No Rail to Golden (Denver, Boulder: school, live, costs)

[livecontent]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Yay! Correcting the know-everything out-of-towner!



First off, RTD never seriuosly considered bringing LRT into Golden, the terminus for the West Line was always the Jeffco Government Center due to the assumption that the vast majority of users would use vehicles to access the station. It was a cost benefit decision early in the process before FasTracks was proposed and before any cost overruns necessitated project cost cutting.

Second, you imply that the West Corridor was $1.5 billion over budget. You meant the entire system, but only a person who knew the details would know meant so rather than thinking that the West Corridor alone was $1.5 billion over budget.

You might not be mistaken, but your response imply otherwise. Perhaps you should work on structuring your post a little more coherently?




There is zero CURRENT funding available. However, the sales tax for FasTracks is structured so that it will exist until the maximum bonding limit has been reached ($4.7 billion) and has been repaid which allows for every single line to be built, just is a far, far longer timeline. The NW line will be built no matter what. It's just that it may be 2040-2050 when it actually gets built. The only way this doesn't happen is if a new ballot intiative is introduced that repeals the 2004 FasTracks sales tax increase.

The adult discussion is whether or not the NW corridor should be rail at all when it parallels a BRT corridor into Boulder Conty that will be used by far more users and when the rest of the Denver Metro Area will be subsidizing a low-usage portion into Longmont. It makes more sense to convert the Longmont portion of the NW corridor to BRT that ties into the US-36 BRT corridor and leave the rail portion to be done as part of the imagined Front Range Commuter Rail vision.

Thanks for the intelligent, adult discussion and information. I do agree that it makes sense to consider connecting Longmont with BRT along 119. That would give them sufficient service under Fastracks. I have thought that rail to Longmont was too soon for commuter rail.

I can see over time that Longmont will be more served with Rail from Fort Collins/Loveland to Denver. Even today Longmont is becoming more connected to these Northern Front Range Cities with FLEX FLEX - The Most Flexible Bus Route In Northern Colorado This makes Longmont an important central connecting point with RTD meeting the FLEX.

We also have to keep reminding people that Fastracks is not only about rail. It is also about more buses, especially feeder buses to the rail stations; improvements to Park-n-Rides and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

Livecontent

[wong21fr]

The problem with the adult discussion is whether it's politically viable or not. A commuter rail system was promised for Boulder and Longmont (along with a BRT corridor duplicating service) and trying to substitute another technology that is not fixed rail is going to be a very, very tough sell.

If the Front Range Commuter Rail discussion really started getting going, it could easily link into the NW corridor and even justify the line by reducing the cost per user with increased ridership. But that opens up a whole new can of worms...

[woob]

back to the original question, i wonder if RTD will run a shuttle timed with light rail arrivals to get people into downtown golden with minimal hassle.

[BarryK123]

Originally Posted by hammertime33

Didn't 113 people also die building the Hoover Dam?

Originally Posted by Snikt

That's an extreme example, surely technology advances in the last 100 years would allow for more safety, while maintaining the same productivity or even increasing it.

In reality though things are safer yes, but productivity is probably 10-20% of what it was

OSHA didn't exist then, and neither did safety belts, seat belts, etc. So what's your point, hammertime?

[wong21fr]

...

[Snikt]

Originally Posted by BarryK123

OSHA didn't exist then, and neither did safety belts, seat belts, etc. So what's your point, hammertime?

If you read the whole post you would know. The point is nobody knows how to work anymore, safety or not. It shouldn't take 20 years and billions of dollars to expand a little light rail system 20 miles, etc..

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by woob

back to the original question, i wonder if RTD will run a shuttle timed with light rail arrivals to get people into downtown golden with minimal hassle.

Nope.

[zenkonami]

Originally Posted by Snikt

If you read the whole post you would know. The point is nobody knows how to work anymore, safety or not. It shouldn't take 20 years and billions of dollars to expand a little light rail system 20 miles, etc..

No it shouldn't. It doesn't take us that long to build (or expand) highways, but as was mentioned earlier, roads don't have to go through the bureaucracy that rail does. I'd be curious to see how much of that bureaucracy was put in by opponents of rail, and how much of it was lobbied for by those that are lining their pockets with the costs of the various studies and reports that have to precede building of rail. Many of the rules on how and where rail can be built seem ridiculous.

I'd like to add that though we luck out in some ways in Denver, I think it's a mistake to only secure prior rail right-of-ways for our light/commuter rail lines. It's convenient, but does not necessarily follow the density in most places. Such was the impetus for my initial question. I have a better understanding *why* the lines don't go into Golden proper (JeffCo as a park n ride covering much of the foothills towns and suburbs, limits on getting rail *into* downtown Golden due to safety and such), but I still think it's a shame that, as someone else said, one of the areas that supports reasonable density does not mark the terminus of the line. Transit and walkability *should* often go hand in hand. There's nothing wrong with building park n ride systems in given our current system, but doing so at the exclusion of improving walkable transit stations is going to lead to fights in the future when all the park n rides are full up and we have to argue over expansion...I'm getting the impression that parking garages are not popular (or financially practical) alternatives.

[wong21fr]

To add a little bit more information on access into Golden....

While the West Corridor was/is not planned to ever go into Golden, RTD did opt to purchase additional ROW on the Gold Line past the Ward Road Station heading into Golden (the so-called "Beer Line" that services Coors Brewery). This will allow RTD to extend the Gold Line all the way into Downtown Golden at a future date when additional funding is secured.

[woob]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

While the West Corridor was/is not planned to ever go into Golden, RTD did opt to purchase additional ROW on the Gold Line past the Ward Road Station heading into Golden (the so-called "Beer Line" that services Coors Brewery). This will allow RTD to extend the Gold Line all the way into Downtown Golden at a future date when additional funding is secured.

right, why take the short route into golden when you can take the long way around through arvada. again, if only our highway system were subject to such cost cutting demands i wouldnt complain.