Since we’ve been talking about street cars lately, today I’d like to present a special website: Beyond FasTracks: A Vision for Denver Transit.
The website was put together by Dan Malouff and Steve Boland, the creators of Beyond DC and San Francisco Cityscape, respectively. I’ve been a fan of those two websites for years and they each contributed to my inspiration and vision for DenverInfill. Both Dan and Steve have Colorado backgrounds which, combined with their love of transit and urbanism, resulted in the Beyond FasTracks project.
Dan and Steve created the website in 2005 and DenverInfill has been privately hosting it since then. But, thanks to Dan’s comment in the Future of the 16th Street Mall post, now seems like a good time to share it with DenverInfill readers. Since it has been three years since the transit alternatives on Beyond FasTracks were created, I wonder… Dan, Steve, anything you want to change? How about the rest of you Denver transit fans out there… what do you think? Let the conversation about the future of transit in Denver’s urban core continue!
I'm all for the 4 billion dollar plan, but why would the subway turn to the north on peoria and not to the south? or even continue east across I-225 and the future lightrail tracks on I-225?
Dan and Steve did an amazing job on these maps. Both of these guys are transit visionaries, and realistic ones at that.
When I visit SF (ie Lower Haight), DC , and NYC (ie Brooklyn) , it's amazing to see the impact that transit has made in the nodes in these systems, ie not just downtown. When I'm cruising around Denver, and imagine that we can have an integrated transit system its quite amazing to see (or imagine) the potential transformations that can occur. And no coincidence, they are exactly where blueprint denver says they should occur. Another interesting aspect of the maps since they have been created about 3 years ago, is how more realistic they have become because of all of the new density that has occured in town and because of gas prices pushing people on bikes and transit.
Brilliant website! It's interesting to note that the direction of money has always flowed in a mostly easterly, southerly, or southeasterly direction in Denver, going back to the 1860s (the rich have always moved their neighborhoods further in that direction-never northeast or southwest). These plans, despite the spur to Highlands, generally follow that pattern, giving preference to the areas that have, over decades, received the most investment. I would respectfully suggest that the southwest part of the city would also be well-served by a line of some sort coming out of Auraria along Colfax or branching off the Gold Line alignment, and then south on Federal to Evans Ave. Federal is one of the most difficult streets in Denver, and is generally completely off the radar of the city's planning department and politicians. And the southwest side need some help! A light rail or trolley line there would spur development and perhaps an economic turnaround for the city's most underserved residents.
Other than that relatively minor quibble, I'm all for these ideas, particularly the connection between downtown and Cherry Creek, and its continuation down Colorado Blvd. I grew up near S. Colorado and I-25. When I was young in the 1970s, it was the city's busiest street with 55,000 cars a day-and now I think the number is now closer to 80K! Living on Capitol Hill in the 1990s and commuting downtown on the often overcrowded #10 or #12 bus lines, I couldn't help but wonder why RTD was (at that point) spending so much money to get people from Littleton, of all places, to use mass transit in the form of light rail when we in the city were so much more in need of transit improvements, and were using public transportation at far higher rates per capita. I still think that way. Denver's suburban residents (and we all have some of them in our lives) really are just like southern Californians or Texans-they prefer life behind the wheel, and the flexibility that offers, to living a more green kind of life by using public transportation, getting into public vehicles with other human beings who might not be the same race or ethnicity as themselves, etc.
One funding preference I don't agree with: in the cheapest plan, light rail runs down Broadway. Given that the residents around there rejected that idea, it might be more sensible to put that initial money into connecting downtown with Cherry Creek and Colorado Blvd. rather than paralleling the existing light rail line right away. Such a line could wait until more people found it acceptable (although, due to Broadway's great width, it would probably be the easiest to build-nothing other than a lane of traffic would have to be taken away, and Broadway has five lanes).
These plans are all great in terms of boosting transit in the urban core, rather than in the suburbs, which was the focus of FastTracks.
FastTracks made huge progress in terms of making the "spokes" of our transit system, and the next two key steps seem to be addressed in this plan:
1. Connecting the spokes together so downtown is not the only hub, increasing people's ability to get from one suburb to another without having to go through Denver. A key piece of these plans is to connect all of the light rail lines on the West side of town together with one massive north-south stretch along Wadsworth. The Wadsworth line in particular is key in terms of getting people to and from Boulder.
2. Greatly improving people's ability to get around within the main urban core of the city. This is obviously the main focus of these plans, and rightfully so. And I think Cherry Creek, Colfax, Broadway, and Highlands lines are a great start.
As Denver starts to discuss this stuff in more detail, I think we should make cost-effectiveness one of our paramount concerns. If one thing is for sure, its that Denver needs a LOT more transit, and I'm not sure that subways and elevated light rail lines are the best bang for our buck, even if they would be exceptionally nice to have, I don't think the added cost is worth it. Based on the civic projects that we've passed in the last 15 years (DIA, convention center, Justice Center, this year's bond issues), I think its reasonable to say we could probably manage a proposal somewhere in the 500-1500 million range. I think the best bet is electric trams on the trunk lines (preferably ULF models like these: http://www.transportation.siemens.com/ts/en/pub/products/mt/products/tram/ulf.htm) and improved buses elsewhere in the city. Its important to note that trams are considerably larger than our current mall shuttles and would alleviate the congestion issues without a subway. I do think a comprehensive city transport plan, paid for by Denver but integrated with RTD, could be the defining accomplishment of Mayor Hickenlooper's fantastic tenure.
