Denver Union Station Plans

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The Denver Infill Blog, a excellent blog that is covering what is happening in the downtown Denver area, has just done a three part series on the Denver Union Station project. The project includes three parts including Commuter Rail, Bus Service and Light Rail. The project is centralized around the historic Denver Union station.

Here are the three entries from the blog:

Denver Union Station Plan: Light Rail

Denver Union Station Plan: Bus Terminal

Denver Union Station Plan: Commuter Rail

First some observations about the plan.

In the last couple of years I have made a few trips to Denver for meetings. Usually I will ride Amtrak into Union Station and ride the light rail line out to my motel. There is actually several nice hotels/motels located along the Southeast Light Rail line.

Right now I can get off the train walk over to the light rail platform and catch my train. Now I will have to walk two blocks from the Zephyr over to the light rail platform. Right now the area is not appealing but the may change once the project comes to fruition. However, I will also be carrying luggage which will make the journey harder.


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Another problem I see with the plan is that people arriving the the commuter trains will also have to make this walk if they wish to catch a light rail train. While it is only two blocks, how many people would want to get off of Front Runner then walk two blocks to board a TRAX train? Chances are fewer than do it now.

To make transit more attractive you need to make it try to make it convenient. Making people walk two blocks to change from Commuter Rail to light rail does not make it more convenient.

The Denver Union Station plan also has the same problem as our Intermodal Terminal and that is a lack of expansion room for an expanded rail passenger system. Most of the tracks at Denver Union Station are already set aside for Denver's commuter trains, plus one for Amtrak and another track that can be used by the ski train if it gets restarted (until this year Denver had a train that would travel up to the ski resorts at Winter Park) and in fact the lack of room was blamed in part for the ski train's demise.

If or when the day comes that we start expanding our long distance rail passenger network to make it a true network, Denver Union Station will have a tough time accommodating the growth. In addition there is little expansion room if Denver decides to expand its commuter rail network in the future.

We face the same problem here in Salt Lake. There is little expansion room at the current Central Station which could create conflicts if we see an expansion of our intercity train network. Even Front Runner is hemmed in by Amtrak and would be hard pressed to expand without a major expensive expansion project.

While the Denver plan is visionary and will make some wonderful changes to the area, it is important that when we make this kind of changes, the passenger is considered first and the future expansion is taken into consideration whether that be in Denver, Salt Lake City or any other project of this nature.

Colorado Group Suing to Stop Denver Union Station project

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A rail advocacy group is Colorado is suing to stop the current plans for redevelopment of Union Station in Denver.

Rail group sues to block Union Station redevelopment

This is another case of transit agency having the blinders on and not taking into consideration the future including expansion of intercity rail.

Not only are they not taking others into consideration, they are hurting their own potential riders. People who ride the commuter rail from Denver International will have to walk two blocks to catch a light rail train to other parts of the city.

Several times I have ridden Amtrak into Union Station and caught a light rail train over to my motel which sits along side the Southeast light rail line. Now if I had to walk two blocks with my luggage would it just be easier to pay a cab?

At least here in Salt Lake you can catch a commuter train, TRAX and Amtrak in the same location although thanks to the westside NIMBY's it will not be possible to ride from the Airport directly to Central Station which is a downside. However, we know that developers usually come out ahead of good transportation planning...

Blog Postings from this week...

Image via Wikipedia First up from the Mobilizing the Region Blog:

In NJ, “Son of Toll Hike” is Born

While Utah looks at the possibility of its first toll road, the New Jersey turnpike authority is looking to increase toll charges in order to replenish the state highway trust fund. A portion would go to the New Jersey Transit project to build additional tunnels from New Jersey to Penn Station in New York to deal with train congestion out of the area.

From the Denver Transit Stop Blog:

Public Private Partnership Pilot Program (Penta P)

This talks about the RTD in Denver looking at Public-Private partnerships in order to get some lines built in its Fastracks program.

