As someone who worked for RTD for 4 years, you hit the nail on the head. It was always so frustrating watching the Board of Directors and management just ignore this issue and then wonder why ridership never increased.
Yes, but wasn't the specific purpose of the A line just to take people to and from the Airport...that was the main purpose and not really for mass transit.
@@zaklex3165 technically correct, but the R line, N line, G line, all have the same issue. You have to drive to a PnR to access the transit. So... What's the point? You still need a car. It negates the entire concept. It's a good idea, very poorly implemented. I sat in on many board of director meetings and the focus was always "how can we make RTD turn a profit?" and that is the problem. Public transit isn't supposed to generate a profit on its own. It's supposed to indirectly generate a profit by getting people to economic centers easily within walking distance. They fundamentally did not understand this concept.
The question is, what destinations are not being reached along rail lines within the metro area? Outside of extensions to Golden(G-Line) and Boulder/Longmont(B-Line), what is there?
I live in Denver and tried my best to use the light rail, but you're exactly right. Stations are often in the middle of a highway and just dump you out into a barren park and ride. To get from there to your destination is uncomfortable and not practical. What a waste.
I've been using the light rail a lot more now that I have an ebike. A class 1 pedal assist works great as a city commuter when combined with transit. Just make sure you have a safe place to park it.
Same with the Silver Line here in Northern Virginia. We had an existing rail corridor that went through all the downtowns, but it's being used for a rail trail so they built it in the middle of a highway instead. As a cyclist I love the W&OD trail, but I can't help but think of the missed potential.
Thank you for this! Denver is a really strange city. It seems like they have 30 new apartment buildings completed every day, yet (at least the ones near the edge of the city) they’re in the middle of stroads and parking lots with no transit in sight. They seem to acknowledge that density=good and transit=good, but have in most places failed to see that they must be connected to get any of the benefits of each
I think the issue is it’s much cheaper to acquire land next to a stroad 10-15 minutes from the city center than to build where transit options tend to be (though the example next to a bunch of single family homes maybe is a good counter example). If Denver were to ex. Sell off or subsidize the purchase of such land (depending on who owns it) on the condition that they build a certain density of shops/apartments/whatever, that would presumably lead to additional people living/working/shopping in higher density increasing tax revenue, and reducing car dependency and costs of road maintenance and other stuff like utilities etc. that suburban sprawl generate
The metro region has pretty generous TOD incentives... They just take time to take place. There are currently like 5 apartment complexes being built around the Wadworth station on the W line.
Boston recently forced towns to upzone land adjacent to commuter rail stations to allow at least multi-family housing. Seems like a good start that Denver should do.
The state government is currently pushing for a law that would prevent local governments from restricting multi-family housing near transit stations, so it is something that is potentially going to happen.
@@TheReykjavik From a foreign perspective... In my city [Auckland NZ] any residential zoned land within 800m radius of a higher capacity public transport station [Busway or rail for instance] is automatically zoned for six story construction. They can build higher but they have to specifically apply for it, but six story is auto.
@@VhenRaTheRaptor which is fine. If we build more missing middle housing (6 story here, 8 stories etc) the need for supertall skyscrapers lessens and we can get the needed density while still maintaining the skyline or "neighborhood character" or whatnot.
@@mohammedsarker5756 Note, the current planning law that I am not sure is in effect yet... Is also gonna rezone all residental in Auckland (and the other major cities of the country) [regardless of where it is!] to be three story automatically. Single family residential? Completely eliminated from the cities containing over 2/3rds of the population of the country. (outside of a few areas the councils are trying desperately to carve out anyway... fairly small areas)
Glad you made a video on this. There’s a serious lack of good UA-cam content about RTD. I just moved here last year and have come to realize the many flaws with the transit system here. It’s still incomparably better than Indianapolis though (where I moved from)
Had a similar experience. Denver is the definition of "quantity over quality". Given the raw numbers it sounds like Denver should have one of the best transit systems of a middle-sized city in NA. But instead we have rapid transit built solely to the least dense locations RTD could have chosen. The lines aren't the *worst* things in the world, and generally RTD provides a pretty substantial amount of coverage, but it completely lacks a proper core and frequency that could make the system truly useful for a huge chunk of the population.
@@LilBoyHexley Based on all the videos I've seen about it and my own experience using it (not all that often as it's rarely really all that useful for me for reasons I'll mention), I think the way of describing the RTD rail system is good on paper or from a distance - and a lot of transit enthusiasts who visit or just talk about it from afar praise it. But the implementation and execution of it is rather poor, with a lot of really annoying oversights and flaws that prevent it really being all that useful. Not going anywhere actually useful, slow trains, expensive fares, and really poorly designed connections between lines.
@@quillmaurer6563 I don't think it's quite right to call them "oversights", RTD knew exactly what they were doing- building stations and rail where it was cheap to do so without concern for transit outcomes. Maybe the park-n-ride model really does help with commuting/parking/traffic downtown, but it's obvious the main interest was cost to implement. Hopefully new policies for fares and development around the existing network can increase ridership and lead to better funding to make a more useful network for the existing city, but it's gonna be a long road.
@@octorokpie True - building to some of the most useful places would be very expensive. Dense city is both where trains are most useful and most expensive to build. But some of the other oversights really feel inexcusable and would be quite easy to fix. The downtown lines not having priority at traffic lights - that would seem incredibly obvious. Not being able to access the downtown lines from Union Station or the W Line (the latter passing within about 500 feet of them), their answer being to take the slower-than-walking MallRide. This could be fixed with a short section of track and some more switches, which actually used to exist on earlier configurations of the lines, and having the L Line continue to Union Station. If those two changes were implemented, I'd use it much more frequently to go downtown. The A Line and G Line just missing each other in either direction so you have to wait a good while at Union Station if going from Arvada to the airport or vise-versa (the most frequent use case by my mom and I). This could be fixed with some schedule adjustments. Running the G Line faster, I'm pretty sure the speed limits on that line are much higher than the schedule has them run. The "Union Station" light rail and commuter rail termini being two blocks apart - at one time the light rail was right next to the current commuter rail station, but it was moved to build a tower there. Can't fix that one without a time machine though, but what the hell were they thinking? There are many much bigger issues - staffing, budget, geography - but these are far easier fixes that could make the system much better, and it feels absurd that they haven't.
Anybody who wants to hit the slopes from Denver should take the Ski Train to Winter Park! It leaves Union Station and drops you right in the middle of the resort. You can even leave stuff on the train if you want because it's just one trip up at the beginning of the weekend and one trip down at the end. I rode it up last year, and it was fantastic. It's staffed by volunteers, so they're all extremely passionate and knowledgeable about the train and the route.
The only thing irritating is that it's only on the weekends. When I head out to ski, I always avoid weekends (flexible jobs whoo) and would love to not have to rent a car each time I'm around. Sure the Bustang and Pegasus are nice but they can never feel as nice or as comfortable as a train. I personally don't get why they can't run a daily service to such a busy and popular ski resort.
@@antoniovitellaro Well, by "stuff", I mean books or pillows or things that are convenient on the train, but not necessarily in your hotel room or on the slopes. They didn't recommend leaving a laptop or a bag behind. I don't believe there's any security - just locked doors.
I actually applied to work for RTD, and my application was rejected… on the grounds of ‘unreliable transportation’ Ummm… RTD? I’m using the public transit system to get to work. Da fuq? As it is, it takes me two hours to get to my current job. At least twenty minutes is walking, and another fifteen minutes is waiting at a transfer stop
As a life long Denverite, that intro encapsulated everyone who has moved out here since 2012 (when weed was legalized). I was both amused and offended. Definitely need more TOD, security presence, and destinations. A decent city metro system would be helpful. I think prioritizing the B-Line to Boulder is #1 for me though. Highway 36 and i270 are nightmare drives.
You're going to be disappointed with the B line extension. I was at one of the meetings for it end of January and it's going to be 3 trains per DAY each way and not electrified. The proposed timetables didn't even make sense for something so infrequent. RTD wants to run more trains but BNSF won't allow it on their single tracked line that they run 1-2 trains a day on. Some of the staff I talked to said the goal was if there is demand for the service they hope to run more trains in the future.
Security presence is sorely lacking. Even on the rare occasions when RTD is (gasp!) convenient for me, I'll generally Uber or just take my car instead. I'm a young woman and apparently all the creeps in the city see the buses and bus stops as open season to harass me. I grew up taking the subway around New York, many times alone, sometimes at ungodly late hours, and I never once dealt with the harassment and fear that I've felt during a single bus trip in Denver.
@@emilymclean6541 It’s a problem with the light rail system in general. Many times I have felt unsafe and uncomfortable on the RTD light rail and I am a 6’3 black male, so not exactly prime harassment material. It’s the rampant fentanyl and opioid addicts on the train that make it 10x worse to ride. I’ve seen people actively smoking up on the train too. An easy way to fix this would be to install fare gates similar to how the NY subway and London Underground operate, but RTD doesn’t give a F about safety on platforms and trains unless it’s on their more successful money making lines, like the A Line. Never had a ride on there that didn’t have at least 1 security guard on the train and platforms at all times. And don’t get me started on the state of some of their train platforms. Broken down benches, out of order elevators, and crumbling concrete. Doesn’t exactly inspire safety and reliability.
RTD and Denver planners need to visit Vancouver and see how near pretty much every Skytrain station there is a TOD "mini city" that integrates most everything people need within walking distance. If Denver does it right, developers will fund a lot of the transit system expansion, not general taxpayers.
Better yet all North American planners should go to the Netherlands and Switzerland to see how to do walking, biking trains, and actually good car infrastructure
I think my favorite transportation fact about Denver is the fact that the city awarded David Moffat with a solid-silver cup with a marble base called the Moffat Cup (which is now on display at Denver's Union Station). Moffat poured his all into making Denver connected to the rest of the western states by train, and although his railway wasn't completed until after his death (he passed in 1911), Denver recognized Moffat's efforts to put them on the map and so they presented him that in 1904 simply out of love. The cup is huge at 230 pounds of pure silver and marble, and it stands at nearly three and a half feet tall! The engineering feat of the Moffat Tunnel, with a length of over six miles through the Continental Divide, would be named after him when it opened in 1928. Colorado also named a county after him
@@Optable And the west portal is literally right next to Winter Park resort. The ski train literally just stops at the west portal to drop off/pick up skiers in winter. you can also generally predict the lift opening times, the California Zephyr emerges from the west portal usually around 9:50AM, 10min before lifts open. It doesn't stop there in summer (it stops at a station in Fraser in summer) but you can still use it as your "10min til lifts open" warning for the bike park haha.
The thing you didn't mention about Central Park Station is that it is in the middle of the old Stapleton Airport site. It's been taking years to redevelop it as they needed to plan out the master plan, utilities, and other stuff. It has become a decent area to live and still has a lot of new things coming.
one Sprouts and the Worst Walmart in all of Colorado for groceries. They also have a new development in Northfield and off of the A line near Tower (smack in the middle of "Industrial Park Central" and that Super Target is way over shopped as is.
I've visited Stapleton which Central Park Station serves a number of times over 20 years, and it still a huge disappointment. I really really wanted to love this place. To @DougBachman's point, the planned development pales in comparison to the scale of Arlington, Virginia around the Metro stations, where much bigger buildings create wedding-cake zoning around train stations and there are actual good destinations. And Stapleton has taken sooooo looonnggg.... My friends moved to Stapleton 20 years ago and yet it still feels like you can't walk to enough good destinations. The Big Box stores are parking craters. Quebec Street is a too-wide car sewer canyon. Even one-way pair streets like Roslyn and Syracuse are hostile to good walkability and urbanism. The so-called 29th Ave/Founders Square doesn't feel like a real downtown. The whole place feels like sprawl with a fake veneer of new urbanism. No surprise that people who live there drive everywhere except for recreation.
Some apartments and a grocery store have gone in nearby, but the frustrating thing is they seem to be developing it backwards - developing farther away from the station first, while keeping the parking ocean as the closest thing to the station. They should start by developing the areas closest to the station where the parking is, but that would make too much sense. The new grocery store (sprouts) is an 8 minute walk, but it could have been a 0 minute walk.
It is problematic right now, but the intent was always to build the rail infrastructure and allow developers to fill in the areas around the station with higher density. The system is relatively new and it will take decades for that to happen. But, as you noted it is happening. Three of the stations along the A-Line already have high density developments underway -- including the Central Park station you mentioned. Also, that golf course you mentioned at the end is already closed. The debate is whether it should remain as open space or be developed. It's marginally close to the rail station, but Denver has a serious need for additional park space. Some are proposing a compromise to introduce some development and retain some park space.
THANK YOU FOR ADDRESSING THIS! I grew up in New York and was spoiled by good public transit. I now live in Golden, 15 miles west of Denver, and my neighborhood is wonderful; I almost never use my car when I'm home. I can walk or bike to the library, coffee shop, hiking trails, parks, grocery stores, and breweries. But there is no light rail station anywhere near the main drag in Golden- the only one is 4 miles south at the county courthouse. Bus service is also infrequent and takes horribly indirect routes. I work in west Denver and wish I could take transit to work, but it would be about 2 hours (one way!) with 3 or 4 transfers to get from my house to my job. I'm lucky to have a car, so I make the 15 minute drive instead. In addition, I'm a woman in my 20s and have felt unsafe the few times I've taken transit in Denver. especially while waiting for the bus or light rail. Even Union Station has very little security presence and I've been verbally harassed and threatened in broad daylight. Again, I grew up in New York, so I'm used to some interesting characters all around, but the complex homelessness/addiction/mental health crisis that is at a fever pitch right now in Denver makes it's a whole 'nother level here, especially on/around the buses. I've heard it said that a signal of how good a city's transit options are is if rich residents use it regularly; New York and Denver are the opposite ends of that spectrum. Everyone from hedge fund managers to teachers to custodial workers uses the subway in New York. Only people who can't afford a car use transit in Denver. That's how it stays shitty. Everyone in power turns a blind eye to it because, in the words of someone I met climbing (lol) "Who the hell takes the bus?"