I agree that southwest Denver is always glarily absent from any of the rail transit proposals I have ever seen. I also think these plans have overlooked a street car line along Federal or Lowell connecting the Arvada/Wheat Ridge commuter train line, serving Regis University, and travelling south to the Gold Line light rail and then continuing south serving Southwest Denver.
Wadsworth line – GREAT idea.
These are excellent, well thought out alignments that efficiently connect the dense, walkable nodes that already exist in central Denver.
Make no mistake about it: these neighborhoods and nodes that are being connected are our most desely populated areas that were originally built around transit and walking.
On the issue of cost: no matter which alternative is used, these rail lines will probably be more heavily utilized dollar for dollar than anything we're going to build as part of fastracks.
The only problem is that they serve central Denver only, and not the suburbs where much of the region's money and political power have shifted. Since such an urban rail system will take a such a great level of political cooperation to achieve, I'm glad that Steve, Dan, and Denverinfill.com are helping the necessary debates get rolling. New ideas, even the great ones, always have to start somewhere, and usually require widespread consideration before they stick.
I agree with sam in japan about cost effectiveness. Is a subway really necessary or can another mode be as effective for considerably less investment? Differences come into the hundreds of millions, if not more.
And Broadway should be a streetcar. It's a wide road but the buildings on either side are no larger than Colfax's. It's a homey retail area. Send the line all the way down to Hampden, where Englewood's trying to create the same kind of walkable "main street".
Let the busses work the suburbs where rail is impractical. Give the core rail!
Very creative ideas.
I think that the most practical starting point would be a colfax street car, and a street car that connects downtown an cherry creek.
The colfax car would be the tipping point for real improvemet of colfax, and serve some major cultural destinaions like city park, and it would not be very far from the museum and zoo.
Connecting downtown and cherry creek would help spur cross development between the two.
I think that the major elements of these plans will eventualy get built but not as part of a total package…
Beyond Fastracks from a website design perspective is horrible. It's cluttered and confusing, looks like it was designed with MS Frontpage.
Oh and this comment on the homepage is tragic: Driven away by a lack of transit options, are now part of the Denver diaspora.
Sounds more to me like they couldn't cut it in Denver's economy during the early 2000s so they fled to the coasts.
In addition the pricing for your alternatives is very outdated and needs to be revisited. This website was a huge disappointment!
To Anon, 8:43,
I think the Colfax line turns north at Peoria so it can terminate at the transfer station for the extended I225 light rail line and the future Airport/I70 commuter rail line. If you notice, the I225 line leaves the Interstate corridor and travels along Peoria to get to I70.
I prefer alternative B, the $1 billion option, with one suggestion: change the light rail line along Broadway to another Street Car. Apart from being less expensive, Street cars have a major advantage over light rail: integration with car traffic. Broadway and Colfax are high-traffic corridors, and a street car line would not eliminate any lanes. Traffic can remain at an efficient peak capacity, and the street car can provide additional capacity for local foot traffic. The route through Cherry Creek that continues along Colorado could benefit from the tighter turning radius of a street car, since it weaves through side streets and neighborhoods.
The subway under the mall seems redundant if the mall service is integrated into this plan. I can see it as an option, though, if a cut-and-cover tunnel could be built cheaply while revamping the mall and resurfacing the roadway (with pavers, concrete, or rails).
Ummm…
To the anonymous person at 10:35:
1. It's a perfectly fine from a website design perspective. The only thing that isn't clear is the items on the right being included within each plan listed on the top. It's not remarkable from a design perspective, but who are you to complain?
2. This isn't an official website of some city project. It's some ideas thrown out by some people interested in trying to improve our city. Give them a break.
3. If you really don't like it, make something better instead of complaining on the comments of this blog. Express your "huge disappointment" in more productive ways next time.
4. Post with a real name or at least a consistent alias so people know who you are. Posting negative things any other way is tremendously cowardly, and it's what makes the internet an irritating place to be sometimes.
I don't mean to start a flame war here, but I really enjoy reading this blog and I'm very grateful Ken puts so much effort into it. Posting negative, unproductive crap anonymously only serves to make him not want to do it anymore, so please be more considerate next time.
Thanks,
Ryan
Hey there. I fled to one of the coasts in 1996, where I made a living designing websites (without FrontPage) before I got into planning; but in any case, thanks for the comments.
Ken — thanks for reposting this. There are no doubt some things I'd do differently now (I can't speak for Dan), but I want to emphasize that this was an exercise more or less untethered (despite the cost estimates) from fiscal or political realities. Just a way to get folks thinking about the possibilities, you know, and about priorities. If I were designing a system for the City and County tomorrow, it would consist of a Colfax streetcar and rapid bus lines on every artery (and, of course, you'd work up and out from there).
