I live in Denver, in one of the densest residential areas, not particularly near a highway. I work within easy walking distance of a light rail station. It would still take me about twice the time to commute by public transit than it does by car. The buses take the same roads to the highway, where they transfer to the light rail. The lightrail runs along the highway, where it’s slower than all but the worst commuting traffic. The buses run every half hour. The light rail line I need runs every half hour. Those times don’t always line up. Frequency is the only reason it doesn’t make sense.
Your comment highlights what I would say is my thesis, land use (while absolutely not good enough) is a secondary problem to frequency and speed (which is hurt by low frequency!)
transit should not be faster than cars. its good to have taxis in a soft emergency or for ultra high priority traffic. the trade off in every other continent is cheap slow transit or prohibitively expensive but fast car. only here where cars must never "overpay" for parking or tolls or gas tax or congestion tax can we possibly suggest that a train that has multiple stops should have speed parity with a car travelling non stop.
@@FullLengthInterstates Transit shouldn't also take double the time it takes cars to travel the same distance... See pretty much every damn successful public transit system, which are pretty much all subways that can travel as fast or faster than cars covering the same distance above ground... In order to be successful, public transit needs to have their own dedicated priority access lanes.
Denver and other mid cities need more density. I’m from one of the most populated cities in the world but a relative lives in Downtown Denver. It surprises me how infrastructure is wasted on projects that could be good but density doesn’t serve anyone whatsoever. That needs to change . For the better of the world and urban development
As a resident of Aurora, a suburb of Denver, I used the light rail for about six months. My commute involved driving 30 minutes to the station and then riding the train for another 40 minutes to get to work. However, when RTD changed its policy and restricted free parking to residents within certain areas, it no longer saved me money-parking downtown and paying directly became just as costly. For a year, I adjusted by driving 5 minutes to a free parking lot, taking a 35-minute bus ride to the station, and then riding the train for another 35 minutes. By the time I got off, my total commute was about 1.5 hours each way. Eventually, I switched back to driving, paying for parking (which my company partially subsidized), and cutting my commute down to just 40 minutes one way. The change made me much happier because I saved 1.5 hours daily and avoided standing in Colorado’s freezing cold or intense heat waiting for public transit. The only times I saw the light rail truly full were during breakdowns when service resumed or during sporting events. Even during regular business hours, trains were about three-quarters full at best but were mostly empty the rest of the time.
Agree, if transit isn't a financial & convenience no-brainer, it won't be used, explaining why many developed/rich countries where broader societal needs are valued prioritize/subsidize it to such a great extent.
What about the safety aspect. I know a lot of people that will try metro/LRT lines just for fun, and get turned off of ever using it in the foreseeable future because the seats smell like pee and if you ride for over 20 minutes, you are guaranteed to see suspicious people on the train/ drug abuse.
@@AG-yc7vt Yes, an enforcement priority/behavior tolerance problem when underfunded transit can't compete with subsidized cheap fuel/car ownership. Transit police are a thing where it's funded, and people don't have to put up with that nonsense in public places.
Yep, sports/events are really the value of light rail when parking is even harder than usual and people can get to the city without needing a DD or an expensive rideshare. Light rail doesn't feel like it was every invented to replace cars, but to supplement when parking is going to be hard downtown (or the trip to the airport is long).
@@DaleSteadman I took it from aurora to the airport. It was such a pain, and at the time I had to pay to park at the train station, that I took an uber when i got back into town to where I had parked. The cost and time to use the train versus an uber is just not worth it.
I’m a denverite and probably the perfect use case for the RTD. My house is just a few train stops on one train line from the university that I attend, and the university stop is convenient. There is also a train stop literally 15 feet from my house. Unfortunately, if I wanted to ride this train, I’d either have to hop a 15 foot concrete wall and precariously cross the train tracks, or walk 10 minutes to exit my neighborhood, 5 minutes to cross the highway, walk another 15 minutes through empty parking lots, and cross the highway again, all just to access a train station on the same side of the highway as my house, 15 feet from my house. The drive to the university is 20 minutes on a bad day. They built a train station on the residential side of the highway, just to make it inaccessible and inconvenient to anyone who actually wants to use it.
Mine isn't as bad as yours but my commuter rail train drives right past my work then adds another 15-20 mins to the trip because you need to get off at the next station then switch back to the subway to go back. This isn't too terrible except that the subway is always having problems and will make you late for the rail when heading home... which is a problem at night when the rail only runs once per 2 hours.
If you're talking about the southmoor station, it was on purpose after HOA types in those neighborhoods complained. So RTD made it's services intentionally difficult to access from a residential area 🙄
I live in Aurora, which is 6 miles from my workplace. I would have to leave home at 6:45am to get to work at 8am if I were to use public transit, or I could leave at 7:45am in my car and be in my office by 8am. This was the biggest reason that forced me into buying a car. The trains and busses don't go everywhere, and are super infrequent.