All though you didn't flat out say it in the video I think you would agree with the assessment the system is good for tourists but falls short of practical use for citizens. I have traveled through Denver many times and have friends their that have expressed similar views. The downtown to airport rail is legit though and free fare for military is a 🍒 on the cake for me.
I use RTD buses all the time to get to downtown from Boulder but especially the airport, so I don't necessarily agree it's not of practical use for residents. People just have to realize what is there as a good alternative. I've taken the train many times as well for later flights since the bus stops running. But 100% with the free fare for military. It's amazing.
You should have also mentioned what is happening with the proposed B-Line extension. It was initially going to be finished in 2016 with the rest of the FasTracks program, and with the same specifications as the current commuter lines (Electrified trains with 30-60 min frequency operating on their own tracks ) But RTD ran out of funding for FasTracks and has delayed the B-Line expansion until as far as 2050. Even worse, RTD is now planning on operating diesel trains on the pre-existing BNSF freight tracks for the extension. They also have a new proposed frequency for the extension of 6 trains per day (3 in the morning heading to Denver, and 3 at night heading away from Denver), easily the worst scheduling even by American standards.
When I moved here a couple of years ago, I lived about a 15 minute bike ride from that Central Park station. I had plans in Jefferson County one Saturday, so I biked to the station, locked it to one of the many empty bike parking spots, and took the A line to the G line. I was reflecting on why there were never any bikes stopped there, even though the bike infrastructure in that area is pretty good. Many of the streets around there have separated bike lanes, and coming from Michigan I always felt very comfortable even on the streets that didn't. I soon found out, as somebody'd broken the lock and stolen my cheap bike during the ~5 hours I was away, and I never ended up biking there again. Also, after 7 pm (maybe 8? I don't remember, I don't live there now.) frequency drops to every half hour on the a line and some buses drop to every hour at night, so I've had to sit at that station for 40+ minutes at times after going to a concert or a bar with friends. Really wish more thought was put into accessing these stations besides putting in a bunch of parking lots.
Fun fact. There was a planned line that would go from downtown Denver to Cherry Creek, one of the most walkable neighborhoods in all of Denver. This was quickly scrapped however, as the local council insisted that setting up a station in their neighborhood would bring in homeless people and devalue the neighborhood. It would have been the perfect station. It seems the local sentiment is “transit is for poor people” and the station layouts reflect that, where it appears there’s almost an active effort to make sure anyone who doesn’t own transportation can’t infect their neighborhood with poverty by making each stop as unwalkable as possible.
RTD has a few lines that are actually really great and drop you off in prominent areas. I suggest looking into the G-line's stop in old town arvada. Great little stop with shops, restaurants, a movie theater, and housing with in walking distance. Denver should be taking notes at Arvada's setup. Also RTD has struggled recently with staffing and so lines have become super unreliable due to lack of funding. I've tried to take the lightrail into Denver on a friday night and have every single stop canceled for that evening, making it impossible for me to get into Denver for a night out. Not only that but Denver has been struggling for years to get a line to connect between Denver and Boulder. A super important connection that is only filled by a bus right now. The bus isn't bad but we can do much better.
My understanding from attending the recent planning meetings is BNSF is the main holdup for the B line extension. However the proposal for 3 trains a day each way (3 inbound in the morning, 3 outbound in the afternoon) seems absolutely useless service designed to check a box on FastTrax and not usable transit.
@@IRONF1STY Yea the B line extension has been discussed for far too long now with no action. It feels like there's always some excuse for why it can't be built. RTD has done several studies and claims the line would be underutilized if built. But some of these studies were done during the height of covid and obviously rail numbers are going to be low in america until we build more and start shifting the culture towards mass transit.
@@TheHABL0 They aren't wrong necessarily about it being underutilized. I would use it, but I go to Boulder two times a week for work. The biggest wins are going to be improving the buses in Denver proper even if that isn't sexy. People in Denver have shown they actually use transit and are willing to vote on and support development near stations mostly. I honestly think Denver should create and fund it's own transit system and slowly take control of bus lines from RTD and let RTD focus on rail and intercity bus lines. E and H lines have been great for me but taking a bus to places requires a connection to civic center station for express buses or just a 45 minute ride to go 5 miles N/S on colorado blvd. So many opportunities for dedicated bus lanes or full on BRT would make transit so much better in Denver. I will however commend the FlatIron Flyer for being pretty comfy and regularly faster than driving (because of the express lane and bus specific exists) at least for getting from Union Station to Downtown Boulder. Obviously the commute is longer once you take into account getting to Union Station and then getting around Boulder. But it is competitive for me and keeps my sanity in check. us-36 is a nightmare.
@@legatus_newt I think their stats are skewed about it being underutilized though. As I said, some of these recent studies were conducted during the height of covid when almost no one was commuting to work. But even if it wasn't during covid, the numbers are going to be low because our culture is car motivated and a major way to change that is to continue to grow our transit systems. I agree though the buses are not bad in the Denver area, and the Flatiron Flyer is pretty nice. I use to take it into Denver and Boulder when I lived off of 36. I appreciate how clean, comfy, and spacious it is. 36 can be a nightmare during rush hour and the Flatiron Flyer can be pretty clutch. That being said, I still think it's a pretty big disappointment to not have a rail connection between these two major cities. Denver and Boulder are super connected and I really believe they deserve better and cohesive transit.
I'm not sold that the Boulder connection for light rail is all that important. The Flatiron Flyer along US 36 is one of the only metro bus routes that really works. It's honestly something to imitate elsewhere. The Flyer has super efficient stops (with their own off-ramp infrastructure), good ridership, and uses "bus on shoulder" to bypass congestion. Plus, once you're in Boulder, the local bus transit isn't too bad.
The bummer is that if RTD had just built rapid transit in a handful of choice neighborhoods first it could already be massively leveled up. Rino, Cap Hill, Cherry Creek, South Broadway, Highland..I could go on. Denver actually has lots fairly dense walkability (that is still getting denser) with lots of mixed development compared to many US cities, but RTD didn't properly capitalize on it, built a ton of transit anyways, and now we're seeing the result.
Indeed. In retrospect, it probably would have been a better project to build a tunnel through some of the denser areas than to do a massive Union Station renovation (not that I don't like Union Station; I just think that that project was massively oversold)
@@samlerman-hahn2674 Agreed. What's currently been done should really have been a later addition. A metro serving the urban core would have had a massively better return on investment hands down. Would be super useful to a lot of people. RTD is very beholden to the suburbs though, which sadly got them to spend a bunch of money on something only a small portion of the burbs can actually use, and forced them into using the cheapest ROW, rather than best, to get it done quick. Particularly considering that someone riding the existing rail into downtown on the rail is left with no quick means to reach the aforementioned neighborhoods once they're there. If there was a core metro first, all of the park and rides that exist now would be many times more useful. And would multiply the effectiveness of any future transit oriented development. Alas, what could have been...
@@LilBoyHexley Exactly, RTD's obligation to the suburbs - and towns as far away as Longmont! - really holds back its ability to build useful new infrastructure in Denver proper. I've been of the mind for a while now that Denver needs its own separate transit service to handle a core metro, and RTD restructured to just handle connecting the communities that are farther apart. Then they can build more of their own local routes as they see fit instead of taking whatever RTD thinks they need.
Denver only has dense walkability in the expensive areas. If you live anywhere other than downtown, you're dealing with stroads and gravel paths instead of sidewalks.
@O Med The point though is that these are the highest density areas where people work, where people live, and where they go out. The existing rapid transit isn't very effective because even if you live near a station, there probably isn't a connection going somewhere you're trying to go, you're likely going to spend 10-20+ minutes on a bus, not counting the wait for your connection, even once you're in town, which is all the current rail is particularly good for. If you're going to build out a rapid transit system, it needs to begin with targeting where most people are and where they're trying trying to go, with Denver those are generally the same thing. With a proper core system, you could get better results with something like a freeway/commuter bus system and priority lanes than what exists now. Of course I think the rail should exist at some point. But it's much easier to sell if you have a good system to start. Now it's tough to get much else because so much has been built, and detractors can point to how little people want to use it. But it's pretty clear why people aren't really using it. Not all is lost, of course, but I don't think it was an optimal way to go about things.
I did an internship with RTD last summer and I can say that many of the people I talked to shared the same concerns with you! But as far as I know, its board members and other higher-ups (with no experience or education in transit) that push for park-n-rides and the like. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to speak to any executives, but the mess that is RTD politics would make its own video. I used to take the N line to get downtown and got on at the Thornton & 88th station, really a horrible station to be waiting at in the middle of July but it is the closest to me (still a 20 minute drive). I believe the plan has always been to redevelop the stations and I'm very excited to see that happen as many of the planners seemed keen on removing parking lots. I start the same internship again next week and I'm hoping I can get in on some of the TOD projects happening.
Their system seems to be designed for you to drive your car to the train, which is utterly brain dead. Why even bother using transit at all then if it's just meant to supplement driving? And then you're still likely miles away from your final destination. It's like the auto lobby told them "sure you can build a transit system, just make sure you build it in such a way that everyone still has to drive cars!" If you want to reduce traffic you need to make it possible for people to live conveniently _without_ cars, which is not hard to do. It is simply a matter of policy decision.
So funny that you would post this, as I was just looking at Denver's transit because I have a friend moving there. Commerce City & 72nd is a station I found on the N line, and the nearest "destinations" to it are a highway interchange, a reservoir, and uh... asphalt plant?
yeah it's a weird station... i ride N line every day and every time we stop there i just wonder what is the point... there is some housing there but walking accessibility to the station is just horrendous
Having worked actually under the "slopes" near Denver, I can say we absolutely avoided anything do with driving, let alone I-70 on winter weekends. We'd walk to local stores and pubs and laugh at the cars parked and stranded people.
It is an issue here in Denver, one of the few lines that was built with destinations in mind is the D-Line. Its a very popular line, which is in no doubt due to the Englewood and Downtown Littleton stops. Both of which drop you off next to shopping and Housing. I used to live one more stop down, the Mineral station. Which does have some of those issues you discuss, but I was one of the few who would walk from my Apartment to the train, which meant walking by good shopping and an entrance to some very nice greenspace, which is also super popular for cyclists to get around.
I grew up and still live near mineral. Big down side is most of the trains only go to 18th and California. Union station trains are very far and inbetween and extremely unreliable. As a big sports fan who wants to drink responsibly and go watch the broncos, avs or nuggets, this unreliable train is a complete let down.
I wish the Golden RTD bus line actually connected to the W line terminus in the Jeff Co Government Center. It's like 15 minutes of walking through parking lots and government buildings, followed by another 15 minutes of walking through residential/strip malls to get to the nearest bus stop. It's quicker to get to that bus stop, and downtown Golden from there, if you get off at Oak station (4th stop on the W line) and catch the bus from there.
Also there's nothing but a golf course in the way of them extending the W line along Highway 6 to terminate at 19th street much closer to downtown instead.
I live in Golden and work 10 miles away in NW Denver. It's a 15 minute drive but 2 hours on buses... It baffles me that bus service is so disjointed and baffles me even more that there's no light rail option that gets you into downtown Golden from Denver. Why is the Government Center the terminus?? They built tracks all the way up there and couldn't think of a way to extend them up to Washington??
Yeah, the ridiculous placement of the W line terminus is one of the clearest signals RTD ever sent to impoverished or otherwise carless riders about "trains are for wealthy people who are riding them for convenience and can drive to the station first; if you actually need us to take you alllll the way somewhere worth going, get on the 16L with the rest of the poors"
@@Darth_Insidious Ah, but how could they build through a golf course? Golf courses belong to wealthy people! Denver's long tradition of screwing people out of property to make way for big building projects has always involved them being careful to just screw over the poor and minorities 😂 (😭) I don't remember details now, but an old fellow I met on the W once told me some very colorful stories of residents who were bullied and manipulated out of their homes for the building of the original trolley line that the W route mostly followed. I hadn't even previously known such a line once existed (grew up on the southeast side nearer to Glendale so wasn't around Jeffco as a kid). And oh man learning later about the history of resident displacement for the building of the Auraria Campus blew my mind, really saw my hometown in a much uglier light after that. Denver is so abusive to its residents it's straight up insane
Great 1928 photograph at the end of what the New York Subway looked like when it was first built. As someone that grew up riding the #7 train, I immediately recognized that spot as the current location of Citi Field and the US Open Tennis Center. It is astonishing how much it has changed in less than 100 years.
The 7-train still looks exactly like that, though. The only change are now there are buildings around it. What I'm trying to say NYC's mass transit development level pisses me off.
So Denver resident here, I live in one of the few good TOD's along the RTD system but its an absurdly long trip to my office in the tech center and then my office is a mile walk from the nearest station. I'll take it if I'm not pressed for time and the weather is good but most days when I do go into the office I drive. You hit the nail on the head with lack of destinations around rail. It's better than it was for sure but a lot of these parking lots need to be converted into something more useful than free parking
I live in West Wash Park by the I-25 and Broadway station. My office is at I-25 and Monaco, about 3/4 of a mile from the Bellview station. Essentially, I hit the light rail jackpot, but still use it only in bad weather, because driving remains faster.
Thanks for this video! I moved to Denver from Boston, and it's been a tough car-based adjustment. I live in RINO and commute down to meridian, and it can take an hour each way sometimes. I-25 is a nightmare and the worst part is...I live close enough to Union to get on a train there and my office is theoretically close enough to a station that I could use both. But there are still about 2 miles of nothing in between the station and my office. I can schedule one of those little buses to take me between the office and the station, but that requires me to be super on time and restricted with when I can be at the office. The Airport - Downtown train is amazing. Also, in Rino...it's still like at least a 10-15 minute walk to the nearest shop of any kind from where I live. No bodegas, no coffee shops, no groceries, no restaurants. At least there are those little scooters...
While stationed in Fort Carson, I took advantage of the RTD's "free for Military" benefit so when I'd take my family to DT Denver, we'd use a Park'n'Ride for free parking then take the train to Union Station. It may have added 10-15 minutes to the trip overall but I'd rather walk and ride than grind thru DT traffic and Look & Pay for parking.