Good insights about southwest Denver.
Unfortunately, since these maps were designed a couple years ago, they missed the fact that the Curtis Park/Whitter/Cole/San Rafael streetcar line (along Welton and turning to go along Downing) is already going to happen. This can be a great start, and future streetcar plans should (must!) incorporate it into the "streetcar network" vision. Specifically, rather than simply going around the existing "downtown lightrail loop", it should either turn down Broadway/Lincoln to join up with other streetcar lines at Civic Center, OR it should turn to join the new 18th/19th Circulator when it converts to streetcar. I look forward to an update to these vision maps!
If broadway had a rail line I would be in heaven. Actually if any of these plans happened Denver would be the best city in the nation.
I like the effort put forth in this "brainstorming" experiment. It reminds me of the subject brought up awhile ago about the dirt path in commons park and the general sentiment that we should build walkways where people actually want to walk. In the same way – we should build public tansit to destinations where people actually want to go. How nice would it be to jump on an open air street car near union station and ride up to Cherry Creek for dinner – or come back to watch theater – all without the hassle of jumping in a car. What better way to convince the high income earners working at Fitzimmons that they can live dt than by offering a convenient transit back and forth to work. Bottome line – if city planners want to entice people to live in the city (and collect their property taxes as a result) – you need to make these kinds of investments. Before long, you create a tipping point where there is an increasing confluence of cultural activity, retail, jobs, transit options, and (hopefully better schools) that people see Denver as a destination place to live.
In the next 20 years – as our culture of the automobile starts to wane – Denver needs to prepare and promote the various types of urbanism that will attract people that want to escape the endless expanses of suburban commuting.
In regard to the maps – I would love to see one incorporate the dt circulator by running it up 20th into the highland and then back down Speer. By doing this – the city would have a way to transport people to the main sports hubs of the city (Coors and Pepsi Center) and criss-cross the existing lines of RTD in the process. This way, someone riding up from Littleton would just make a quick jump off the RTD and hop on a steet car to drop them right in front of the ball game. It sure beats paying $20 for parking and adds a lot more fun to the event as well.
I like the idea of connecting DT with Cherry Creek by rail. I live in Littleton and almost never go to Cherry Creek because I have to drive to get there.
Rail could still be more functional in the suburbs. East/West routes don't exist. There is a tremendous amount of traffic between the southern burbs and the DTC. WB Arapahoe rd heading into the DTC is a disaster in the morning. 470 between Santa Fe and 25 is thoroughly jammed during the rush as well. Some sort of rail along those roads would make sense.
I agree that connecting the Southwest lightrail and Southeast lightrail lines with a lightrail line along C-470 is an excellent idea. I don't live in that area, but that stretch of C-470 gets slammed every rush hour. Arapahoe Road from Parker Road to 1-25 is also very congested, but I don't know if a lightrail train would be very well used along there.
Thanks for posting this, Ken. A couple of notes:
1) Broadway is presented as LRT rather than streetcar in all the alternates to provide a second valve into downtown for the existing light rail lines. Part of the idea is that some of the trains on either/both the SE and SW lines would go down Broadway rather than through the valley.
2) A big part of the impetus for this plan came from a map created by a gentleman named Adam Krom, another Colorado ex-pat who moved to the coast. Adam's map (which unfortunately I don't have a copy of) showed the source of all existing RTD transit riders. It very clearly showed three distinct clumps of high-density ridership: Colfax, Broadway, and Boulder around CU. When Steve and I saw that map, we started thinking about providing transit where it's needed most. BTW, Adam also has a nice streetcar plan of his own, which you can download here.
3) In addition to the "big ideas" there are some smaller details in the maps that shouldn't be overlooked. For example, some of the alternates include an infill station on the SW line called Overland, and some propose modifications to the Five Points line. Another thing is we took pains to name stations after the neighborhoods or destinations they serve rather than cross streets, in opposition to RTD's current scheme.
4) Yes, things are more expensive now. So is gas.
5) I'd put Federal in the same category as Colorado – streets that could definitely benefit from quality transit, but that aren't as high on the priority list as Colfax, Broadway, Highlands, or Cherry Creek. That we've provided rail service on Colorado but not Federal is I think partly a function of Colorado being easier to incorporate into the system. A key challenge with all of this is building a cohesive, synergistic *network* rather than a bunch of individual lines. Colorado lends itself to that more easily than Federal. Also I think Colorado has higher TOD potential. But anyway, whether or not to build and then how to integrate a Federal line should definitely be part of any discussion about an inner city streetcar network. Maybe something like THIS?
Awesome website and fun to imagine it being reality. My ideas would be also to change the Broadway line to a streetcar (and keep the heavy LRT traffic in the valley), and maybe a streetcar line that drops from Curtis Park down to the Fax, probably along Downing. Even with the LRT in Curtis Park, the Fax is completely inaccessible from Curtis Park.
If they want to see a redevelopment of Colfax, that's an absolute necessity. I can't see it really taking off without the streetcar line.
Terrific informative and entertaining work. Keep up the good work. Thanks for the info.