6 miles is a good distance for E-bike, or scooter... think about it, I'm biking to work all year around and winter here is pretty dry, (much better than NY's winter rains)
In 2016, 2017 and 2018 the light rail (2 cars) ran between downtown and Arvada with NO passengers. They couldn't get the crossing arms to properly respond. A guard was posted at several train/auto intersections around the clock for years at taxpayer expense I'm sure. A local T-shirt company made a printing commemorating the Ghost Train. On the back was written, "Taking Nobody Nowhere, Real Fast."
I live in Aurora, and work in Golden. My commute by car averages about 45 minutes each way. If I were to use RTD, it would be 2 hrs and 50 minutes. As a Colorado native, growing up in Lakewood in the 70s and 80s, I'm dismayed by what has become of my state. As a teen, I rode buses all over town, they were cheap and convenient. Add my voice to the chorus saying that light rail is a safety nightmare. I am an able bodied male with the means to defend myself, and I'm still on edge anytime I use RTD. I can only imagine what it feels like for those less able to deal with the aggressive homeless, mentally ill, or substance abusers.
@@TFogguys I lived in the Denver media market from 1999-2016 and I still remember a tragic incident where a graduate student was the victim of a heinous crime at a rail stop. I've lived in three cities with modern rail... Washington DC, Dallas and Denver. In each city criminal activity was covered extensively by the media and I thought the crimes and attendant publicity negatively affected ridership.
I tried taking the R line to work in Denver. It's important to note, in addition to the service being infrequent, we're talking about Colorado. The stops/stations are just open to the elements. Standing outside in the freezing cold and snow for 20 minutes is a brutal start to the day. Then I get to watch traffic on the highway going faster than the train, and to add insult to injury I was paying for the experience. It made no sense to do all this when I had a perfect alternative on hand: my warm, fast, ready-when-I-am car.
Same in Ottawa, Canada (the world's second-coldest national capital, after Ulan Bataar in Mongolia) where our new LRT's stations are largely open, inadequately-heated and often in empty, windswept fields or the middle of a highway. 🙄
The lack of better protection from the elements is a total own goal, almost as big as forcing people to wait so long in the first place! Fortunately both are fixable!
As a Denverite, it's so much worse than this... central downtown stations were closed all summer, rail burn is forcing trains to go 10mph, vandalism and substance abuse are super common. Fastracks projects took forever to complete but the new infrastructure has low usage because of unreliability and low service frequency worsened by operator shortages. When some of these lines opened they had fatal accidents at road crossings because the gates didn't work. Nowadays I mostly ride an ebike to commute, suffer through riding the train during poor weather, and only drive when I have to.
I visited Denver twice this summer from London. I think your points are fair. I wanted to ride the transit but it wasn't operating in the city centre for some reason. Strangely the city centre generally did not seem busy enough to justify a high frequency transit system compared to a crowded European city and sadly the number of zombie druggies and vagrants seemed a major reason not to visit downtown at all. 🙁 I did though have a great train ride into the city from Grand Junction to Union station but that was not transit.
@@lalakerspro Yes, you are absolutely right. I just wonder though if Denver did enough research into Transit systems around the world before they committed to building their network the way that they did. From what others are saying here it seems to need some improvements. I am hoping to visit again in 2025 so hopefully more of the network will be active then. 👍
@@Pesmog No, RTD is it's own worst enemy, it has an elected board and they just play turf wars with each other trying to get all the funding for their district at the expense of other districts. That's the reason for the idiotic routing of the R line, the G line getting NIMBYd and the B line never being completed.
The light rail is so bad that we spent $10,000 on a second car. We moved into a place near a station because we remembered how good public transit was abroad and my wife didn't want to drive in Denver. We started thinking about a second car when the light rail shifted from fifteen minutes intervals to half hour intervals with half hour delays (usually 45 minute delays). And then one day it took my wife three hours to make her nine mile journey home. Walking pace. And then it happened again. We had a new car within a week. And the train still trundles past our apartment at three miles per hour.
Having lived in Denver since 2006 I have seen the demise of RTD. When you live in a town that it cost $2,000 a month for an apartment for any one bedroom. You can't afford to live there. Free Transit doesn't help. Especially with all the muggings and thugs. I've been approached or attempted assault at least six times in a since I've been here. That's why there's no ridership anymore.
great video! As a Denverite, it's disappointing how much was built only to squander it by having poor land use. The A line to airport is quite phenomenal, but the rest of the lines for the most part just don't go anywhere useful. Particularly frustrating are the G and W lines that stop just short of the actual downtown of Golden which would be a great connection. Thankfully, the state just passed a law requiring upzoning around transit stops (trains and frequent buses). I don't foresee us building towers to the degree of Vancouver, but it's a big step in the right direction. Shame that the state has to force it rather than cities doing what's right. Also, Ghost Train was an excellent podcast!
I'm sure the residents of Golden (read, suburbs of Golden) didn't want it to come all the way downtown because it would attract "those kinds" of people. Exclusion is part of the point.