Central Park ( formerly Stapleton ) neighborhood was built on the site of the former airport. They had a clean slate and they decided to build the housing nowhere near the proposed train station. RTD says they want ridership but it acts almost in opposition to developers who are courting transit hating home buyers. We're getting a new mayor in a month or so , maybe housing near stations will actually start to happen. The biggest upside I can say is that at least the Cherry Creek trail makes it easy to be a bike commuter. But being a transit commuter sucks.
This is a problem for literally every metro that isn’t in the northeast. I seriously can’t understand how we can’t just rezone everything within a 5 min walk of a train station to dense mixed use
Funny that you put this video out today, because I had an RTD Moment™ today. I was picking up a small will call order in an industrial area, and seeing that there was a bus stop right in front of this factory I figured I'd take transit. Getting there was fine, but apparently buses drop to worse than 60 minute frequencies during the mid afternoon. Not wanting to sit and wait over an hour on a shitty, windy, dusty corner of an industrial area, I saw on google maps that there was a commuter rail stop about 2 miles away. I walked the two miles (no shoulders and no sidewalks of course, because god forbid someone would ever have the audacity to walk, although to be fair there was a weird sidewalk on a highway bridge that I'm pretty sure I was the first person to ever use because there was nothing connecting to it on either side) and when I eventually got to the station I was still in the middle of that low density industrial area. Like, the transit station was pretty much right next to industrial intermodal shipping container processing lots. The only possible trip generator I saw was an Amazon delivery center, but that was a bad 3/4 mile walk away and those delivery centers require most employees to get in at 1:20am when no trains are running. The station I ended up at and that was in the middle of nowhere was Pecos Junction. It must be intended purely as a transfer station because as far as I can tell there is nothing but rail yards and a few factories (and not the types that employ a lot of people) nearby. It's unlikely that'll change going forward because relocating factories is incredibly expensive, and the area really isn't desirable (it's dusty, desolate, loud, and judging from the many methane vents and huge amount of trash poking out of drainage areas I think it used to be a landfill).
We had to go to a wedding between Denver and Boulder and we decided to stay in Boulder. We rented a car, but I wanted to see how the bus between Boulder and Denver ran, it was also going to be like an hour and I rather not drive if I can help it. The bus was quick, clean, and cheap. One thing I noticed was all the stops along the highway, almost like the bu wanted to be a train. The buses had dedicated highway exits and lanes to keep them from getting stuck in traffic. On the highway itself, the bus had no bus lane, but I saw several signs saying that the bus was allowed to use the shoulder of the highway when there was traffic. Sadly, I didn't get to see that. However, I couldn't help but notice how many of the bus stops were just park and ride, but for the bus. There was some development going on but overall, all the bus stops were just parking lot islands. Very sad to see, RTD seems to be a greatly ran system, but the land use is just horrendous.
There literally should be a train to Boulder but the last I heard the freight rail company does not want to give RTD the easement, and yes the flat iron flyer is bus-rapid-transit like it wants to be a train.
The Flatiron Flyer is probably the most successful bus route on RTD's system. It's safe, efficient, has good ridership, and is typically on time. Honestly, if I were designing rail connections for RTD, Boulder would be way down on my priority list.
Los Angeles can feel like this. Hopefully we’ll turn unused land into actual living and working mixed used transit oriented destinations. May Denver turn that abandoned golf course into a transit oriented development.
I live in Denver, and the closest light rail station is a 15 minute drive from my house. I live in Marston, which is a southwest offshoot of the city. It's wild to me that in order to use the light rail in DENVER, I have to drive 15 minutes to access a station. Transit is useless if you can't walk to it!
Another thing Denver should probably do with its regional rail stations is feed them with bus service, which they can do much quicker than they can build high rises. In Vancouver we have a few skytrain stations that are surrounded by mostly parking and industrial (Scott road and Bridgeport) but they still have good ridership because they have bus loops that are served by good bus service. It’s something they could do now that would have a dramatic effect on ridership
As I mentioned in another comment response (where I wrote a bit of a novella, I'm afraid), I believe the original intent _was_ to work with the bus lines, and there are several stops that are also bus hubs... but even many of those have a high focus on the acreage of parking spaces. And the bus routes keep getting slashed. I can only think of two buses that run more frequently than by the half hour, and more and more of them were getting spaced further out, with some not going the full route at points throughout the day. Given that we have people working at all hours these days, "only during rush hour" doesn't work so well anymore.
They do. All of the A-line stations outside of downtown and most of the light rail stations outside of downtown are bus hubs. Though you don't want to go near a few of them, Nine Mile station in Aurora is particularly sketchy (I literally watched a lady smoking Fentanyl in broad daylight there).
Forgot to mention. All the park n go parking lots are hot spots for break ins, it's why I don't use it, my car was broken into twice. Almost everyday, I would see a window broken on a car. And I didn't have anything in the car
I live in Louisville (near Boulder). I take the regional bus (FF1) downtown and then light rail from Union Station to DTC. It's an hour and 15 minutes one way, compared to an hour in a car. Those are convenient endpoints, but every stop in between is a deserted park and ride next to an interstate. When I lived in Denver (Baker and Cap Hill), the bus service was laughable and I rode my bike or drove to get anywhere. They also have been putting off building a light rail line to Boulder for literal decades. At this pace, Colorado will be an uninhabitable desert before they ever build it.
As someone that regularly uses public transit, one of the few benefits I’ve had is whenever I go to see a Broncos or Rockies game, the train is very reliable, and I don’t need to commute into downtown Denver. But all of those stops do seem a little out of the way.
Man this intro got me. I lived in a little town in Utah called Logan for a few years at university and everywhere I went I heard on repeat "hey you wanna hit the canyon? Well, I would have liked to hit the canyon this morning, but I had to do X.... MAN last night when we went up the canyon was GREAT"! And I would joke with people that the students of our town would all turn their yoga mats east 5x a day and send up their prayers to their object of veneration: the canyon. Same idea with "thE sLoPeS!"
Dropping FACTS! Newly converted Strong Towns advocate and Denver resident. I really like our light rail options, but the journey from residence to park and ride/light rail stops is pretty tricky. I use the Colorado Station - E line to downtown. I actually like how CO Station is next to a good business hub/foundation for residential dev but it's WAY more built up than most other stops. Also, me being able to lean on my privileged ass full remote job + car means I can pick and chose how I commute - most light rail don't seem really geared towards those who probably need transit options the most :/
Biiiiiiig Strong Towns fan over here as well! I'm living in Golden right now, and my neighborhood is super ideal as far as walking and biking access go. Transit has a long way to go, but there are good things happening every day. Safe Routes to Schools installed a few raised crosswalks in my neighborhood, bike paths are expanding... Just gotta push better public transit connections into Denver!
@@emilymclean6541 heck yeah! ST fans unite! Happy to hear Golden has good bike/walk foundations (I don't get out there enough, wonderful place). Not surprised to hear about metro - sadly. There's actually a Denver Strong Towns community that seems to meet monthly. It appears small but I'm trying to work my way into meetings/activities/agenda (I'll share the links in case it's of interest).
Haven't used the system as much in the last few years (I live out on the Plains), but when the other half used to work for DISH, the Littleton station was a decent little hub. Light Rail for downtown and between, reasonable bus hub for cross-town, so long as you weren't in a massive rush. And the one year I volunteered for DCC (now DPCC), rather than deal with the insane downtown rates, I got a room at the hotel just off of the... I want to say Southmoor station? The one with the singing tunnel? Anyway, the rates were decent and the Light Rail took me from the hotel right up to the entrance to the Convention Center, which was fantastic. Sadly, I could give more examples of stations that were not so well designed. Some of them, to be fair, had to be sort of shoe-horned into spots that had never been considered before, but even so, there... wasn't as much thought put into the planning, both as a whole and in specific locations, as should have been, and it shows.
As a Denver resident who lived in NYC for a while, transit is the worst part of being back here. No one takes transit except to the airport because of how inaccessible it is. The nearest rail station is a 5 minute drive from me.
I lived in Denver for about a year before I was fired from my job and evicted (fun times), and not once did I have any opportunity to use any of the rail. I didn't drive either, so I took the bus everyday because it was by far the most efficient. Unfortunately there's only dedicated bus lanes in the very center of Denver, but it still beat rail everytime (at least for where I was going)
Rode RTD to work for the couple months I lived in Denver a few years back. By far the worst part of my commute was getting in my car at my home station and driving that last few miles
I’ve heard that there are some complicating factors with 2o. Because of the restrictive easement that currently exists (the one that 2o would get rid of), the city could purchase the land very inexpensively to build public housing. If the measure passes, though, acquiring any public housing there gets much more expensive.
That is an argument against I keep seeing but nothing in the easement gives the city the ability to buy the land if the developer doesn't want to sell. Also Denver has no public housing agency with the authority to build its own housing. That capability would have to be voted on and added to the city charter first. I would vote for that, but at the moment it's unlikely to come to a vote for at least 2+ years and in the meantime the current owner of the land will be forced to keep it a golf course to make money
@@legatus_newt The owner can't make a profit keeping it as a golf course, because they overpaid for the property, gambling on being able to get the easement removed. They have to either get the easement removed or sell the property. If they don't want to sell, then they would just keep losing money on it, so they would be motivated to sell. The only options would be selling to the City or to someone else who thinks they can get the easement removed, which would be a risky position for any investor to take if the voters had just voted down removing the easement. Secondly, while I would prefer social housing, if the City can't build its own housing, it could still buy the property and then sell to a non-profit affordable housing developer, with conditions in the sale contract specifying the amount and quality of the housing, and stating that the property will revert to the city if the conditions are violated. Such a deal could be structured in a way to provide at least as much total housing, and more affordable housing, than the current for-profit developer is offering.
Thanks for highlighting the density issues regarding the RTD, as it shows how urban planning and engineering go hand in hand. Although, I particularly remember seeing a few news stories on the G line a few years ago when it first opened talking about how the service was a huge revenue grower for local businesses at the terminus stations at Westminister, so it looks like the issue with underdeveloped stations is more prevalent for stations in-between termini. Also of concern is the lack of intercity rail in the Denver region, with this problem likely to be solved by Amtrak and/or the privately owned Front Range Regional Rail.
I lived in a dense area, only 2 miles away from downtown Denver where I worked. There were no trains in my area, and it would take 30 minutes just to walk to the nearest bus stop, so I biked instead which only took about 20 minutes. However, the bike infrastructure was almost non-existent and I would have to ride along side 3 to 4 lanes of busy car traffic. Even if I wanted to drive, parking around my work cost about $30/day. I made $17/hr at a temp job with no benefits. Unfortunately many cities along the front range are following in Denver's footsteps in terms of increasing sprawl, more stroads, and minimal public transit.
Agree 100% . They are building houseing next to the Central Park Station, but they really need more grocery stores. Also let's not forget about all the car break ins at the A line Park n Rides
Just got back from a trip to Boulder and one of the things that I found disappointing was the busses. It took me 40 minutes to get from Boulder to Denver but another 40 minutes and 2 busses to get from down town to the zoo(about 3 miles from downtown). It really seemed like they were trying but the stops and routes didn’t make too much sense. Edit: it was also hard to get into the mountains without taking a car which was really disappointing.
As someone who uses the BNSF line to commute into Chicago for school, I can say without a doubt that the Route 59 station is the most depressing place on earth.
The worst part of denvers transit system is I-25 north, there is ALWAYS either a huge traffic jam or a major accident and there is no public transportation linking denver to colorados second biggest city (Colorado springs)
On the topic of drug use, I get the need to restrict or completely eliminate drugs in the U.S., but what I don't get is what good is that? Do people who focus on that bit think people do drugs for the hell of it? And if we did manage to stop all drug-trade from Latin America, wouldn't users try to find other ways to get it, like maybe smuggling them from Canada? What we should consider is why people are drawn to them and how we can improve the conditions they live in like mental, social, and economic factors that draw them in.
Ive stopped feeling safe taking the lightrail anymore. They hardly check tickets, idk if they even made it free for everyone to use. Homeless camped out trying to get away from the cold. the trains are filthy and disgusting. People constantly bugging me for money. Homeless cracked out, sprawled out onto 2 benches and emptying their dirty ass shoes onto the benches and floor. FUCK THAT
We moved to Westminster 14 years ago, right next to the RTD bus stop and the new downtown area they were building. RTD was supposed to put a light rail station next to the bus stop and the new downtown, but for some insane reason (I believe graft), they put it five miles away where nothing exists.
Great analysis! One thing I wonder about a lot of train stations in the US and many other countries: Why don't they have roofs on the platforms? Does it not rain that often, or do people not care much about the rain or sun? Maybe it's just a cultural difference but I've found it a bit baffling.
I'm pretty sure that it's both a cost measure as well as a very common trend of hostile architecture in public spaces around Colorado, there are plenty of homeless and instead of doing something about the homeless people everyone builds public structures to be very inhospitable. You can't lay down on a bench because they have metal bars in the middle. Fat people can't even sit on those benches. There is no proper windproofing there is no proper rain proofing just so that you cannot be comfortable to sleep there at night during the winter. Screw over all the commuters who actually don't want wind and rain while they're standing waiting for an hourly scheduled bus
Cost cutting and to prevent homeless from making train stations a home. They literally changed the rules Union Station (the transit hub of the whole network) to no longer allow people to loiter without a ticket. This is selectively enforced obviously because the train station has several high class restaurants, a coffee shop, a book store, and several bars that people go to all the time without a pass. But if you just sit and read a book on the extremely comfy chairs in "Denver's living room" you better have a train or bus pass handy. Or you will literally be beaten bloody by the rent-a-cop private security force. Literally they beat a man nearly to death two years ago.
So I can't even use the public transport if I don't have a car? I have lived in London for 20 years and I still don't have a driving license, never had problem of getting a job or making a living and traveling, but every time I get a invite to travel to USA from friends and family member, I flinch! I don't want to be burden to the friends and family who have to drive me everywhere cause there's no decent public transportation that allows me to roam the city without resorting to Uber or taxi!
