A trip to Denver....

I spent a couple days in Denver to attend a meeting. This was my second visit to Denver in three months and this time I had the opportunity to explore some of RTD's bus routes.

I arrived in Denver on Wednesday at 8:15pm on Amtrak. I walked off my train, took my luggage and walked over to the light rail station that is part of the Union Station complex and jumped on the train. My hotel was right next to the bus area of the Southmoor Light Rail station so I stepped off my train, walked under Interstate 25 through a well lit tunnel and walked over to my motel.

Between the meetings I got a chance to travel extensively on the RTD's bus system.

Here is a couple of things that RTD does better on it's system:

-They understand the concept of timed transfers.
-There is multiple bus transit centers in addition to the light rail ones. UTA promised these with it's long range plane with the first tax initiative was passed but I haven't seen any yet.
-There is a better security presence on their system especially light rail. While I feel safe on TRAX even in the evenings, there are those that don't feel comfortable. However, you see police and security riding the trains before Sunrise and after Sunset to make customers more comfortable.
-Their call n' ride service is vastly superior to UTA's flex route F94 and UTA needs to look closely at that service.

Well, that's the major biggies. The last week of October I will be spending in Reno so hopefully I will get the chance to test their service and then spend October 31 to November 5th in Miami for Railvolution so I will be able to compare those systems to the UTA.