We keep waiting for these magical people who live near a transit system and do not maintain a personal motor vehicle to exist. For whatever reason or benefit, individual mobility persists in US. It seems to get baked into the DNA somehow.
one "fun" thing that frustrates me to no end is that RTD _literally_ owns the rail tracks between the current end of the G line and downtown Golden (they run all the way to Ford street behind the brewery). They bought them from BNSF as part of the fastracks project, lease them back to BNSF for freight, and as far as I'm aware have zero current plans to actually use them for passenger service. It's so goddamn annoying.
As someone who has ridden the LA Metro, Denver RTD and Portland MAX the biggest reasons why people don't use the systems is the lack of frequency (sometimes 15-20 minutes) and lack of security on these trains to remove the druggies/homeless and people who are not paying for their fares. Besides that if you cannot catch a bus in a relatively short time to finish your journey it would take sometimes 2x or 3x vs driving a car.
The LA Metro has made significant improvements over the last 18 months. It has improved frequencies, safety, cleanliness, and continues to expand. LA Metro ridership over the last two months passed the 1 million daily weekday ridership. Ridership has gone up over the last 24 months.
@@mrxman581 you say that. but for some reason. The train seats still smell like urine. And every time I am using the metro transit infrastructure (time waiting on platform + time on train) for over 20 minutes. There's some random druggie acting strange, and they get half a car to themselves due to their erratic behavior.
@AG-yc7vt The ridership numbers are LA Metro's, not mine. More people are using the LA Metro today compared to the recent past. I have not experienced what you described. The only time I had to wait over 20 minutes for a train was when the E line had a technical issue. That happened once, and I waited for 40 minutes. Other than that, I rarely wait for more than 15 minutes. Usually, I wait less than 10 minutes, more like 5-8 minutes. What lines are you riding, and when was the last time? I use the A and E lines about once a week and have never had any of the problems you describe. The worst was a homeless person getting on at the last minute,and he stunk to high heaven. I simply moved to the next car. He wasn't bothering anyone but smelled really bad. Other than that, it's been fine, great even, and very convenient.
When I went to grad school in Boston, I rented an apartment less than 2 miles from school and on a bus route (straight shot, no transfers). In theory, the bus was scheduled every 30 minutes. In practice, one of the drivers liked to drive faster. So what should have been one bus every 30 min, turned into two buses within 5 min of each other every hour. I ended up waiting 15 min for a bus, then walking to school most of the time because that was the only way I could guarantee I'd arrive in time for class (the buses would pass me during my walk half the time). I was so happy when my sister gave me my car back, even if I had to spend 15 minutes looking for parking at school. I'd given her the car because "finding parking in Boston sucks; I'll just take the bus." Only to find out the bus sucks more. (The T was good though. It wasn't subject to traffic and driver whims.)
I used to live in a suburb of London, UK, and to visit my parents 100 miles away, despite trains from London running at up to 125mph, and leaving every 30 minutes, it was _far_ quicker, door-to-door to drive, than take the extremely frequent train into central London, take the extremely frequent tube across London, and then, on arrival in the city where my parents lived, take a taxi to their home (because trying to catch a bus at 9pm would have been insane). Then there's the matter of the train ticket costing several times the (high) cost of the petrol in the UK, that it took to drive there.
Real Talk, I live in Denver and I used to love the light rail. But you can't just dump and run. You have to maintain it. The stops are all decayed, vandalized, and unsafe, and also filled with trash and used needles. People smoking in your face so you have to walk out of the stop just to breathe clean air. All the glass is broken out of the shelters. The only "clean" ones are the few right downtown. Vehicles get frequently broken into at the Park-N-Rides. The trains are filthy. They don't really feel safe to travel on anymore and I'm a man. I get randomly accosted by drug addicts and crazies. I can only imagine how some women must feel. I know I wouldn't want my girlfriend traveling on it alone, especially at night. I never see any transit security or police on our around the light rail. The tracks and trains are falling apart, making the trains go slower than they ever have before. RTD invested all the money building it and not enough in maintenance, upkeep, cleaniliness, or public safety. Then the service became so bad and unpleasant that nobody wanted to use it, so ridership goes down, they lose money, and then it gets even worse, and trains run less frequently, making it useless for most. Many lines used to run far more frequently until budget cuts due to lack of ridership. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. On top of that, their "honor system" for purchasing tickets with practically zero enforcement, made it so only honest people do buy tickets. They made it so easy for everyone to just ride without paying anyway. Based on what I've seen, I'd guess only 35% of people who ride do pay, leading to even more lost revenue, and even crappier service, and even less ridership. RTD is letting it rot, leaving it as a bare minimum, barely functional service, and spending as little money as possible on it. I don't know how you turn it around now. On top of that, it's not even reliable. And RTD doesn't care if people get stranded. I took the lightrail downtown once and got stranded after midnight when 3 straight trains failed to show up. Turns out the track got shut down but they never told anyone waiting. RTD never sent buses to pick anyone up. I had to take a ridiculously expensive peak-time, long-distance Uber home.
@@BrandonBaecker wow, I used to ride the light rail all the time 10 years ago. It was such a great way of commuting downtown and beyond convenient for getting to the airport and back. This is so disappointing to hear.