My nan hasn't driven all her life in here in North east england. She normally just walks or uses the bus network to get around town even at her age. And thats with the network not being the best because ye know it's a northern town.
Anywhere in the big northeast cities US you'll likely be alright, but out in the midwest and west coast? bit more dicey. I grew up in a town of 75 000 in canada and some cities with metro areas of like a million in the US have bus systems that are just about as bad lol.
It's not all bad. I got lucky to buy in a neighborhood just a 10 minute walk to the neighborhood station (Perry Station in Denver), which is NOT a park & ride style and is surrounded by gentrification. The downside is that it goes to our Union Station, but not to our downtown (which is *could*), so it adds another 15 minutes to a commute.
I can bike to my local RTD stop, or walk but it takes a while. My friend who lives in the downtown area and doesn't bike has to drive. We live in one of the suburbs of Denver. It depends on where in the town you live and where you're going- activities at CU are right off a bus line, though their stadium was a decent walk from the bus stop. Some other parts of Boulder would require a long walk from the bus stop to get there, though
I noticed the same thing when I visited Denver for a railroad industry conference last year. So many massive parking lots that isolate otherwise amazing trains.
Bro you didn’t talk about how we got screwed with the lack of a line out to Boulder and are still to this day paying taxes on the line that dose not exist.
Also good luck 🤞. 2O is controversial on both sides of the aisle. Even the most progressive Mayoral candidates don't support it because "the developer used shady tactics to buy the land" when those shady tactics were literally just buying a defunct golf course and letting it rot for 3 years. I'm a yes on 2O but it is likely not to pass. Park Hill with their million dollar homes don't want affordable housing near them and would rather keep it a vacant golf course.
The a-line is definitely not the most popular line in Denver. The a-line goes to the airport at one end and Union station at the other. The two ends are very important locations but every stop in-between has very little ridership use. The e-line is the most important light rail line in Denver with the most ridership. You are correct the light rail is set up around car culture.
I've loved RTD despite its issues. Some of the far-off stations really help for making it so I dont have to drive anywhere near as much for getting to the airport. However, part of RTD's issue is (very rich) NIMBY's and people stuck in the "Us vs them" argument. The whole "Access to public transportation will encourage the working peoples to move about!!1!" type bit. Douglas county does not even get bus services due to this, as they voted against it.
Well done video. It points to the problem in America...we just dump mass transit in where we can or where land is available and/or cheap. We must look as transit as PART OF development in the city and in the suburbs. I once read when Portland began creating light rail, new developments of homes sprung up around stations. People who lived in thos developments could walk out their door, walk a block or two and get on a train. WOW! Perhaps in Denver's case, government needs to create incentives to get development going around stations.
I used to live in the Denver area and take the rail lines. Denver's downtown is really small (and not very well served by rail, frankly, there's the free 16th street bus that tries to make up for it, but is so slow I beat it on foot on multiple occasions) and the metro area is very spread out. I can think of a few stations outside of downtown that have more walkable areas near them (Louisiana/Pearl, Colfax, Olde Town Arvada, etc.) but yes in general once you get to most Denver stations the area around them isn't very walkable and/or there's just very little there. And as others have pointed out, the rail lines don't go to some of the areas that really could use them because they have the development/desirability.
I really appreciate you making a video on the RTD transit system. I try to take the train as often as possible to my university and job and one of the most frustrating things that you touched on in your video is how i have to drive 20 minutes to reach the closest station. However there is a major problem that you didn’t discuss that i think is also holding ridership back. I do love the 15 minute frequencies on the train, however more often than not i experience delays and cancellations that end up messing with my schedule and making me late. This happens at least twice a week, once on the A Line and once on the H Line. Just recently when I was taking the A Line they cancelled 3 trains in a row which resulted in me being 45 minutes late to work. Fun. I think cancellations is the other main problem plaguing RTD, as I have seen multiple people on the platform after a delay or a cancellation voice their disdain for public transit, citing it as one of the main reasons why they don’t ride it more. Since you were only in Denver for a little while I think you got lucky you didn’t experience any problems, but its very frustrating seeing the potential of the system held back by this.
The big difference is that almost all of SEPTA’s network was built before cars were popular and designed specifically to encourage people to move out to walkable neighborhoods. In contrast, Denver and other newer systems were designed AFTER more sprawled out, car-centric suburbs were already built. We would all love to see better land use around the stations, but if you consider their purpose was to cut down on the number of cars driving all the way into downtown, they have at least succeeded in that respect.
As a colorado native who tries to take the train from my neighborhood to my university downtown I've actually been using RTD a lot recently (even if i have to drive to the station to use it). I'd say it's okay even if the train is louder than a tank and there's a lot of homeless but my god I wish it would run more often. I missed my train one day and had to wait over an hour for the next one at Union Station which also has a large homeless population.
Yeah my experience has been that Union Station is very far and few inbetween, or when scheduled is extremely unreliable and wont show up. but good thing theres a million 18th and californias. The homeless suck to. I dont feel safe when their all sprawled out, cracked out and emptying their dirty shoes onto the seats and floors. NO THANKS
RTD is a disaster. Every station has a huge mob of homeless people dumping trash bags out onto the ground, smoking crack out in the open, pissing out in the open, screaming at nothing, physical fights, etc. Most buses and trains are just day care centers for the mentally ill to get out of the cold and do drugs that normal riders have to deal with. Cars at park and rides constantly getting broken into and/or having their catalytic converters stolen. No extra trains on Ball Arena event nights. I also took the last A line train from the airport one night and everyone was literally packed in like sardines due to all of the airport workers trying to get home. I guess they don't think they need an extra train or two for all of those people?? I guess it's good that Denver has something, but what they do have is pretty embarrassing. This is only scratching the surface of the problems RTD has.
My main problem with the system is racism. They built light rail to serve low density white neighborhoods, but the most racially, diverse Corridor and the busiest one, Colfax, is a Bus and mixed traffic
Corridor and bus are common nouns. Don't capitalize them. There's no racism. There's no such thing as white neighborhoods. Racial diversity is totally irrelevant, because race is arbitrary. Diversity isn't inherently good. It can be good, it can be bad, and it's almost always neutral.
And then there's Boulder which despite a large number of folks there calling it a 'bubble' in a negative connotation and expressing the desire to get out of said bubble (assuming they aren't priced out) won't even take the necessary steps to build a light rail to downtown or even Louisville/Superior. Truly asinine and malicious.
My dude, right.on.the.nail. I live im Denver, and i reaaaaaally want to take the transport a lot more but find driving or even riding my bike a lot more efficient than RTD. What’s worst is that RTD is such a great idea, just poorly delivered, also I will say the transit is often not on time and though i have compassion for the homeless, I find that a lot of them partake on illicit substance inside of the trains and buses, which makes me feel unsafe in there. I hope it can be resolved and continue to make Denver a better city.
As a loyal Denverite, I agree, our transit system is *garbage*. But hey, at least our station is nice, where the Amtrak ski train takes a quick trip up the line to Winter Park for skiing
The worst problem currently is the open use of fentanyl on the trains and no presence of police. You can’t switch train cars and are subject to second hand smoke from drug use. It’s awful!
I think a video on River Mile would be super interesting. Denver is planning on repurposing the largest paved parking lot in an urban center (currently elitch gardens and Ball Arena) into a brand new mixed use neighborhood with over 7000 housing units and no minimum parking or maximum height requirements.
They're only repurposing the Elitches site as Elitches is moving to a new site, the giant Ball Arena lot remains. They need to extend the heavy rail through that corridor. There is a light rail station between Elitches and Ball Arena that serves the E and W lines, but trains get delayed in there due to line congestion so you often sit in a siding waiting for the station to clear.
@mrvwbug4423 the first stage is only using Elitch's lots, but the second stage is planned to use a significant portion of the ball arena lots. Revesco properties owns both properties now so they're the ones who are moving the amusement park.
Regarding that ballot measure 2o, it's not even an active golf course. It's a *former* golf course and is currently unused land. The fight to not use it is mostly ridiculous NIMBY stuff sadly.
I thought the light rail would be so cool when it came to denver and every time I’ve used it, I always feel like I’m wasting either time, money or both.
Have you ever considered making a video about public transport systems in other regions? Most urbanist UA-camrs only talk about the US, Europe or Japan. Here in Uruguay for example, out rail sistem has aged worse than the US's, so we rely mainly on bus sistems which interestingly are almost all co-ops. And I'm sure places like Mexico, Chile or Brazil have interesting things going on, not to mention African countries.
Even living downtown doesn't mean the station location is useful. For us to get to the airport required two buses to get to the station less than a mile away. With luggage, it's totally ridiculous. Also, the buses haven't been too reliable. Even with an 18 minute interval, I've had to wait 45 minutes for a bus. Denver would send me a survey every year, asking what it would take for me to use public transportation more often. Stations in places where people live, and buses that show up on time, would be a good start.
thank you for criticizing the millenials who move here to be outdoorsy. Also yeah RTD has always had good intentions but failed to live up to what it could be, mostly because of the huge amount of sprawl in my opinion
Denverite here. I remember when I worked downtown and the lightrail I took from the south was infrequent as hell. Parking in the "overload lot" every day if you weren't there by 7am, and walking to the lightrail, plus traveling downtown took about an hour. And if I missed the damn thing, I had to wait 30 minutes! As opposed to going by car only, it took 30 minutes from my door to the door of my office. Ridiculous.
video: "what's super impressive about Denver's regional rail system is the A line has--" my partner, who has lived in Denver most of their life and was overhearing the video from across the room: "the A line!?" I haven't had the chance to use RTD much, but my impression of the A line (as someone who has only lived in Denver since 2020) is that it's the line you take to get to the airport.
I visited Denver last year for work and was quite surprised by how good the trains were! The only problem is what you outline in this video, many of the stations don't seem to connect to much.
The Southmoor station is especially cursed, because it's on the neighborhood side of the highway but has no access from that side, only an underpass to the park and ride because the NIMBY neighborhood association deliberately blocked access when it was built
This intro also translates really well to Calgary! We don't even have a train to the airport or mountains yet, but both are being talked about. The province gave funding for a light rail extension to the airport, and conceptual work is also underway for a train from the airport, through Downtown Calgary and to Banff.
Good luck getting CP to play ball on the Banff train idea, but at least you still have a downtown station and a good light rail system. Edmonton got rid of all our city centre trackage and our latest LRT line is turning out to be better at getting into crashes than hauling people.
You definitely hit the nail on the head with this one. I always think about how wild it is that I was able to live car-free in Boulder and had 0 transit issues, but now living in Denver (the larger metro area) public transport is only convenient when needing to go the the airport
One advantage that Boulder has in car-free lifestyle is that it is small. The whole city can be accessed by bicycle and large portions of it can even be traversed by foot quite easily.
The commuter rail system here is less than 8 years old - development takes time and Denver is very much a commuter-city. No one goes to Thornton or Central Park; the A-line exists solely to get people to and from DIA. Pathetic take on the Park Hill situation - there is a lot more going on with that corrupt development. The people of Denver have already voted it down previously and the developer is back at the well again hoping to sneak it through. Keep your politics to yourself.
One big problem has always been relying on freight rail right-of-way for transit. It's almost always no man's land with a lot of industrial zoning along freight rails. It's also a pain to get to stations from residential areas unless you have a car, but if you have a car there isn't a lot of incentive to drive it part way to your destination just to leave it in a parking lot where it might be broken into when you can finish the trip in your car. NIMBYs are also a reason for the mess, when you have stations like Southmoor where the neighborhood directly opposed access to the platform.
As someone who worked for RTD for 4 years, you hit the nail on the head. It was always so frustrating watching the Board of Directors and management just ignore this issue and then wonder why ridership never increased.
This is what happens when your executives are all useless politicians lmao
Corporateria's domineering cleptoparasites 💡💡💡
Yes, but wasn't the specific purpose of the A line just to take people to and from the Airport...that was the main purpose and not really for mass transit.
@@zaklex3165 that is mass transit…
@@zaklex3165 technically correct, but the R line, N line, G line, all have the same issue. You have to drive to a PnR to access the transit. So... What's the point? You still need a car. It negates the entire concept. It's a good idea, very poorly implemented. I sat in on many board of director meetings and the focus was always "how can we make RTD turn a profit?" and that is the problem. Public transit isn't supposed to generate a profit on its own. It's supposed to indirectly generate a profit by getting people to economic centers easily within walking distance. They fundamentally did not understand this concept.
"Better transit means you have to have better destinations."
Love that sentence
The question is, what destinations are not being reached along rail lines within the metro area? Outside of extensions to Golden(G-Line) and Boulder/Longmont(B-Line), what is there?
I live in Denver and tried my best to use the light rail, but you're exactly right. Stations are often in the middle of a highway and just dump you out into a barren park and ride. To get from there to your destination is uncomfortable and not practical. What a waste.
bike kinda alleviate (slightly) that but it still awful lol.
I've been using the light rail a lot more now that I have an ebike. A class 1 pedal assist works great as a city commuter when combined with transit. Just make sure you have a safe place to park it.
Same with the Silver Line here in Northern Virginia. We had an existing rail corridor that went through all the downtowns, but it's being used for a rail trail so they built it in the middle of a highway instead. As a cyclist I love the W&OD trail, but I can't help but think of the missed potential.
That’s the problem with most American rail stations. They drop you in the middle of nowhere in a parking lot
There unusable without at least bringing a bike
Thank you for this! Denver is a really strange city. It seems like they have 30 new apartment buildings completed every day, yet (at least the ones near the edge of the city) they’re in the middle of stroads and parking lots with no transit in sight. They seem to acknowledge that density=good and transit=good, but have in most places failed to see that they must be connected to get any of the benefits of each
Developers have liittle incentive to fund transit.
