending....

[TakeFive]

How to get there from here...

I always tell my son that when you know what you're doing - or where you're going - then the task is easy peasy. But if you've never experienced something then the simplest of tasks can bring a grown man to his knees.

With that in mind I took a trial run to Sky Harbor to see if I could navigate the labyrinth of freeways and signs near the airport at 75 mph. Sure enough I missed a key (Google instructed) exit but went through the rest of the paces in more orderly fashion until I tried to return home where I circled the airport at least once among the confusion of various signs.

I left home at 4:50 in the morning and after reaching the '51' in about 10 minutes, only two stop signs slowed my trip to the East Economy Lot. If you had guessed that this was on the faaar end of Sky Harbor, you were correct. But after taking a couple of minutes to find a parking spot in Garage A it was a 20-yard walk to the Sky Train station.

Sky Train is an appropriate name as this puppy rises high to go up and over one of the airplane taxiways. What's nice is that one of those Bombardier trains comes by about every 3 minutes and it was a 3-minute ride to Terminal 4 which is the largest, busiest terminal and where Southwest Airlines flies out of. Ultimately I found a window seat nearer the back of the plane but it was nice... to just sit back and wait for the mountains to come into vision.

[TakeFive]

CDOT Expanding Bustang™ to Central Rockies, Southwest Colorado
June 26, 2018

DENVER – Beginning this weekend, people living the Gunnison Valley and in southwestern Colorado will have a new way to travel to Denver, Grand Junction and other locations, including areas along the Front Range beginning next week.

What's you gonna do now?

The southwest Outrider™ service will run once a day in each direction: Durango to Grand Junction in the morning; Grand Junction to Durango in the afternoon, Monday through Sunday.

Gunnison’s Outrider service also will travel once a day in each direction--from the Econo Lodge in Gunnison [to] Denver’s Union Station.

[TakeFive]

Interesting analysis and thoughts about transit ridership
by the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
Published on Jun 6, 2018


• Video Link

[FunctionForm]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Interesting analysis and thoughts about transit ridership
by the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
Published on Jun 6, 2018


• Video Link

Drivers in California, or any State for that matter are not using the roads for free. They already pay a gasoline tax, tolls and whatever other sources of revenue are used to build and maintain the networks. If the public transit systems worked, people would use them. But this is the typical Government solution telling people what they will allow them to do rather than the other way around.

I live in Golden very near the Taj Mahal light rail station and work in the Tech Center at Orchard and I-25. Boy oh boy do I wish I could hop on a magical transportation system that would whisk me off to work each day in climate controlled comfort. The reality is it is an hour and a half minimum each way. That is unacceptable and unnecessary. The slow speed and frequent stops along with a downtown train change make light rail a lousy choice for anyone commuting from the west side.

The gasoline tax in Colorado is $0.22. The gasoline tax in Utah was recently raised from $0.245 to $0.294. The interesting thing about that is that while Utah's tax may have been slightly higher than Colorado's for several years, it wasn't that much higher with a smaller population. Utah still managed to make dramatic improvements to their freeway infrastructure. I'd like an accounting of how Colorado has spent more money based on a larger population and achieved substantially poorer results.

I would be completely in favor of raising the gasoline tax for road improvements as long as any other money earmarked for roads isn't diverted to something else. I think quite honestly that our state has done an extremely poor job of planning for and making realistic assumptions about our growth. In fact it's obvious to anyone who has a commute. Couple that with public transportation that doesn't work for a lot of people and here we are.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by FunctionForm

Drivers in California, or any State for that matter are not using the roads for free. They already pay a gasoline tax, tolls and whatever other sources of revenue are used to build and maintain the networks. If the public transit systems worked, people would use them. But this is the typical Government solution telling people what they will allow them to do rather than the other way around.

I live in Golden very near the Taj Mahal light rail station and work in the Tech Center at Orchard and I-25. Boy oh boy do I wish I could hop on a magical transportation system that would whisk me off to work each day in climate controlled comfort. The reality is it is an hour and a half minimum each way. That is unacceptable and unnecessary. The slow speed and frequent stops along with a downtown train change make light rail a lousy choice for anyone commuting from the west side.

The gasoline tax in Colorado is $0.22. The gasoline tax in Utah was recently raised from $0.245 to $0.294. The interesting thing about that is that while Utah's tax may have been slightly higher than Colorado's for several years, it wasn't that much higher with a smaller population. Utah still managed to make dramatic improvements to their freeway infrastructure. I'd like an accounting of how Colorado has spent more money based on a larger population and achieved substantially poorer results.

I would be completely in favor of raising the gasoline tax for road improvements as long as any other money earmarked for roads isn't diverted to something else. I think quite honestly that our state has done an extremely poor job of planning for and making realistic assumptions about our growth. In fact it's obvious to anyone who has a commute. Couple that with public transportation that doesn't work for a lot of people and here we are.

That's really interesting, especially since people love to cry about how much they want rail service. Yet, you just demonstrated that it doesn't always work out for people, especially if the rail makes too many stops. For me, I live in Jefferson Park, and work in Boulder. I actually prefer to use transit in the form of the Flatiron Flyer. It's less stressful, and I can get stuff done on the bus. But, the bus has an express service that runs every 10 minutes during rush hours, which makes the commuting super fast. One has to think express routes for some of the rail corridors should be explored. In your case, if there was a route that went straight to Union Station, then another express route down to DTC, you probably would have more incentive to take transit.

[SnyderBock]

What metro Denver needs, is a metro-wide sales tax, boarding tax and gas tax initiative. Perhaps 0.3% sales tax, 3% boarding/lodging tax and a 6 cents/gallon fuel tax increase for transportation projects. Make it a 30-year tax to raise ~$30 billion in funds, but to all be spent in the first 15 years of that duration, via bonding.

Allocate $15 billion to road and highway projects, with an emphasis on adding grade separated intersections to high capacity roadways, expressways and freeways. Adding AI traffic management technology and managed lanes to highways and expressways. Adding AI traffic signal managing technology to all major arterial roadways.

$10 billion allocated for the following transit improvements:
Add true BRT infrastructure to all major transit routes
Add extra tracking to existing rail lines to create express service passing track.
Complete NW corridor rail as a fully electrified and 150 mph high speed corridor.
Eleminate 50% of existing grade crossing on current rail network.
Add some small rail extensions and spurs to the network

Then the final $5 billion would be allocated to build a subway link from Broadway/I-25 Station to Civic Center Station to Union Station. This should use LRT technology for full integration with all the LRT lines converging on Broadway Station. This also will provide a third route for accessing downtown, relieving the Central Corridor and CPV corridor. Civic Center should have a large underground station built not only to accommodate this, but to also allow for built-in east/west expansion capacity.

Then also terminate full size LRT vehicle central corridor lines at Convention Center Station and fully convert the downtown loop into a high frequency streetcar starter system. Or possible take the LRT's underground coming out of the convention center and tie it into the subway line into Union Station. Either option converts the downtown loop into a single or double car streetcar line.


https://www.google.com/maps/d/drive?...48918317%22%7D

[twister244]

Looks like the other major airport project is getting underway starting next week.......

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/07/0...ction-impacts/

I have mixed feelings about this one. Mostly because I am skeptical the new security layout will speed things up. I don't really feel like things are slow right now at all. Maybe if the layout is done correctly, and new technology is put into place to speed things up.

At the same time, I do think having the Grand Hall open with bars/restaurants/retail will be a cool addition. It will give travelers a great first impression of the airport. Plus, I am always for more restaurants/retail at DIA......

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

What metro Denver needs...

Love your vision; well done.