Good video. Some things were not discussed, though. I will tell you about my last experience coming back from Europe to Denver. I caught the train at the airport. This should be the flagship station welcoming travellers from all over, but it is just a drab platform with no services and little shelter from the elements. This being a relatively new route, I don't understand why it takes so long to reach downtown. That ride should be no more than 20 minutes. All the stops along the route slow it down. Then, you need to transfer at Union Station when heading further. I had to take the W line. I looked up the schedule and realized I only had 5 minutes to make it all the way through the bus concourse to reach the light rail terminal with heavy bags. I only got on the train because it was about 5 minutes late. Otherwise, I would have been stranded there for 30 minutes. That station is always grimy and the train is absolutely filthy. Trash lying around, floors and seats are disgusting, windows are dirty. A character got on board with a pizza box. She spent the entire ride eating pizza and loudly cussing out some imaginary person (she was alone), as well as shouting at people if they want pizza. On previous trips I witnessed open drug use (nasty smell) and smelly homeless people with all their belongings and dogs just camping out in the trains. Very few normal passengers. No wonder people would drive and pay for parking.
a big problem is the system was mainly built for commuters, and a huge proportion of them are permanently gone after covid. One thing that makes the A line so successful is it's _not_ tuned for commuters; it has 15 minute frequency, 7 days a week, which makes it useful for something beyond going to work
Honestly, with all the big stores & affordable restaurants gone, I see less & less reason to even go into Denver. Living _in_ Denver has become a real PITA in the last 10-20 years, as more & more stores, services, etc, moved their locations out of Denver. Want to return a cable modem? Just drive to one of our suburban locations! Cellphone-provider service location? Not in this town! Without offices, dining, & shopping, what is a city even good for?
This is so typically US: begrudgingly fumble into the current century with modern-ish infrastructure. Do it so piss-poorly and design it so unbelievably terribly that it doesn't work well, then when it's not immensely popular complain that it doesn't work and people don't want it, use that as a justification to not develop anything anymore. This is the government equivalent of a child doing the dishes so poorly that their parents stop asking them to do the dishes.
This is not uncommon even in places with OK transit. Here in Melbourne, AU, we run great services at peak hour, but outside of that service levels drop off a cliff down to 20, 30 minute levels, or even longer later at night. It really feels like the people making the decisions just have no idea how transit services work - I have to wonder if planners/designers just aren't advocating enough, or if government really is so cynical as to not care because it doesn't seem as flashy as new construction...
@@lalakerspro The issue is many, many ppl are ok living like that, or at least living in a denser suburb. However, the options are so limited that the supply fo such places is less than demand, hence housing in the very few car based places is insanely expensive. Ppl do indeed want it, it’s a choice whether the US will meet the demand.
@@bobsteve4812 In any major city, there is plenty of dense living. I walked around union station and saw plenty of apartments, retail, etc. Youre not gonna get that in the suburbs. Suburbs are not meant to be dense, otherwise they would just be urban cities
I‘ll say that every 20 minutes for an outer-suburban service like the Melbourne Metro is fine late in the evening. Wanting to have fewer operators on the night shift is understandable and if you can‘t plan around a 20-minute frequency then maybe you really are better off driving.
More generally though, something I've seen again and again in North American transit projects and existing services is a seemingly fundamental lack of understanding of what a well-developed transit service looks like. Corners are being cut left and right, basic technologies aren't being implemented, important measures aren't being taken and things are needlessly overcomplicated. Several examples: Basically every modern US streetcar line: slow, poor alignments, unnecessary use of wireless sections further complicating and slowing operations, bad frequencies. It's no wonder few people ride these lines when any bus could a similar or better job. Most of them are just beautification tools but have very little actual merit. Brightline and Caltrain Electrification: Both systems have failed to improve grade crossings along their alignments to a degree that stops people accidentally wandering onto the tracks or stops cars from swerving around lowered barriers. A barrier system that makes both of those things basically impossible exists and is in use every day in countries like the UK or Germany. Why not muster up the funds to install it? With these safer barriers the noise pollution from constant horns and bells could also be mitigated, because quiet zones could be implemented safely. OTrain Lines 2 and 4: In a recent video by Railfans Canada it was shown just how needlessly slow operations on those lines will be, with station approaches being crawls and the line speed limits being unnecessarily low. Additionally, the fact that one has to transfer twice to get from downtown to the airport is kind of ridiculous and I assume will lead to a lot people choosing taxis/ubers if they can afford to. And finally a failure to understand the roles of regional and intercity rail: There is almost no truly regional rail system in the US, because almost everything is centered on a single urban area and effectively acts as a commuter feeder to that core area, even if frequencies allow journeys in both directions equally. Much of the Northeastern US could support a complex regional rail network connecting all of the more important towns and cities without always having to travel through the few major metropolises. On top of that, many corridors that currently only see intercity service (like in the Midwest or potentially the PNW) should be studied for an additional regional rail layer to be added. Far too often it's either regional rail or intercity rail, but in basically every country with a successful rail system they both run on the same routes, just one as a local and the other as an express. This needs to be taken seriously so that smaller places can also receive a rail connection without slowing longer-distance trains down.
