Quote:
Originally Posted by Zmapper
I'd rather see improvements to the FLEX and Bustang routes before spending a dime on the curvy BNSF route. Imagine how much more useful transit would be if both FLEX and Bustang ran every 30 minutes or better, throughout the day, seven days a week, instead of one trip per day on a slow train.
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I dunno. I'm skeptical there's a market for every 30-minute buses on that corridor. There could be, but my guess is there's a pretty low ceiling on the number of people in Fort Collins who'd even think to take a bus to Denver. It's probably about half the college students, and not many others. It's not like Boulder where there are thousands of commuters. At least, I don't think so. Maybe it's changed a lot in recent years. Bustang right now makes 6 round trips per week day (12 total one-way trips), which is probably about in line with demand. If you ran them every 30 minutes, your operating costs would skyrocket and I'm doubtful you'd get that many more riders.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that we could build a bunch of BRT all over the region for the cost of one rail line. That can make sense. But that whole argument is predicated on the dual assumption that rail is expensive, and you have existing high-ridership bus corridors that would do better with improvements. Neither of those things are the case here.
Like, if you're trying to justify a streetcar on Colfax instead of a bus by saying "people don't ride buses," that doesn't work because tons of people on Colfax do ride buses. But Fort Collins-to-Denver is different. There's no existing transit culture. Very few people up there even think to check a bus schedule if they're coming to Denver. That makes me suspect a lot more Fort Collinsites would consider a train to Denver than a bus.
Don't get me wrong, Bustang is great. I love Bustang. It was absolutely the correct first step. And if we were talking about a billion dollar train then I'd agree with you (just as I agree the expensive train plan for Boulder doesn't make any sense). But if we're only talking a $50 million up front investment then I think it's worth it. That's not *that* much more than what it would cost to run empty buses every half hour.