I think the issue is it’s much cheaper to acquire land next to a stroad 10-15 minutes from the city center than to build where transit options tend to be (though the example next to a bunch of single family homes maybe is a good counter example). If Denver were to ex. Sell off or subsidize the purchase of such land (depending on who owns it) on the condition that they build a certain density of shops/apartments/whatever, that would presumably lead to additional people living/working/shopping in higher density increasing tax revenue, and reducing car dependency and costs of road maintenance and other stuff like utilities etc. that suburban sprawl generate
The metro region has pretty generous TOD incentives... They just take time to take place. There are currently like 5 apartment complexes being built around the Wadworth station on the W line.
@@lbsc1201 is arlington county (Virginia) a joke to you?
@@lbsc1201 they don’t have to fund it. it’s already there 😂
Boston recently forced towns to upzone land adjacent to commuter rail stations to allow at least multi-family housing. Seems like a good start that Denver should do.
The state government is currently pushing for a law that would prevent local governments from restricting multi-family housing near transit stations, so it is something that is potentially going to happen.
@@TheReykjavik From a foreign perspective...
In my city [Auckland NZ] any residential zoned land within 800m radius of a higher capacity public transport station [Busway or rail for instance] is automatically zoned for six story construction. They can build higher but they have to specifically apply for it, but six story is auto.
@@TheReykjavik Colorado state gov?
@@VhenRaTheRaptor which is fine. If we build more missing middle housing (6 story here, 8 stories etc) the need for supertall skyscrapers lessens and we can get the needed density while still maintaining the skyline or "neighborhood character" or whatnot.
@@mohammedsarker5756 Note, the current planning law that I am not sure is in effect yet...
Is also gonna rezone all residental in Auckland (and the other major cities of the country) [regardless of where it is!] to be three story automatically.
Single family residential? Completely eliminated from the cities containing over 2/3rds of the population of the country. (outside of a few areas the councils are trying desperately to carve out anyway... fairly small areas)
This was the most accurate intro I’ve ever seen.
The hardest-hitting VPN ad I’ve ever seen, too.
I always love the RCR references
Vouch went to csu for the mountains
Dropped to the comments to say this.
That Subaru in the intro might as well be the mascot for the state of Colorado
Glad you made a video on this. There’s a serious lack of good UA-cam content about RTD. I just moved here last year and have come to realize the many flaws with the transit system here. It’s still incomparably better than Indianapolis though (where I moved from)
Had a similar experience. Denver is the definition of "quantity over quality". Given the raw numbers it sounds like Denver should have one of the best transit systems of a middle-sized city in NA.
But instead we have rapid transit built solely to the least dense locations RTD could have chosen. The lines aren't the *worst* things in the world, and generally RTD provides a pretty substantial amount of coverage, but it completely lacks a proper core and frequency that could make the system truly useful for a huge chunk of the population.
@@LilBoyHexley Based on all the videos I've seen about it and my own experience using it (not all that often as it's rarely really all that useful for me for reasons I'll mention), I think the way of describing the RTD rail system is good on paper or from a distance - and a lot of transit enthusiasts who visit or just talk about it from afar praise it. But the implementation and execution of it is rather poor, with a lot of really annoying oversights and flaws that prevent it really being all that useful. Not going anywhere actually useful, slow trains, expensive fares, and really poorly designed connections between lines.
@@quillmaurer6563 I don't think it's quite right to call them "oversights", RTD knew exactly what they were doing- building stations and rail where it was cheap to do so without concern for transit outcomes. Maybe the park-n-ride model really does help with commuting/parking/traffic downtown, but it's obvious the main interest was cost to implement. Hopefully new policies for fares and development around the existing network can increase ridership and lead to better funding to make a more useful network for the existing city, but it's gonna be a long road.
@@octorokpie True - building to some of the most useful places would be very expensive. Dense city is both where trains are most useful and most expensive to build. But some of the other oversights really feel inexcusable and would be quite easy to fix. The downtown lines not having priority at traffic lights - that would seem incredibly obvious. Not being able to access the downtown lines from Union Station or the W Line (the latter passing within about 500 feet of them), their answer being to take the slower-than-walking MallRide. This could be fixed with a short section of track and some more switches, which actually used to exist on earlier configurations of the lines, and having the L Line continue to Union Station. If those two changes were implemented, I'd use it much more frequently to go downtown. The A Line and G Line just missing each other in either direction so you have to wait a good while at Union Station if going from Arvada to the airport or vise-versa (the most frequent use case by my mom and I). This could be fixed with some schedule adjustments. Running the G Line faster, I'm pretty sure the speed limits on that line are much higher than the schedule has them run. The "Union Station" light rail and commuter rail termini being two blocks apart - at one time the light rail was right next to the current commuter rail station, but it was moved to build a tower there. Can't fix that one without a time machine though, but what the hell were they thinking? There are many much bigger issues - staffing, budget, geography - but these are far easier fixes that could make the system much better, and it feels absurd that they haven't.
Just wait. RTD is notorious for having trains not show up at their scheduled times.
Anybody who wants to hit the slopes from Denver should take the Ski Train to Winter Park! It leaves Union Station and drops you right in the middle of the resort. You can even leave stuff on the train if you want because it's just one trip up at the beginning of the weekend and one trip down at the end. I rode it up last year, and it was fantastic. It's staffed by volunteers, so they're all extremely passionate and knowledgeable about the train and the route.
Loved the ski train! Took it a bunch as a kid! That track goes all the way to Glenwood Springs, which is a beautiful vacation place.
The only thing irritating is that it's only on the weekends. When I head out to ski, I always avoid weekends (flexible jobs whoo) and would love to not have to rent a car each time I'm around.
Sure the Bustang and Pegasus are nice but they can never feel as nice or as comfortable as a train. I personally don't get why they can't run a daily service to such a busy and popular ski resort.
A question as a curious not-american, how is it safe to leave stuff onboard? Do they have security at the doors while you are out skiing?
Wish the train lasted longer, sucks that it ends for the season just last weekend.
@@antoniovitellaro Well, by "stuff", I mean books or pillows or things that are convenient on the train, but not necessarily in your hotel room or on the slopes. They didn't recommend leaving a laptop or a bag behind. I don't believe there's any security - just locked doors.
I actually applied to work for RTD, and my application was rejected… on the grounds of ‘unreliable transportation’
Ummm… RTD? I’m using the public transit system to get to work. Da fuq?
As it is, it takes me two hours to get to my current job. At least twenty minutes is walking, and another fifteen minutes is waiting at a transfer stop
As a life long Denverite, that intro encapsulated everyone who has moved out here since 2012 (when weed was legalized). I was both amused and offended.
Definitely need more TOD, security presence, and destinations. A decent city metro system would be helpful.
I think prioritizing the B-Line to Boulder is #1 for me though. Highway 36 and i270 are nightmare drives.
Oh forgot: I crave better rolling stock.
You're going to be disappointed with the B line extension. I was at one of the meetings for it end of January and it's going to be 3 trains per DAY each way and not electrified. The proposed timetables didn't even make sense for something so infrequent.
RTD wants to run more trains but BNSF won't allow it on their single tracked line that they run 1-2 trains a day on.
Some of the staff I talked to said the goal was if there is demand for the service they hope to run more trains in the future.
Security presence is sorely lacking. Even on the rare occasions when RTD is (gasp!) convenient for me, I'll generally Uber or just take my car instead. I'm a young woman and apparently all the creeps in the city see the buses and bus stops as open season to harass me. I grew up taking the subway around New York, many times alone, sometimes at ungodly late hours, and I never once dealt with the harassment and fear that I've felt during a single bus trip in Denver.
@@emilymclean6541 It’s a problem with the light rail system in general. Many times I have felt unsafe and uncomfortable on the RTD light rail and I am a 6’3 black male, so not exactly prime harassment material. It’s the rampant fentanyl and opioid addicts on the train that make it 10x worse to ride. I’ve seen people actively smoking up on the train too. An easy way to fix this would be to install fare gates similar to how the NY subway and London Underground operate, but RTD doesn’t give a F about safety on platforms and trains unless it’s on their more successful money making lines, like the A Line. Never had a ride on there that didn’t have at least 1 security guard on the train and platforms at all times. And don’t get me started on the state of some of their train platforms. Broken down benches, out of order elevators, and crumbling concrete. Doesn’t exactly inspire safety and reliability.
@@IRONF1STY Wow that’s crappy. Wouldn’t they be using the same track? Doesn’t the B line already arrive every hour?
RTD and Denver planners need to visit Vancouver and see how near pretty much every Skytrain station there is a TOD "mini city" that integrates most everything people need within walking distance. If Denver does it right, developers will fund a lot of the transit system expansion, not general taxpayers.
22nd Street be like...
but seriously though, the section between Royal Oak and Joyce Collingwood is rather impressive in terms of density.
Better yet all North American planners should go to the Netherlands and Switzerland to see how to do walking, biking trains, and actually good car infrastructure
That new housing bill is very exciting tho, and the bike rebate program has been a success
I think my favorite transportation fact about Denver is the fact that the city awarded David Moffat with a solid-silver cup with a marble base called the Moffat Cup (which is now on display at Denver's Union Station). Moffat poured his all into making Denver connected to the rest of the western states by train, and although his railway wasn't completed until after his death (he passed in 1911), Denver recognized Moffat's efforts to put them on the map and so they presented him that in 1904 simply out of love. The cup is huge at 230 pounds of pure silver and marble, and it stands at nearly three and a half feet tall!
The engineering feat of the Moffat Tunnel, with a length of over six miles through the Continental Divide, would be named after him when it opened in 1928. Colorado also named a county after him
Favorite area to backpack in. James Peak Wilderness/East Portal/Crater/IPW. Beautiful stuff out past Nederland, all lightly trafficked and incredible.
@@Optable And the west portal is literally right next to Winter Park resort. The ski train literally just stops at the west portal to drop off/pick up skiers in winter. you can also generally predict the lift opening times, the California Zephyr emerges from the west portal usually around 9:50AM, 10min before lifts open. It doesn't stop there in summer (it stops at a station in Fraser in summer) but you can still use it as your "10min til lifts open" warning for the bike park haha.
The thing you didn't mention about Central Park Station is that it is in the middle of the old Stapleton Airport site. It's been taking years to redevelop it as they needed to plan out the master plan, utilities, and other stuff. It has become a decent area to live and still has a lot of new things coming.
one Sprouts and the Worst Walmart in all of Colorado for groceries. They also have a new development in Northfield and off of the A line near Tower (smack in the middle of "Industrial Park Central" and that Super Target is way over shopped as is.
Plus there is a ton of density planned for all of the area around Central Park Station. The most basic google search reveals that.
@@DougBachman
Let me guess u didn't watch the whole video? He mentions that towards the end
I've visited Stapleton which Central Park Station serves a number of times over 20 years, and it still a huge disappointment. I really really wanted to love this place. To @DougBachman's point, the planned development pales in comparison to the scale of Arlington, Virginia around the Metro stations, where much bigger buildings create wedding-cake zoning around train stations and there are actual good destinations. And Stapleton has taken sooooo looonnggg.... My friends moved to Stapleton 20 years ago and yet it still feels like you can't walk to enough good destinations. The Big Box stores are parking craters. Quebec Street is a too-wide car sewer canyon. Even one-way pair streets like Roslyn and Syracuse are hostile to good walkability and urbanism. The so-called 29th Ave/Founders Square doesn't feel like a real downtown. The whole place feels like sprawl with a fake veneer of new urbanism. No surprise that people who live there drive everywhere except for recreation.
Some apartments and a grocery store have gone in nearby, but the frustrating thing is they seem to be developing it backwards - developing farther away from the station first, while keeping the parking ocean as the closest thing to the station. They should start by developing the areas closest to the station where the parking is, but that would make too much sense. The new grocery store (sprouts) is an 8 minute walk, but it could have been a 0 minute walk.
It is problematic right now, but the intent was always to build the rail infrastructure and allow developers to fill in the areas around the station with higher density. The system is relatively new and it will take decades for that to happen. But, as you noted it is happening. Three of the stations along the A-Line already have high density developments underway -- including the Central Park station you mentioned. Also, that golf course you mentioned at the end is already closed. The debate is whether it should remain as open space or be developed. It's marginally close to the rail station, but Denver has a serious need for additional park space. Some are proposing a compromise to introduce some development and retain some park space.
Ideally any residential development will recognize the value of having some open space still
Then they just failed to spend the money allocated for rail and now colfax Avenue is losing a whole lane to buses because…
THANK YOU FOR ADDRESSING THIS! I grew up in New York and was spoiled by good public transit. I now live in Golden, 15 miles west of Denver, and my neighborhood is wonderful; I almost never use my car when I'm home. I can walk or bike to the library, coffee shop, hiking trails, parks, grocery stores, and breweries. But there is no light rail station anywhere near the main drag in Golden- the only one is 4 miles south at the county courthouse. Bus service is also infrequent and takes horribly indirect routes. I work in west Denver and wish I could take transit to work, but it would be about 2 hours (one way!) with 3 or 4 transfers to get from my house to my job. I'm lucky to have a car, so I make the 15 minute drive instead.
In addition, I'm a woman in my 20s and have felt unsafe the few times I've taken transit in Denver. especially while waiting for the bus or light rail. Even Union Station has very little security presence and I've been verbally harassed and threatened in broad daylight. Again, I grew up in New York, so I'm used to some interesting characters all around, but the complex homelessness/addiction/mental health crisis that is at a fever pitch right now in Denver makes it's a whole 'nother level here, especially on/around the buses.
I've heard it said that a signal of how good a city's transit options are is if rich residents use it regularly; New York and Denver are the opposite ends of that spectrum. Everyone from hedge fund managers to teachers to custodial workers uses the subway in New York. Only people who can't afford a car use transit in Denver. That's how it stays shitty. Everyone in power turns a blind eye to it because, in the words of someone I met climbing (lol) "Who the hell takes the bus?"
All though you didn't flat out say it in the video I think you would agree with the assessment the system is good for tourists but falls short of practical use for citizens. I have traveled through Denver many times and have friends their that have expressed similar views. The downtown to airport rail is legit though and free fare for military is a 🍒 on the cake for me.