I ride RTD every once in a while. It’s nice when the roads are bad during storms or if I am having car issues. However, the main reason people don’t ride it here is because of safety concerns. The first time I rode RTD, I literally was across from someone smoking crack at one point. Many don’t feel safe or secure, especially when drug use is rampant. If Denver fixed the drug abuse issues as well as the homeless epidemic, more people would ride it. In addition, the trains/light rail are often delayed, so I have to build in extra time when waiting for them so that I am not late to work. This is a pain when it’s freezing cold outside.
Another major issue you missed was drug abuse and homelessness. I use to ride the light rail in Denver back in the early 2000’s it was great as a college student. Today, I don’t feel safe on the train because it is overrun with the homeless, and people high on drugs.
Yep, even the biggest urbanists dance around the subject as though we’re supposed to ignore the violent screaming people and the ones shooting up on the trains in NA. It shouldn’t be the transit system’s problem to solve but unfortunately it has become it.
This is the real reason we can't have nice stuff. Crime and bad behavior are way to high in the usa. I'm a man and I've had bad experiences. I can't imagine what it would be like for a woman.
He forgot the Vancouver Millionnaires who won the Stanley Cup in 1914-1915. Maybe if the team (Canucks) had an original names like the Vancouver Orcas instead of trying to copy the Montréal Canadiens without copyright infringements.
I think you are missing the biggest issue. It's not the origin, it's the destination. Even with poor headways, people will still take transit if it goes where they want to go. In the US, far too many places of interest are located where land was cheap at the time, in other words anywhere but where transit runs.
I don't agree that large numbers of people WILL take transit with poor headways, especially given in a city like Denver driving is easy and fast. But of course the lack of TOD is a problem.
San Diego's Mid-Coast Trolley serves the city's largest university, several hospitals, and a megamall (with centrally located, non-freeway stations). Ridership is amazing compared to Denver but it is still bad compared to Seattle's Link, because while the Mid-Coast runs every 15 min, Seattle Link runs every 6.
@@RMTransit I'll second this. When the 3-5 minute headway for my commuter train went to 20-30 minutes during coronapanic, I quickly switched to driving even though my destination was a 3-minute walk from the station.
Exactly, I live close to the N line, and it is very convenient to get to Union Station. But... then what? If I wanted to take public transportation to the zoo, for example, it's either a 20 minute drive or a 90 minute train to bus to walk. I could bike there faster.
The lesson to be learned in America is if you build it they will NOT come. Everything is too spread out for transit to be viable in this country. The transit ends up being built where people don't want to go.
Parking is plentiful in this metro area. The stations tend to be unsheltered and crime-ridden. The transit cops are not enforcing against vagrancy and drug use. It's just easier to drive.
~4:00 Weird to argue that we need to pressure people into reducing their options. Wouldnt a more logical and progressive solution be to provide as many options as possible and make public transit SO MUCH better, faster, cheaper, that people elect that and sell their car? Nobody like to be told what to do, but they do like to shop and choose the better option.
@@JH-vx2dn facts but having options doesn’t allow env activists who want us all living in studio apartments, eating bugs, and compliant with whatever hot button issue of the day the gov/upper echelon office libz want to impose on us from their ivory towers
I think the core of the issue in the US is: in the US you need a car, almost every adult has one. If you have a car in the US, you’re going to use it, it’s more convenient the way this country is designed
America has always valued individual liberty. People prefer cars because they’re faster, offer more freedom of time and places to go, and can be shared, sold, given away, etc. But many Americans also like having the option of public transit, taxis, rental cars, and trains, which is why we also have all of those things, too. It was a little concerning when the narrator casually mentioned squeezing citizens out of parking in order to force them to ride the trains, as if this was a real possible solution and not creepy and tyrannical.
Loud and wrong. Cars are only faster because that’s how America has been built. Freedom comes with choice and right now Americans don’t have a choice only to choice to have an expensive loud and noisy car. You get more freedom actually living in a place with good transit and it’s better to drive there as well.
