Quote:
Originally Posted by BrennanW
The problem with your continued assertions about building the highest capacity station possible is that the headhouse - the existing, historic 1904 station, that is - will play a rather diminished role in the entire Union Station complex.
Originally, and until very recently, Union Station was a through station. The CML, or Consolidated Main Line for Union Pacific and BNSF which runs North South through Downtown, used to branch off from its Southern approach to to DUS. Due in no small part to Denver's incredible urban success downtown, those tracks were torn up and the ROW replaced with high density development, creating a terminal-type station at DUS and routing (really just severing a connection -as the CML had been operational for some time) all freight trains just a few blocks West.
The new terminal station will be the hub for most transit services in Denver, however it will be a very spread out hub and, due to the fact that it is (now) a terminal station, all 8 platforms will have direct access to 16th street from the platform level. For many commuters, especially those that are regular commuters and are using reduced-fare or per-month farecards, there will be absolutely no need to use the headhouse and it will be far more convienent to simply walk to their destination downtown via 15th, transfer to the 16th street mall shuttles (which will be located directly below the station in the bus box now under construction) or to light rail, for which the terminal is two blocks WEST of the commuter rail terminal.
While the headhouse building will hold ticketing and hold room facilities for many commuter rail passengers, the primary transportation service it will preform is for Amtrak's long distance California Zypher trains. Those serve Denver twice a day, being one in each direction. DUS has served this purpose for some time, and during or after boarding, there can be a very healthy number of people in the main holdroom for ticketing, baggage claim, or simply waiting for their train (or Amtrak thru bus connection).
In the meantime, that is, when it isn't the commuter rush hour or Amtrak train departure time, the station wants to be a major draw for the community. The historic station's role in the entire DUS redevelopment is as a historical reuse landmark, and it will be very important as a draw for the station and a major selling point when businesses choose to relocate to the development. It needs to have a unique and exciting flavor to draw persnickety suburban office firms into downtown, and even more importantly persnickety suburban commuters to stick around for awhile downtown and spend money.
I really like the Cosentino's Market in Downtown KC or something like Pike Place Market in Seattle perhaps. The hotel idea is also really cool though less compelling. The argument that the station should be designed as a high capacity transit point, though, is moot. It already is, and it doesn't really require a high-capacity historic station.
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I suspect that many unfamiliar with the Denver Union Station Project think that the build out is primarily an integrated train/bus/light rail project.
No, the project is a huge real estate build out, into which a moderate capacity light rail stub, bus station/and commuter rail stub lines have been shoe horned. The intent was to provide a degree of passenger user interconnection, while providing a huge amount of (hopefully affluent) pedestrian traffic. Only the light rail and the bus portions are truly integrated,* while the commuter rail is isolated in the sense that one walks around the end of the stub tracks. There will be no continuous spine from the light rail at the north end into the Denver Union Station building.
This is the result of the extremely heavy private partner pressure to use the maximum percentage of the development to put in office buildings, some retail, and, residential buildings, at the expense of integrating the complex.
Frankly, the intent of making the Denver Union Station building the center of a transportation nexus, as was pushed so eloquently for so many years, will not happen. The building stands as a rather useless work of art, located about 100 meters south of the true center of the transportation complex, the southern exit of underground bus spine at Wewatta.
Those that saw this consequence many years ago, lost the final argument, which was a conflict between poor, transportation realists, and, parties that had put large sums of money into the eventual development of their properties (remember the entire area was a flat, treeless, grass covered, field, north of the Station Building to start with).
Basically, no one real knows what to do with the Building where the choices are either a hotel or a boutique collection of stores. IMO, all parties regard this as rather embarassing, because so many Denverites remember the push to develope the 'Grand Old Station' as the passenger user center stone of the entire concept.
Realize, too, that even destroying the building would not signficantly affect the finished design, as only Amtrak users will HAVE to the use facility (perhaps .4-5% of the total passengers that will embark and disembrark via the commuter tracks). (The "I", with an severed spine, will force users to cross busy roads, and, more importantly, ENCOURAGE users to walk by 3 block long commercial business fronts, rather than walk through a narrow 2 block long buried bus station. And these users, likely, will not step foot in the Grand Room of DUS).
But, this is history for us in Denver which we will have to live with. However, for those readers who live in metropolitan areas where this type of development as yet to to occurr, the discussion concerning the final use of Union Station is the 'nail in the coffin' of a project that should be studied Nation wide for what NOT TO DO, as well as WHAT TO DO.
The times are going to continue to get tougher, and, IMO, all large US metro cities will likely have to build something like the Union Station complex as car use declines. So become very active locally in your city and study the 10 years of Denver transportation history that are culminating with the Union Station development, and, don't repeat the mistakes that have been painfully learned here in Denver.
*The buried bus station was put into a foot print orginally intended by a development faction to be for 2 stub ended light rail tracks seperated by a platform. When this faction lost and property partners pushing the buried bus terminal won, property owners abutting the initially agreed upon property foot print forced the narrow build out design.
The most efficient bus terminal design is the passenger terminal surrounded by a continuous loop for buses.
For this reason, no continous spine could be built under the commuter rail tracks. This forced small scale alternatives, such a low capacity 'circulator' to assign in moving people, as an alternative to walking the length of the bus station spin, cross a (to be) very busy street, then walk around the stub ends of the commuter station, to access a particular commuter train.
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