Quote:
Originally Posted by LooksLikeForever
There was some fairly big transit news this week that I haven't seen mentioned yet. Obviously the southeast rail expansion isn't 'news', but glad to see it's opening.
Item 1: 2.3-mile extension of RTD Southeast Rail Line opens Friday
https://kdvr.com/2019/05/17/2-3-mile...-opens-friday/
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Thanks for the update; didn't realize the 'time had come.'
Props to Lone Tree (and DougCo) for their buy-in which enabled RTD to win yet one more nice FTA grant while the opportunity still existed. Now if they could just figure a method, like stopping at every other station, to speed these choo choo's along quicker?
Quote:
Originally Posted by LooksLikeForever
Item 2: Southwest Airlines announces plans to construct maintenance hangar at DIA
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/mon...-hangar-at-dia
Southwest's announcement is a $100 investment that will house three 737 planes and is the first maintenance facility that Southwest has constructed at DIA.
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Wasn't all that long ago that DIA was facing life where hubs for connecting flights were losing favor to growing point-to-point non-stop service. That was the model of success that SW Air followed. SW also favored low-cost airports which is why they passed over DIA for years.
Then add into the equation the Great Recession and DIA was dealing with quite a downdraft. Fortunately SW Air had already established their presence and still grew if more slowly than planned as a result. Frontier, though, in changing business models in favor of adding more hubs cut their DIA flights nearly in half.
Ancient history now knowing airline traffic later started taking off like a rocket ship. SW kept growing. Frontier which had been successful in creating other hubs came back to rapidly re-growing their presence in Denver. Meanwhile, Airports which had delayed expansion previously now needed to grow at costs that were 3X what DIA had already accomplished.
Now SW has found that the readily available land needed for their new facilities is ideal for locating in Denver. Impressive how far they've come.