Denver (ok wheat ridge) resident and CDOT employee here! You hit the nail on the head with land use. The problem though largely comes back to RTD. RTD is actually one of the biggest land holders in the city and the current director and many board members have repeatedly expressed a lack of interest or desire in developing it. The upper management has abandoned he trains and the mantra is "the future is the bus" (I've heard that from important people multiple times). RTD has minimal interest in converting their parking lots into housing. Likewise CDOT, which is currently overseeing turning Federal Blvd into their own definition of BRT, is obsessed with busses in urban Denver. Despite the fact that there is near universal consensus that improved mixed traffic buses won't introduce significant mode shift. I'm a regular RTD commuter and because the scheduling and PTC on the G line (holy crap that is a cluster) leads to me missing my W line connection I end up taking a lime scooter to the office which most of my coworkers have said they wouldn't do. It takes effort to take transit. Thankfully the local transit advocacy agency, Greater Denver Transit, has had a mildly hostile takeover of the RTD board and change might actually happen soon. In my experience with RTD, they do not believe that induced demand works with transit so they just run whatever service level they want while trying to gaslight us into forgetting what RTD was like before Covid. Reliability has gone to trash in addition to safety. Trains and busses regularly get canceled without notice. Trains don't adhere to schedules. In the winter the trains can turn into rolling homeless shelters TLDR, the land development is a major issue for sure but most of the issues with RTD stem from the board and management
On the bright side, most of the incumbent board members seem to have been thrown out in the latest election and replaced with some younger folks who are active advocates for transit (and actually ride it lol). Idk when the actual transition occurs there but hopefully it'll lead to improvements.
I swear the only part of RTD that works well is the A line. The B line never being completed was just ridiculous, especially when they had a perfect opportunity to run it in the US36 median when 36 was rebuilt in 2016. Then of course the G line got NIMBYd by Golden, the light rail is just a mess, the R, W, E and H lines should've all been built as heavy commuter rail and can't be converted due to steep grades and tight curves on the expansion tracks. And then not even considering things like shuttle bus services in Golden/Morrison to reach all the open space parks which all have parking problems on the weekends.
Speaking to the choir... I want the 28/32 back, looping at Clear Creek Crossing (new Lutheran campus area) and the 100 to go far later, and to Independence/Ralston Rd. on Sundays. I can't get anywhere without walking a mile or more so often its just not worth it to take the bus. I stay home, or spend out my rear end for an uber.
💯 *Yes* to OP & every comment in this thread. For far too long now, the RTD board has behaved like postmaster Louis DeJoy / T.rump cabinet appointees: Sabotaging & dismantling & calling it "streamlining". It actually started even before CoViD '19 (yes, that is the most correct capitalization for the acronym). Bus routes were shifted to _not_ connect as conveniently & rail service expansion was deprioritized _even as new routes/sites came under RTD ownership,_ as far back as 2012. The RTD board takeover by seemingly anti-rider "leadership", took some time to make itself known... Hopefully the new boardmembers are quick to improve the situation!
I was watching a cabride of a light rail near San Jose, and the tracks ran along a highway, and cars were going faster than the train. That's an issue in my opinion. How do you want to make people leave their cars if the train running next to the freeway is visibly slower?!? To come back to the video, yes, frequent service is absolutely crucial and a must have for any rapid transit. I'll take Paris' example, 30min-1hr frequency is more of a suburban train frequency, in off-peak hours.
This is a bit of a light rail / alignment problem, if you are running down the middle of a highway and winding around its going to be much harder for a rail vehicle which needs to stop for stations to hit highway speeds. Rail can be fast - much faster than cars - but only with the right design.
@@RMTransit It feel like even fast subways like BART are still slightly slower than the cars on the freeway, even when hitting top speed in between wide spaced stops.
i want to say also, and you already sort of mentioned this, but rtd's rail is extremely commuter focused. it only really goes to low density suburbs, while all the high traffic transit corridors like east colfax are stuck with just buses
Yes, they put the trains in the worst places. Historically dense neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, City Park, and the Highlands have no rail while the existing rail parallels highways and freight lines that make reaching many stations take way longer.
They're lucky Colfax got a BRT, and even then I don't think it goes into Aurora. East Colfax is the worst area of Denver so never gets priority for anything because "those people" live there.
I went to one of the public meetings for East Colfax BRT over 10 years ago, and construction is just now starting. For bus service! I still struggle to understand how it’s going to serve the needs of the users of the 15 bus. That is a super busy line because it’s very local. It’s mass transit, not rapid transit. Stops need to be frequent. The FAQ talks about riders saving 30 minutes Broadway to Yosemite by 2040 and an average 3 mile trip savings of 10 minutes. But they are only estimating 7500 additional transit riders per day in 2040 over 2019 ridership. Local businesses will suffer during construction. These projects always lead to closures of low margin enterprises that can survive the loss of foot traffic and street parking. Welton Street has never really recovered as was hoped after the installation of light rail 30 years ago.
It bothers me very much that when people talk about "housing" they keep referring to renting, and leases that go up each time you sign a new one, and you're basically living in a big house with roommates that you share walls with, and you will never own anything. Is that what you want? To die in an apartment having never owned a REAL home with LAND? Fook that😁, I want what everyone else before me got to have...I want the American dream, they can keep the trains.
Low ridership is also because people do not want to ride with the riffraff. Additionally, I pass a rail station parking lot every day I go to work: it harbors 5-10 vehicles or none. edit: another problem is one of corruption, imo: traffic in Denver is crowded, there is no "rush" about it. But the people who are in charge create "express" lanes you pay to use after out tax dollars have paid for the lane. Express lane ONLY benefit the government coffers and not by very much. It may benefit those who pay to use the lane, but that is stupid because some of their taxes also paid for the construction. Those who don't use it also paid taxes for the construction. The only benefit is the small amount of extra money paid into express lanes that pays for the mayor and governor lunches. The construction company owners love it, too.