I use RTD buses all the time to get to downtown from Boulder but especially the airport, so I don't necessarily agree it's not of practical use for residents. People just have to realize what is there as a good alternative. I've taken the train many times as well for later flights since the bus stops running. But 100% with the free fare for military. It's amazing.
You should have also mentioned what is happening with the proposed B-Line extension. It was initially going to be finished in 2016 with the rest of the FasTracks program, and with the same specifications as the current commuter lines (Electrified trains with 30-60 min frequency operating on their own tracks ) But RTD ran out of funding for FasTracks and has delayed the B-Line expansion until as far as 2050. Even worse, RTD is now planning on operating diesel trains on the pre-existing BNSF freight tracks for the extension. They also have a new proposed frequency for the extension of 6 trains per day (3 in the morning heading to Denver, and 3 at night heading away from Denver), easily the worst scheduling even by American standards.
When I moved here a couple of years ago, I lived about a 15 minute bike ride from that Central Park station. I had plans in Jefferson County one Saturday, so I biked to the station, locked it to one of the many empty bike parking spots, and took the A line to the G line. I was reflecting on why there were never any bikes stopped there, even though the bike infrastructure in that area is pretty good. Many of the streets around there have separated bike lanes, and coming from Michigan I always felt very comfortable even on the streets that didn't. I soon found out, as somebody'd broken the lock and stolen my cheap bike during the ~5 hours I was away, and I never ended up biking there again. Also, after 7 pm (maybe 8? I don't remember, I don't live there now.) frequency drops to every half hour on the a line and some buses drop to every hour at night, so I've had to sit at that station for 40+ minutes at times after going to a concert or a bar with friends. Really wish more thought was put into accessing these stations besides putting in a bunch of parking lots.
Thanks for providing a bike for an underclass minority citizen in need.
@@danieldaniels7571 Wow, that's a hell of a thing to say. Prejudiced much?
Fun fact. There was a planned line that would go from downtown Denver to Cherry Creek, one of the most walkable neighborhoods in all of Denver. This was quickly scrapped however, as the local council insisted that setting up a station in their neighborhood would bring in homeless people and devalue the neighborhood.
It would have been the perfect station. It seems the local sentiment is “transit is for poor people” and the station layouts reflect that, where it appears there’s almost an active effort to make sure anyone who doesn’t own transportation can’t infect their neighborhood with poverty by making each stop as unwalkable as possible.
RTD has a few lines that are actually really great and drop you off in prominent areas. I suggest looking into the G-line's stop in old town arvada. Great little stop with shops, restaurants, a movie theater, and housing with in walking distance. Denver should be taking notes at Arvada's setup. Also RTD has struggled recently with staffing and so lines have become super unreliable due to lack of funding. I've tried to take the lightrail into Denver on a friday night and have every single stop canceled for that evening, making it impossible for me to get into Denver for a night out. Not only that but Denver has been struggling for years to get a line to connect between Denver and Boulder. A super important connection that is only filled by a bus right now. The bus isn't bad but we can do much better.
My understanding from attending the recent planning meetings is BNSF is the main holdup for the B line extension. However the proposal for 3 trains a day each way (3 inbound in the morning, 3 outbound in the afternoon) seems absolutely useless service designed to check a box on FastTrax and not usable transit.
@@IRONF1STY Yea the B line extension has been discussed for far too long now with no action. It feels like there's always some excuse for why it can't be built. RTD has done several studies and claims the line would be underutilized if built. But some of these studies were done during the height of covid and obviously rail numbers are going to be low in america until we build more and start shifting the culture towards mass transit.
@@TheHABL0 They aren't wrong necessarily about it being underutilized. I would use it, but I go to Boulder two times a week for work. The biggest wins are going to be improving the buses in Denver proper even if that isn't sexy. People in Denver have shown they actually use transit and are willing to vote on and support development near stations mostly.
I honestly think Denver should create and fund it's own transit system and slowly take control of bus lines from RTD and let RTD focus on rail and intercity bus lines. E and H lines have been great for me but taking a bus to places requires a connection to civic center station for express buses or just a 45 minute ride to go 5 miles N/S on colorado blvd. So many opportunities for dedicated bus lanes or full on BRT would make transit so much better in Denver.
I will however commend the FlatIron Flyer for being pretty comfy and regularly faster than driving (because of the express lane and bus specific exists) at least for getting from Union Station to Downtown Boulder. Obviously the commute is longer once you take into account getting to Union Station and then getting around Boulder. But it is competitive for me and keeps my sanity in check. us-36 is a nightmare.
@@legatus_newt I think their stats are skewed about it being underutilized though. As I said, some of these recent studies were conducted during the height of covid when almost no one was commuting to work. But even if it wasn't during covid, the numbers are going to be low because our culture is car motivated and a major way to change that is to continue to grow our transit systems.
I agree though the buses are not bad in the Denver area, and the Flatiron Flyer is pretty nice. I use to take it into Denver and Boulder when I lived off of 36. I appreciate how clean, comfy, and spacious it is. 36 can be a nightmare during rush hour and the Flatiron Flyer can be pretty clutch. That being said, I still think it's a pretty big disappointment to not have a rail connection between these two major cities. Denver and Boulder are super connected and I really believe they deserve better and cohesive transit.
I'm not sold that the Boulder connection for light rail is all that important. The Flatiron Flyer along US 36 is one of the only metro bus routes that really works. It's honestly something to imitate elsewhere.
The Flyer has super efficient stops (with their own off-ramp infrastructure), good ridership, and uses "bus on shoulder" to bypass congestion. Plus, once you're in Boulder, the local bus transit isn't too bad.
The bummer is that if RTD had just built rapid transit in a handful of choice neighborhoods first it could already be massively leveled up. Rino, Cap Hill, Cherry Creek, South Broadway, Highland..I could go on.
Denver actually has lots fairly dense walkability (that is still getting denser) with lots of mixed development compared to many US cities, but RTD didn't properly capitalize on it, built a ton of transit anyways, and now we're seeing the result.
Indeed. In retrospect, it probably would have been a better project to build a tunnel through some of the denser areas than to do a massive Union Station renovation (not that I don't like Union Station; I just think that that project was massively oversold)
@@samlerman-hahn2674 Agreed. What's currently been done should really have been a later addition. A metro serving the urban core would have had a massively better return on investment hands down. Would be super useful to a lot of people.
RTD is very beholden to the suburbs though, which sadly got them to spend a bunch of money on something only a small portion of the burbs can actually use, and forced them into using the cheapest ROW, rather than best, to get it done quick. Particularly considering that someone riding the existing rail into downtown on the rail is left with no quick means to reach the aforementioned neighborhoods once they're there.
If there was a core metro first, all of the park and rides that exist now would be many times more useful. And would multiply the effectiveness of any future transit oriented development. Alas, what could have been...
@@LilBoyHexley Exactly, RTD's obligation to the suburbs - and towns as far away as Longmont! - really holds back its ability to build useful new infrastructure in Denver proper. I've been of the mind for a while now that Denver needs its own separate transit service to handle a core metro, and RTD restructured to just handle connecting the communities that are farther apart. Then they can build more of their own local routes as they see fit instead of taking whatever RTD thinks they need.
Denver only has dense walkability in the expensive areas. If you live anywhere other than downtown, you're dealing with stroads and gravel paths instead of sidewalks.
@O Med The point though is that these are the highest density areas where people work, where people live, and where they go out. The existing rapid transit isn't very effective because even if you live near a station, there probably isn't a connection going somewhere you're trying to go, you're likely going to spend 10-20+ minutes on a bus, not counting the wait for your connection, even once you're in town, which is all the current rail is particularly good for.
If you're going to build out a rapid transit system, it needs to begin with targeting where most people are and where they're trying trying to go, with Denver those are generally the same thing.
With a proper core system, you could get better results with something like a freeway/commuter bus system and priority lanes than what exists now. Of course I think the rail should exist at some point. But it's much easier to sell if you have a good system to start.
Now it's tough to get much else because so much has been built, and detractors can point to how little people want to use it. But it's pretty clear why people aren't really using it. Not all is lost, of course, but I don't think it was an optimal way to go about things.
I did an internship with RTD last summer and I can say that many of the people I talked to shared the same concerns with you! But as far as I know, its board members and other higher-ups (with no experience or education in transit) that push for park-n-rides and the like. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to speak to any executives, but the mess that is RTD politics would make its own video. I used to take the N line to get downtown and got on at the Thornton & 88th station, really a horrible station to be waiting at in the middle of July but it is the closest to me (still a 20 minute drive). I believe the plan has always been to redevelop the stations and I'm very excited to see that happen as many of the planners seemed keen on removing parking lots. I start the same internship again next week and I'm hoping I can get in on some of the TOD projects happening.
I'd also recommend checking out the stations on the G Line! They have a lot of potential, especially Olde Town Arvada.
Their system seems to be designed for you to drive your car to the train, which is utterly brain dead. Why even bother using transit at all then if it's just meant to supplement driving? And then you're still likely miles away from your final destination. It's like the auto lobby told them "sure you can build a transit system, just make sure you build it in such a way that everyone still has to drive cars!" If you want to reduce traffic you need to make it possible for people to live conveniently _without_ cars, which is not hard to do. It is simply a matter of policy decision.
So funny that you would post this, as I was just looking at Denver's transit because I have a friend moving there. Commerce City & 72nd is a station I found on the N line, and the nearest "destinations" to it are a highway interchange, a reservoir, and uh... asphalt plant?
Never know when the asphalt may need to go to a tar-party by transit 😆
Another great location is Clear Creek - Federal Station on the G Line. A major interchange, junkyards, and a gravel pit!
@@Connor_Herman wow that one is probably even worse! Not a single home within a half-mile walk of the station
To be fair, many people work at the asphalt plant.
yeah it's a weird station... i ride N line every day and every time we stop there i just wonder what is the point... there is some housing there but walking accessibility to the station is just horrendous
Having worked actually under the "slopes" near Denver, I can say we absolutely avoided anything do with driving, let alone I-70 on winter weekends. We'd walk to local stores and pubs and laugh at the cars parked and stranded people.
ya but how how many where from colorado? did you check the plates?
For what it's worth, the newest line, G Line, is much more walkable. Seems like someone is aware of the issue.
As a European, it sounds insane to me that only 50% walk to the train station 😅 Driving and then parking seems so inefficient...
It is an issue here in Denver, one of the few lines that was built with destinations in mind is the D-Line. Its a very popular line, which is in no doubt due to the Englewood and Downtown Littleton stops. Both of which drop you off next to shopping and Housing. I used to live one more stop down, the Mineral station. Which does have some of those issues you discuss, but I was one of the few who would walk from my Apartment to the train, which meant walking by good shopping and an entrance to some very nice greenspace, which is also super popular for cyclists to get around.
I grew up and still live near mineral. Big down side is most of the trains only go to 18th and California. Union station trains are very far and inbetween and extremely unreliable. As a big sports fan who wants to drink responsibly and go watch the broncos, avs or nuggets, this unreliable train is a complete let down.
I wish the Golden RTD bus line actually connected to the W line terminus in the Jeff Co Government Center. It's like 15 minutes of walking through parking lots and government buildings, followed by another 15 minutes of walking through residential/strip malls to get to the nearest bus stop. It's quicker to get to that bus stop, and downtown Golden from there, if you get off at Oak station (4th stop on the W line) and catch the bus from there.
Also there's nothing but a golf course in the way of them extending the W line along Highway 6 to terminate at 19th street much closer to downtown instead.
I live in Golden and work 10 miles away in NW Denver. It's a 15 minute drive but 2 hours on buses... It baffles me that bus service is so disjointed and baffles me even more that there's no light rail option that gets you into downtown Golden from Denver. Why is the Government Center the terminus?? They built tracks all the way up there and couldn't think of a way to extend them up to Washington??
Yeah, the ridiculous placement of the W line terminus is one of the clearest signals RTD ever sent to impoverished or otherwise carless riders about "trains are for wealthy people who are riding them for convenience and can drive to the station first; if you actually need us to take you alllll the way somewhere worth going, get on the 16L with the rest of the poors"
@@Darth_Insidious Ah, but how could they build through a golf course? Golf courses belong to wealthy people! Denver's long tradition of screwing people out of property to make way for big building projects has always involved them being careful to just screw over the poor and minorities 😂 (😭)
I don't remember details now, but an old fellow I met on the W once told me some very colorful stories of residents who were bullied and manipulated out of their homes for the building of the original trolley line that the W route mostly followed. I hadn't even previously known such a line once existed (grew up on the southeast side nearer to Glendale so wasn't around Jeffco as a kid). And oh man learning later about the history of resident displacement for the building of the Auraria Campus blew my mind, really saw my hometown in a much uglier light after that. Denver is so abusive to its residents it's straight up insane
Great 1928 photograph at the end of what the New York Subway looked like when it was first built. As someone that grew up riding the #7 train, I immediately recognized that spot as the current location of Citi Field and the US Open Tennis Center. It is astonishing how much it has changed in less than 100 years.
The 7-train still looks exactly like that, though. The only change are now there are buildings around it.
What I'm trying to say NYC's mass transit development level pisses me off.
@@h8GW Tell our governors and mayors to stop using the MTA as a piggy bank for their pet projects
So Denver resident here, I live in one of the few good TOD's along the RTD system but its an absurdly long trip to my office in the tech center and then my office is a mile walk from the nearest station. I'll take it if I'm not pressed for time and the weather is good but most days when I do go into the office I drive. You hit the nail on the head with lack of destinations around rail. It's better than it was for sure but a lot of these parking lots need to be converted into something more useful than free parking
I live in West Wash Park by the I-25 and Broadway station. My office is at I-25 and Monaco, about 3/4 of a mile from the Bellview station. Essentially, I hit the light rail jackpot, but still use it only in bad weather, because driving remains faster.