The author has an excellent description of the various types of partnerships and how they work so it is differently worth a look.

From the Xing Columbus (Ohio) Blog:

Money Never Disappears for Sprawl

The blog mentions that Ohio has instituted a policy of fix it first meaning that it will fix existing highways before starting new ones.

From the Transit Miami Blog:

Boondoggle

A couple of weeks ago an article was published in some magazine that listed the biggest boondoggles (by who's classification?) and Transit Miami points out while its own project the expansion of Metro Rail has not happened so far, you have to question some of the others on the list including the unique Sydney Opera House.

From the Transbay Blog:

Sunday Streets and More, This Labor Day Weekend

San Francisco closed a street to create a pedestrian fair.

From the Overhead Wire:

Making San Francisco More Accessible by Amtrak

There is a couple of ways to get to San Fransisco by Amtrak. First by long distance train you can get off in either Emeryville or Oakland and take a bus to the San Fransisco or if your on one of the corridor trains you can take BART from Richmond (which I did on multiple occasions).

However, the post points out about the disconnect between local, state and national carriers which was pointed out in the intragration series.

Battlefield NIMBYism

Article from New Jersey were NJ Transit wants to put commuter trains on a existing rail line but people who run a revolutionary war battlefield think railroad tracks are a blight and should be eliminated.

From the RT Rider:

The cost of free parking

Growing a transit lifestyle in barren soil

John talks about difficulties in buidling a transit lifestyle in Sacramento. You can see the comparisons to many places in along the Wasatch Front.

From the N-Judah Chonicles:

Just What IS A "Green Bus Shelter" Anyway?

Putting grass on top of a bus stop shelter makes it a green shelter?

From the CTA Tattler:

Higher gas prices mean big CTA ridership increase

Chicago is also having a major increase in ridership in both rail and bus.

The F94

Spokane Transit Authority Cutaway Bus on Route 41
Originally uploaded by jmdspk

In their first posting in months, the planner from the UTA is claiming success for UTA's F94 flex route service. While I agree that the route is providing a service that UTA was willing to abandon, I think success should be measured in different terms that the UTA does.

However, let’s look at the F94 as we have before and see what can be done to make it even more successful. First of all there are a couple of things that is really holding the F94 from being a true success:

First of all, the route only provides every 80 minute service. This makes the service useless for a majority of transit riders thus greatly decreasing how much potential the service has. Second, the route only deviates ¾ of a mile from the route of the old 94 route which makes it too inflexible to truly be called a flex route.

Now take a look at Denver’s Call N Ride system and see how it works. Basically you have cutaway vans based out of a light rail or bus transit station and service is provided a minimum of every 30-minutes (and in my experience the service is much more frequent than every 30-minutes). Call N Ride provides transit service to entire areas providing much better and more convenient service than regular route service could in those places while still providing good connections to the regular route service.

Now let’s take a look at route 525, the former 25 that provides service from TRAX to the Sandy Industrial area and along Monroe. This route would be a perfect route to turn into a Call N Ride route. If people need to be picked up they just give a call or they pick the cutaway van up at the TRAX station. While the Historic Sandy TRAX station may be a little more convenient for this service, traffic along 90th South is just going to get worse so it does make sense to use the Midvale Center TRAX station. The neighborhood will get better bus service with vehicles that make more sense for the area.

Another area were Call N Ride service will make since is along the Daybreak TRAX line. Service could be provided too many areas that currently and will continue to have non-existent bus service. There is areas such as South Jordan and Herriman that regular route service does not work but Call N Ride would make sense.

A side benefit of this type of service is that it can also reduce trips by Paratransit since some Paratransit riders could use regular route service but cannot get to the transit station; this allows them to use the regular route service and still use the mobile van. Considering the financial black hole that even advocates for the physically challenge know Paratransit service to be, reducing any need for Paratransit service makes more service available to all.

The F94 is a start, but to be truly useful transit service it still has a way to go.