No matter how obviously unneeded and unwanted something is, if you get public money behind it, someone will take that money and build that unwanted thing. Politicians get to say they did something, contractors, employees, managers get paid and the only one who gets screwed in all of this is the taxpayers...and it's their fault if they don't use it. Ain't it grand?
Gas prices are only going up, we’ve known that since 1973 so transit is needed. The key problem we face is that we’ve created low density, car focused living areas that assume cars will always exist. Then when a “supply shock” happens, we pay whatever the market charges while screaming about how expensive it is.
The trains are not wear the tax payers live.. and there are No Public decency laws anymore either.. add crime and you get only the bottom of the barrel riders.. I lived in Colorado Springs for 7 years and one year on the far east side of Denver.. east of the tollway.. I watched how it was destroyed by the Leftist in less than 3 years when California moved in
“A reduced frequency after 8pm. As if people don’t need to travel around in the evening.” Shots fired at YRT LMAO. I took the viva blue last night around 9pm when frequency drops to every 20 minutes and the bus was packed, standing room only. All I could think the entire time was “YRT run ONE more bus per hour, you have the ridership ahhhhhhhh”
HELLO. RTD's route 100 in Lakewood Colorado 5 years ago before the great sickness, matched their regional transit plan of "until 8pm at least for feeder lines". Then everyone gets sick, and RTD goes on Saturday Schedule as their disaster plan. Saturday on the 100 ended at 6pm... At least they have a bus on sunday _at all_, it didn't run before then... But it stops at 6pm. Every night. Can't use it to get to work without having to walk at least a mile, or more, home from either Colfax or 38th.
This is because government run services respond to their bureaucratic masters, not the customer. If the buses had to turn a profit, and roads were toll roads, these things wouldn’t happen.
In LA my light rail was supposed to be better than the bus I took (which was dangerous at times). The light rail became even worse…even more dangerous people rode them as an alternative to a shelter, brought 1,000’s into a river flood zone setting off fires in the mountain area (new fire feet from my house EVERY year for 10 years), and personal safety was a nightmare (criminals in their orange jumpsuits, and those recently dumped on the street out of hospitals were VERY common). It all sounded good and I rode it out until I moved. They needed to seriously upgrade safety. Sad things was the local police warned us while the train would be easier commutes, it would also increase crime, etc. These need to be addressed when putting in more transit.
A major deterrent for me, I’m a resident, is the homeless and those who live with nothing to lose. They devalue the RTD trains and surround station stops. Why would I wanna position myself near that sort of filth?
I live next to a light rails stop in Denver. We have over 900 units in my complex and we are a 3 minute walk from the light rail stop. The problem is frequency yes but the bigger issue is that the Train to get to Denver is on time 75% of the time but the train leaving denver is almost an hour behind schedule by the end of the line. Also adding to the problem is the fact that these light rail have little to no security so most people don’t pay to use it and if you leave your car in the parking garage it is only a matter of time until it gets broken into. It makes no sense to use the light rail unless you are going to an event or you are using it for weekend travel.
You're missing an important point - personal safety! These days it's hard to feel safe on RTD light rail trains. Lots of homeless and other sketchy characters in parking garages, station platforms and on the trains with no security personnel in sight. In addition it costs too much to park at RTD stations which is counterintuitive because they are depending on the apartments and condos built within walking distance of the stations for patronage which explains the empty garages and parking lots. In addition the upholstery on the seats smells of urine, as bad or worse than the NYC subways, which makes you question if you should even sit or touch anything on these trains. There is no incentive in time, cost or convenience to use RTD light rail trains. Denver, and Colorado in general, needs to clean up their act, hire appropriately qualified personell and make it affordable for those living outside of RTD districts to adopt and use this mode of transportation.
I think you’re spot on with respect to personal safety. At least in the Baltimore area, groups of youths use the light rail to move from area to area with criminal intent on their minds. And sadly, homelessness adds to the problem. If you have nothing to do, no place to go, and no where to live, it’s pretty tempting to spend the day riding mass transit back and forth ( if for no other reason than to get out of the weather).
Agree 100%. The A line is nice, but that’s it. Union station, the flagship of the system, is sometimes a security risk. I’ve literally been chased out of a station before by a hoard of fent heads/thugs. I’m a young able bodied 6’3 white man who is somewhat brave. Not sure why anyone else would do it. Also, despite locals complaining there’s more traffic than they used to be, traffic just isn’t that bad. It’s easy to drive in Denver as long as you aren’t trying to park in Lodo. Biking is nice except for the fact my bike was stolen once per year when I lived there while locked…
@brainwasnthere Agree and I've definitely driven in worse metro areas like LA and Atlanta. Denver is becoming notorious for theft of cars and catalytic converters as well...
The light rail had plenty of ridership pre-Covid. THE issue for me personally is the homeless. They use the terminals and the trains as their "home". Get rid of the homeless and riders might return. The WFH paradigm is another major headwind.