Thanks for this video! I moved to Denver from Boston, and it's been a tough car-based adjustment. I live in RINO and commute down to meridian, and it can take an hour each way sometimes. I-25 is a nightmare and the worst part is...I live close enough to Union to get on a train there and my office is theoretically close enough to a station that I could use both. But there are still about 2 miles of nothing in between the station and my office. I can schedule one of those little buses to take me between the office and the station, but that requires me to be super on time and restricted with when I can be at the office.
The Airport - Downtown train is amazing.
Also, in Rino...it's still like at least a 10-15 minute walk to the nearest shop of any kind from where I live. No bodegas, no coffee shops, no groceries, no restaurants. At least there are those little scooters...
it sounds like a bike might be in order
While stationed in Fort Carson, I took advantage of the RTD's "free for Military" benefit so when I'd take my family to DT Denver, we'd use a Park'n'Ride for free parking then take the train to Union Station. It may have added 10-15 minutes to the trip overall but I'd rather walk and ride than grind thru DT traffic and Look & Pay for parking.
Central Park ( formerly Stapleton ) neighborhood was built on the site of the former airport. They had a clean slate and they decided to build the housing nowhere near the proposed train station. RTD says they want ridership but it acts almost in opposition to developers who are courting transit hating home buyers.
We're getting a new mayor in a month or so , maybe housing near stations will actually start to happen. The biggest upside I can say is that at least the Cherry Creek trail makes it easy to be a bike commuter. But being a transit commuter sucks.
This is a problem for literally every metro that isn’t in the northeast. I seriously can’t understand how we can’t just rezone everything within a 5 min walk of a train station to dense mixed use
Funny that you put this video out today, because I had an RTD Moment™ today. I was picking up a small will call order in an industrial area, and seeing that there was a bus stop right in front of this factory I figured I'd take transit. Getting there was fine, but apparently buses drop to worse than 60 minute frequencies during the mid afternoon. Not wanting to sit and wait over an hour on a shitty, windy, dusty corner of an industrial area, I saw on google maps that there was a commuter rail stop about 2 miles away. I walked the two miles (no shoulders and no sidewalks of course, because god forbid someone would ever have the audacity to walk, although to be fair there was a weird sidewalk on a highway bridge that I'm pretty sure I was the first person to ever use because there was nothing connecting to it on either side) and when I eventually got to the station I was still in the middle of that low density industrial area. Like, the transit station was pretty much right next to industrial intermodal shipping container processing lots. The only possible trip generator I saw was an Amazon delivery center, but that was a bad 3/4 mile walk away and those delivery centers require most employees to get in at 1:20am when no trains are running.
The station I ended up at and that was in the middle of nowhere was Pecos Junction. It must be intended purely as a transfer station because as far as I can tell there is nothing but rail yards and a few factories (and not the types that employ a lot of people) nearby. It's unlikely that'll change going forward because relocating factories is incredibly expensive, and the area really isn't desirable (it's dusty, desolate, loud, and judging from the many methane vents and huge amount of trash poking out of drainage areas I think it used to be a landfill).
We had to go to a wedding between Denver and Boulder and we decided to stay in Boulder. We rented a car, but I wanted to see how the bus between Boulder and Denver ran, it was also going to be like an hour and I rather not drive if I can help it. The bus was quick, clean, and cheap. One thing I noticed was all the stops along the highway, almost like the bu wanted to be a train. The buses had dedicated highway exits and lanes to keep them from getting stuck in traffic. On the highway itself, the bus had no bus lane, but I saw several signs saying that the bus was allowed to use the shoulder of the highway when there was traffic. Sadly, I didn't get to see that.
However, I couldn't help but notice how many of the bus stops were just park and ride, but for the bus. There was some development going on but overall, all the bus stops were just parking lot islands.
Very sad to see, RTD seems to be a greatly ran system, but the land use is just horrendous.
There literally should be a train to Boulder but the last I heard the freight rail company does not want to give RTD the easement, and yes the flat iron flyer is bus-rapid-transit like it wants to be a train.
The Flatiron Flyer is probably the most successful bus route on RTD's system. It's safe, efficient, has good ridership, and is typically on time. Honestly, if I were designing rail connections for RTD, Boulder would be way down on my priority list.
Los Angeles can feel like this. Hopefully we’ll turn unused land into actual living and working mixed used transit oriented destinations. May Denver turn that abandoned golf course into a transit oriented development.
I live in Denver, and the closest light rail station is a 15 minute drive from my house. I live in Marston, which is a southwest offshoot of the city. It's wild to me that in order to use the light rail in DENVER, I have to drive 15 minutes to access a station. Transit is useless if you can't walk to it!
Another thing Denver should probably do with its regional rail stations is feed them with bus service, which they can do much quicker than they can build high rises.
In Vancouver we have a few skytrain stations that are surrounded by mostly parking and industrial (Scott road and Bridgeport) but they still have good ridership because they have bus loops that are served by good bus service. It’s something they could do now that would have a dramatic effect on ridership
As I mentioned in another comment response (where I wrote a bit of a novella, I'm afraid), I believe the original intent _was_ to work with the bus lines, and there are several stops that are also bus hubs... but even many of those have a high focus on the acreage of parking spaces. And the bus routes keep getting slashed. I can only think of two buses that run more frequently than by the half hour, and more and more of them were getting spaced further out, with some not going the full route at points throughout the day. Given that we have people working at all hours these days, "only during rush hour" doesn't work so well anymore.
They do. All of the A-line stations outside of downtown and most of the light rail stations outside of downtown are bus hubs. Though you don't want to go near a few of them, Nine Mile station in Aurora is particularly sketchy (I literally watched a lady smoking Fentanyl in broad daylight there).
Forgot to mention. All the park n go parking lots are hot spots for break ins, it's why I don't use it, my car was broken into twice. Almost everyday, I would see a window broken on a car. And I didn't have anything in the car
I live in Louisville (near Boulder). I take the regional bus (FF1) downtown and then light rail from Union Station to DTC. It's an hour and 15 minutes one way, compared to an hour in a car. Those are convenient endpoints, but every stop in between is a deserted park and ride next to an interstate. When I lived in Denver (Baker and Cap Hill), the bus service was laughable and I rode my bike or drove to get anywhere. They also have been putting off building a light rail line to Boulder for literal decades. At this pace, Colorado will be an uninhabitable desert before they ever build it.
Limited service on the Northwest Line is said to begin in 2048! Hopefully I'll be alive to see it.
As someone that regularly uses public transit, one of the few benefits I’ve had is whenever I go to see a Broncos or Rockies game, the train is very reliable, and I don’t need to commute into downtown Denver. But all of those stops do seem a little out of the way.
Man this intro got me. I lived in a little town in Utah called Logan for a few years at university and everywhere I went I heard on repeat "hey you wanna hit the canyon? Well, I would have liked to hit the canyon this morning, but I had to do X.... MAN last night when we went up the canyon was GREAT"! And I would joke with people that the students of our town would all turn their yoga mats east 5x a day and send up their prayers to their object of veneration: the canyon. Same idea with "thE sLoPeS!"
Dropping FACTS! Newly converted Strong Towns advocate and Denver resident. I really like our light rail options, but the journey from residence to park and ride/light rail stops is pretty tricky. I use the Colorado Station - E line to downtown. I actually like how CO Station is next to a good business hub/foundation for residential dev but it's WAY more built up than most other stops. Also, me being able to lean on my privileged ass full remote job + car means I can pick and chose how I commute - most light rail don't seem really geared towards those who probably need transit options the most :/
Biiiiiiig Strong Towns fan over here as well! I'm living in Golden right now, and my neighborhood is super ideal as far as walking and biking access go. Transit has a long way to go, but there are good things happening every day. Safe Routes to Schools installed a few raised crosswalks in my neighborhood, bike paths are expanding... Just gotta push better public transit connections into Denver!
@@emilymclean6541 heck yeah! ST fans unite! Happy to hear Golden has good bike/walk foundations (I don't get out there enough, wonderful place). Not surprised to hear about metro - sadly. There's actually a Denver Strong Towns community that seems to meet monthly. It appears small but I'm trying to work my way into meetings/activities/agenda (I'll share the links in case it's of interest).
Haven't used the system as much in the last few years (I live out on the Plains), but when the other half used to work for DISH, the Littleton station was a decent little hub. Light Rail for downtown and between, reasonable bus hub for cross-town, so long as you weren't in a massive rush. And the one year I volunteered for DCC (now DPCC), rather than deal with the insane downtown rates, I got a room at the hotel just off of the... I want to say Southmoor station? The one with the singing tunnel? Anyway, the rates were decent and the Light Rail took me from the hotel right up to the entrance to the Convention Center, which was fantastic.
Sadly, I could give more examples of stations that were not so well designed. Some of them, to be fair, had to be sort of shoe-horned into spots that had never been considered before, but even so, there... wasn't as much thought put into the planning, both as a whole and in specific locations, as should have been, and it shows.
Please share those links if you have ‘em! Would love to get involved as well.
As a Denver resident who lived in NYC for a while, transit is the worst part of being back here. No one takes transit except to the airport because of how inaccessible it is. The nearest rail station is a 5 minute drive from me.
I lived in Denver for about a year before I was fired from my job and evicted (fun times), and not once did I have any opportunity to use any of the rail. I didn't drive either, so I took the bus everyday because it was by far the most efficient. Unfortunately there's only dedicated bus lanes in the very center of Denver, but it still beat rail everytime (at least for where I was going)
Rode RTD to work for the couple months I lived in Denver a few years back. By far the worst part of my commute was getting in my car at my home station and driving that last few miles
I’ve heard that there are some complicating factors with 2o. Because of the restrictive easement that currently exists (the one that 2o would get rid of), the city could purchase the land very inexpensively to build public housing. If the measure passes, though, acquiring any public housing there gets much more expensive.
That is an argument against I keep seeing but nothing in the easement gives the city the ability to buy the land if the developer doesn't want to sell. Also Denver has no public housing agency with the authority to build its own housing. That capability would have to be voted on and added to the city charter first.
I would vote for that, but at the moment it's unlikely to come to a vote for at least 2+ years and in the meantime the current owner of the land will be forced to keep it a golf course to make money
@@legatus_newt The owner can't make a profit keeping it as a golf course, because they overpaid for the property, gambling on being able to get the easement removed. They have to either get the easement removed or sell the property. If they don't want to sell, then they would just keep losing money on it, so they would be motivated to sell. The only options would be selling to the City or to someone else who thinks they can get the easement removed, which would be a risky position for any investor to take if the voters had just voted down removing the easement.
Secondly, while I would prefer social housing, if the City can't build its own housing, it could still buy the property and then sell to a non-profit affordable housing developer, with conditions in the sale contract specifying the amount and quality of the housing, and stating that the property will revert to the city if the conditions are violated. Such a deal could be structured in a way to provide at least as much total housing, and more affordable housing, than the current for-profit developer is offering.
@@legatus_newt I genuinely do not understand how the DHA is not a public housing agency with the authority to build its own housing. Please explain.
Thanks for highlighting the density issues regarding the RTD, as it shows how urban planning and engineering go hand in hand. Although, I particularly remember seeing a few news stories on the G line a few years ago when it first opened talking about how the service was a huge revenue grower for local businesses at the terminus stations at Westminister, so it looks like the issue with underdeveloped stations is more prevalent for stations in-between termini. Also of concern is the lack of intercity rail in the Denver region, with this problem likely to be solved by Amtrak and/or the privately owned Front Range Regional Rail.
As someone from the denver area the intro was absolutely perfect
I lived in a dense area, only 2 miles away from downtown Denver where I worked. There were no trains in my area, and it would take 30 minutes just to walk to the nearest bus stop, so I biked instead which only took about 20 minutes. However, the bike infrastructure was almost non-existent and I would have to ride along side 3 to 4 lanes of busy car traffic. Even if I wanted to drive, parking around my work cost about $30/day. I made $17/hr at a temp job with no benefits. Unfortunately many cities along the front range are following in Denver's footsteps in terms of increasing sprawl, more stroads, and minimal public transit.
Agree 100% . They are building houseing next to the Central Park Station, but they really need more grocery stores. Also let's not forget about all the car break ins at the A line Park n Rides
Just got back from a trip to Boulder and one of the things that I found disappointing was the busses. It took me 40 minutes to get from Boulder to Denver but another 40 minutes and 2 busses to get from down town to the zoo(about 3 miles from downtown). It really seemed like they were trying but the stops and routes didn’t make too much sense.
Edit: it was also hard to get into the mountains without taking a car which was really disappointing.
As someone who uses the BNSF line to commute into Chicago for school, I can say without a doubt that the Route 59 station is the most depressing place on earth.
Denver is a city with so much potential but city planners are absolute trash
The worst part of denvers transit system is I-25 north, there is ALWAYS either a huge traffic jam or a major accident and there is no public transportation linking denver to colorados second biggest city (Colorado springs)
People walk to SEPTA RR because the parking capacity is terrible at 95% of the stations.
The CA Zephyr to Denver is amazing.
My main issue living in Denver is the amount of people smoking fentanyl in the trains and at train stations.
On the topic of drug use, I get the need to restrict or completely eliminate drugs in the U.S., but what I don't get is what good is that? Do people who focus on that bit think people do drugs for the hell of it? And if we did manage to stop all drug-trade from Latin America, wouldn't users try to find other ways to get it, like maybe smuggling them from Canada?
What we should consider is why people are drawn to them and how we can improve the conditions they live in like mental, social, and economic factors that draw them in.
Ive stopped feeling safe taking the lightrail anymore. They hardly check tickets, idk if they even made it free for everyone to use. Homeless camped out trying to get away from the cold. the trains are filthy and disgusting. People constantly bugging me for money. Homeless cracked out, sprawled out onto 2 benches and emptying their dirty ass shoes onto the benches and floor. FUCK THAT
We moved to Westminster 14 years ago, right next to the RTD bus stop and the new downtown area they were building. RTD was supposed to put a light rail station next to the bus stop and the new downtown, but for some insane reason (I believe graft), they put it five miles away where nothing exists.
Great analysis! One thing I wonder about a lot of train stations in the US and many other countries: Why don't they have roofs on the platforms? Does it not rain that often, or do people not care much about the rain or sun? Maybe it's just a cultural difference but I've found it a bit baffling.
Cost cutting, probably.
I'm pretty sure that it's both a cost measure as well as a very common trend of hostile architecture in public spaces around Colorado, there are plenty of homeless and instead of doing something about the homeless people everyone builds public structures to be very inhospitable. You can't lay down on a bench because they have metal bars in the middle. Fat people can't even sit on those benches. There is no proper windproofing there is no proper rain proofing just so that you cannot be comfortable to sleep there at night during the winter. Screw over all the commuters who actually don't want wind and rain while they're standing waiting for an hourly scheduled bus
Cost cutting and to prevent homeless from making train stations a home. They literally changed the rules Union Station (the transit hub of the whole network) to no longer allow people to loiter without a ticket. This is selectively enforced obviously because the train station has several high class restaurants, a coffee shop, a book store, and several bars that people go to all the time without a pass. But if you just sit and read a book on the extremely comfy chairs in "Denver's living room" you better have a train or bus pass handy. Or you will literally be beaten bloody by the rent-a-cop private security force.
Literally they beat a man nearly to death two years ago.
So I can't even use the public transport if I don't have a car?
I have lived in London for 20 years and I still don't have a driving license, never had problem of getting a job or making a living and traveling, but every time I get a invite to travel to USA from friends and family member, I flinch!
I don't want to be burden to the friends and family who have to drive me everywhere cause there's no decent public transportation that allows me to roam the city without resorting to Uber or taxi!
My nan hasn't driven all her life in here in North east england.
She normally just walks or uses the bus network to get around town even at her age.
And thats with the network not being the best because ye know it's a northern town.
Anywhere in the big northeast cities US you'll likely be alright, but out in the midwest and west coast? bit more dicey. I grew up in a town of 75 000 in canada and some cities with metro areas of like a million in the US have bus systems that are just about as bad lol.
It's not all bad. I got lucky to buy in a neighborhood just a 10 minute walk to the neighborhood station (Perry Station in Denver), which is NOT a park & ride style and is surrounded by gentrification. The downside is that it goes to our Union Station, but not to our downtown (which is *could*), so it adds another 15 minutes to a commute.
I can bike to my local RTD stop, or walk but it takes a while. My friend who lives in the downtown area and doesn't bike has to drive. We live in one of the suburbs of Denver. It depends on where in the town you live and where you're going- activities at CU are right off a bus line, though their stadium was a decent walk from the bus stop. Some other parts of Boulder would require a long walk from the bus stop to get there, though
I noticed the same thing when I visited Denver for a railroad industry conference last year. So many massive parking lots that isolate otherwise amazing trains.
Bro you didn’t talk about how we got screwed with the lack of a line out to Boulder and are still to this day paying taxes on the line that dose not exist.
Also good luck 🤞. 2O is controversial on both sides of the aisle. Even the most progressive Mayoral candidates don't support it because "the developer used shady tactics to buy the land" when those shady tactics were literally just buying a defunct golf course and letting it rot for 3 years.
I'm a yes on 2O but it is likely not to pass. Park Hill with their million dollar homes don't want affordable housing near them and would rather keep it a vacant golf course.
Bingo!
The a-line is definitely not the most popular line in Denver. The a-line goes to the airport at one end and Union station at the other. The two ends are very important locations but every stop in-between has very little ridership use. The e-line is the most important light rail line in Denver with the most ridership. You are correct the light rail is set up around car culture.
I've loved RTD despite its issues. Some of the far-off stations really help for making it so I dont have to drive anywhere near as much for getting to the airport.
However, part of RTD's issue is (very rich) NIMBY's and people stuck in the "Us vs them" argument.
The whole "Access to public transportation will encourage the working peoples to move about!!1!" type bit.
Douglas county does not even get bus services due to this, as they voted against it.
As a big fan of your channel, I'm offended by how you make fun of us who live in Denver, at the same time I can't stop laughing. 😂😂😂
My old man always said RTD stands for "reason to drive"
Well done video. It points to the problem in America...we just dump mass transit in where we can or where land is available and/or cheap. We must look as transit as PART OF development in the city and in the suburbs. I once read when Portland began creating light rail, new developments of homes sprung up around stations. People who lived in thos developments could walk out their door, walk a block or two and get on a train. WOW! Perhaps in Denver's case, government needs to create incentives to get development going around stations.
When your whole system is park and rides, what’s even the point? You’re taking a train from one parking lot to the next?!
I love nothing more than seeing parking lots turned into TODs.
I used to live in the Denver area and take the rail lines. Denver's downtown is really small (and not very well served by rail, frankly, there's the free 16th street bus that tries to make up for it, but is so slow I beat it on foot on multiple occasions) and the metro area is very spread out. I can think of a few stations outside of downtown that have more walkable areas near them (Louisiana/Pearl, Colfax, Olde Town Arvada, etc.) but yes in general once you get to most Denver stations the area around them isn't very walkable and/or there's just very little there. And as others have pointed out, the rail lines don't go to some of the areas that really could use them because they have the development/desirability.
I really appreciate you making a video on the RTD transit system. I try to take the train as often as possible to my university and job and one of the most frustrating things that you touched on in your video is how i have to drive 20 minutes to reach the closest station. However there is a major problem that you didn’t discuss that i think is also holding ridership back. I do love the 15 minute frequencies on the train, however more often than not i experience delays and cancellations that end up messing with my schedule and making me late. This happens at least twice a week, once on the A Line and once on the H Line. Just recently when I was taking the A Line they cancelled 3 trains in a row which resulted in me being 45 minutes late to work. Fun. I think cancellations is the other main problem plaguing RTD, as I have seen multiple people on the platform after a delay or a cancellation voice their disdain for public transit, citing it as one of the main reasons why they don’t ride it more. Since you were only in Denver for a little while I think you got lucky you didn’t experience any problems, but its very frustrating seeing the potential of the system held back by this.
The big difference is that almost all of SEPTA’s network was built before cars were popular and designed specifically to encourage people to move out to walkable neighborhoods. In contrast, Denver and other newer systems were designed AFTER more sprawled out, car-centric suburbs were already built. We would all love to see better land use around the stations, but if you consider their purpose was to cut down on the number of cars driving all the way into downtown, they have at least succeeded in that respect.
As a colorado native who tries to take the train from my neighborhood to my university downtown I've actually been using RTD a lot recently (even if i have to drive to the station to use it). I'd say it's okay even if the train is louder than a tank and there's a lot of homeless but my god I wish it would run more often. I missed my train one day and had to wait over an hour for the next one at Union Station which also has a large homeless population.
Yeah my experience has been that Union Station is very far and few inbetween, or when scheduled is extremely unreliable and wont show up. but good thing theres a million 18th and californias. The homeless suck to. I dont feel safe when their all sprawled out, cracked out and emptying their dirty shoes onto the seats and floors. NO THANKS
RTD is a disaster. Every station has a huge mob of homeless people dumping trash bags out onto the ground, smoking crack out in the open, pissing out in the open, screaming at nothing, physical fights, etc. Most buses and trains are just day care centers for the mentally ill to get out of the cold and do drugs that normal riders have to deal with. Cars at park and rides constantly getting broken into and/or having their catalytic converters stolen. No extra trains on Ball Arena event nights. I also took the last A line train from the airport one night and everyone was literally packed in like sardines due to all of the airport workers trying to get home. I guess they don't think they need an extra train or two for all of those people?? I guess it's good that Denver has something, but what they do have is pretty embarrassing. This is only scratching the surface of the problems RTD has.
My main problem with the system is racism. They built light rail to serve low density white neighborhoods, but the most racially, diverse Corridor and the busiest one, Colfax, is a Bus and mixed traffic
Like Newark and Manhattan ?
Corridor and bus are common nouns. Don't capitalize them. There's no racism. There's no such thing as white neighborhoods. Racial diversity is totally irrelevant, because race is arbitrary. Diversity isn't inherently good. It can be good, it can be bad, and it's almost always neutral.
Colfax is getting a BRT though. Project slated to start in the next year or so.
@@discoinerror5886 Nice.
And then there's Boulder which despite a large number of folks there calling it a 'bubble' in a negative connotation and expressing the desire to get out of said bubble (assuming they aren't priced out) won't even take the necessary steps to build a light rail to downtown or even Louisville/Superior. Truly asinine and malicious.
My dude, right.on.the.nail. I live im Denver, and i reaaaaaally want to take the transport a lot more but find driving or even riding my bike a lot more efficient than RTD. What’s worst is that RTD is such a great idea, just poorly delivered, also I will say the transit is often not on time and though i have compassion for the homeless, I find that a lot of them partake on illicit substance inside of the trains and buses, which makes me feel unsafe in there. I hope it can be resolved and continue to make Denver a better city.
As a loyal Denverite, I agree, our transit system is *garbage*. But hey, at least our station is nice, where the Amtrak ski train takes a quick trip up the line to Winter Park for skiing
Funny intro!
"Let's go to the mountains to get away from the traffic"
Little did he know, *everyone else has the same idea.*
The worst problem currently is the open use of fentanyl on the trains and no presence of police. You can’t switch train cars and are subject to second hand smoke from drug use. It’s awful!
I think a video on River Mile would be super interesting. Denver is planning on repurposing the largest paved parking lot in an urban center (currently elitch gardens and Ball Arena) into a brand new mixed use neighborhood with over 7000 housing units and no minimum parking or maximum height requirements.
They're only repurposing the Elitches site as Elitches is moving to a new site, the giant Ball Arena lot remains. They need to extend the heavy rail through that corridor. There is a light rail station between Elitches and Ball Arena that serves the E and W lines, but trains get delayed in there due to line congestion so you often sit in a siding waiting for the station to clear.
@mrvwbug4423 the first stage is only using Elitch's lots, but the second stage is planned to use a significant portion of the ball arena lots. Revesco properties owns both properties now so they're the ones who are moving the amusement park.
Regarding that ballot measure 2o, it's not even an active golf course. It's a *former* golf course and is currently unused land. The fight to not use it is mostly ridiculous NIMBY stuff sadly.
As a Coloradan, I can confirm Denver’s highway system is absolutely god-awful.
I thought the light rail would be so cool when it came to denver and every time I’ve used it, I always feel like I’m wasting either time, money or both.
Have you ever considered making a video about public transport systems in other regions? Most urbanist UA-camrs only talk about the US, Europe or Japan.
Here in Uruguay for example, out rail sistem has aged worse than the US's, so we rely mainly on bus sistems which interestingly are almost all co-ops. And I'm sure places like Mexico, Chile or Brazil have interesting things going on, not to mention African countries.
Even living downtown doesn't mean the station location is useful. For us to get to the airport required two buses to get to the station less than a mile away. With luggage, it's totally ridiculous. Also, the buses haven't been too reliable. Even with an 18 minute interval, I've had to wait 45 minutes for a bus.
Denver would send me a survey every year, asking what it would take for me to use public transportation more often. Stations in places where people live, and buses that show up on time, would be a good start.
The intro PERFECTLY describes the new Coloradan impants from other states coming in. I'm a 4th generation Denver native and it's perfect
Intro couldn't be more true. I deadass saw someone say that they were going to move to Denver to become a pro-snowboarder 💀💀💀
thank you for criticizing the millenials who move here to be outdoorsy. Also yeah RTD has always had good intentions but failed to live up to what it could be, mostly because of the huge amount of sprawl in my opinion
You moved here yet complain about sprawl
@@AvsFan32 no, i was born here and complain about sprawl
Denverite here. I remember when I worked downtown and the lightrail I took from the south was infrequent as hell. Parking in the "overload lot" every day if you weren't there by 7am, and walking to the lightrail, plus traveling downtown took about an hour. And if I missed the damn thing, I had to wait 30 minutes! As opposed to going by car only, it took 30 minutes from my door to the door of my office. Ridiculous.
video: "what's super impressive about Denver's regional rail system is the A line has--"
my partner, who has lived in Denver most of their life and was overhearing the video from across the room: "the A line!?"
I haven't had the chance to use RTD much, but my impression of the A line (as someone who has only lived in Denver since 2020) is that it's the line you take to get to the airport.
I visited Denver last year for work and was quite surprised by how good the trains were! The only problem is what you outline in this video, many of the stations don't seem to connect to much.
The Southmoor station is especially cursed, because it's on the neighborhood side of the highway but has no access from that side, only an underpass to the park and ride because the NIMBY neighborhood association deliberately blocked access when it was built
This intro also translates really well to Calgary! We don't even have a train to the airport or mountains yet, but both are being talked about. The province gave funding for a light rail extension to the airport, and conceptual work is also underway for a train from the airport, through Downtown Calgary and to Banff.
Good luck getting CP to play ball on the Banff train idea, but at least you still have a downtown station and a good light rail system. Edmonton got rid of all our city centre trackage and our latest LRT line is turning out to be better at getting into crashes than hauling people.
You definitely hit the nail on the head with this one. I always think about how wild it is that I was able to live car-free in Boulder and had 0 transit issues, but now living in Denver (the larger metro area) public transport is only convenient when needing to go the the airport
One advantage that Boulder has in car-free lifestyle is that it is small. The whole city can be accessed by bicycle and large portions of it can even be traversed by foot quite easily.
The commuter rail system here is less than 8 years old - development takes time and Denver is very much a commuter-city. No one goes to Thornton or Central Park; the A-line exists solely to get people to and from DIA.
Pathetic take on the Park Hill situation - there is a lot more going on with that corrupt development. The people of Denver have already voted it down previously and the developer is back at the well again hoping to sneak it through. Keep your politics to yourself.
One big problem has always been relying on freight rail right-of-way for transit. It's almost always no man's land with a lot of industrial zoning along freight rails. It's also a pain to get to stations from residential areas unless you have a car, but if you have a car there isn't a lot of incentive to drive it part way to your destination just to leave it in a parking lot where it might be broken into when you can finish the trip in your car.
NIMBYs are also a reason for the mess, when you have stations like Southmoor where the neighborhood directly opposed access to the platform.