Do you have transit cops? In Philly, the transit system( Septa) has its own police force. During the pandemic they frequently dealt with homeless transit " riders".
@@yvonneplant9434 very little and mostly only on the A line to the airport. I live by the W line and in 4 years I have never been ticket checked. And surprise, surprise, a massive amount of homeless people use the W line and smoke fentanyl in the trains. It seems like RTD wants the rails to fail.
@yvonneplant9434 Not enough. A big reason there are far fewer drivers, and therefore frequency, is that it's borderline dangerous to be a driver, train or bus. They need a bulletproof cubes. But then the wheelchair patrons would have to get on by themselves..... it's a mess.
"...THE issue for me personally is the homeless. They use the terminals and the trains as their "home"." I've used the light rail from the Denver airport to the city center (& returned to the airport) at least a dozen times (both ways), & can tell you that this is only a modest annoyance. "Modest" when compared with the homeless problem in Mpls & St Paul where this problem seems to be increasing noticeably. We have transit cops, but they seem to be generally inadequate & not up to the task. Were it not for this particular problem I suspect that the ridership would be up at least 25% -- but that's anecdotal.
I live in SW KS and visit Denver a few times a year and try to use their rail system, but the fact that the commute times are about double what it would take if we drove makes it hard to justify 😅 They really have great rail infrastructure but it’s just really limited by the speed and frequency of service
You've hit the nail on the head! The lack of TOD also makes trips you could make on the system less attractive because the car almost always gets you closer to your destination
I live a distant suburb north of Denver and if the bus in my town took twice as long as driving takes that would be a significant improvement from how fast it is now.
I'm from Washington, DC and my childhood saw the opening of the Metro. It's taken 50 years (and counting) for density to build around the Metro stations. This is a multi-generational project. I rode the trains in Denver last year -- that town NEEDS public transportation -- and with my old eyes I could see where in 20 years time there'd be malls, condos, and shops where all those parking lots now sit.
I live in Denver, but I steer clear of the money-pit public transportation system because: 1) Most of the buses I need only run every 30 minutes, and missing just one connection means I'm late (or need to reach my destination 30 minutes early to be safe), 2) I can't reliably bike to a bus since there are only 2 spots on the front of the bus or inside each train car to put a bike, so that only off-hours work for combined bike rides. 3) The buses and trains are lawless. There is often vaping, loud music, drugged or drunk people, and no drivers nor ex-military riders like Daniel Penny are foolish enough to risk getting involved even if some homeless guy says he's going to kill other riders.
Denver Metro area resident here. I grew up in NYC, so I know what a good transit setup looks like. I live way north of Denver, about 22 miles. The only rail line I can use, is the N line. Lets say I want to go watch a sporting event at Ball Arena. It's a 27 mile drive, through I-25, and the worst of the traffic. 30 to 40 minutes. The only rail line I can use, is the N line. I have to drive 15 miles to get to that station. Wait for the twice an hour train to start rolling. Its a nice 30 minute ride to get to Union Station. I have to then either walk the last half a mile for 11 minutes directly to the Arena, or walk 3 tenths of a mile to the light rail station that would then take me to a stop closer to the Arena, where I still have to walk over the freight rail tracks, because the light rail tracks are on the wrong side of the rail tracks from the arena. It only gets worse if you want to go home after the game, because the N train stops running north at 10:56 pm, which you may not have left the stadium if it was a late start game. And it gets even worse if you want to go to Coors Field or Mile High, because they are further away from Union Station, so even more walking is in your future. I love trains. I love riding them, but I can't get home after the game is finished, so I can't use the train. In NYC, I could walk 7 minutes to an LIRR station, transfer to a second LIRR train at the Jamaica station, and then I'm IN Penn Station, and right above is MSG. They proposed a possible extension to the N line to bring it up to highway 7, and even have the right of way for the old abandoned train lines, but that extension project has been scrapped. And RTD promised a train line to go from Union Station up to Longmont, through Boulder, where ridership would have been high. They took money from the residents all through the regions this train would service, and they have provided the tax payers absolutely nothing for the money they took. RTD sucks. I wish I could use it, but they made the section I live near useless for my needs.
@@octorokpie If people wanted to take a bus and get stuck in traffic, then they wouldn't have voted for rail service to be created in between Longmont, Boulder, and Denver.
I volunteer at a horse rescue stable South of Denver and 16 miles from my house. It takes about 45 minutes to get there by car. There is absolutely no public transportation at all. A cab would be ridiculously expensive. Especially when you consider going and coming. It's a car or nothing. Just getting to the stable is a big part of my volunteer time.
As a person who regularly took the RTD G-Line train 4 days a week for 2 straight years, I can say that the fact that the schedule only ran every 30 minutes was (while, again, better than nothing) rather inconvenient. Because there was no meaningful pedestrian infrastructure near it I had to drive there during the morning rush, which meant I would miss the train pretty frequently due to traffic. Don't get me wrong, after I got on the train everything was good (walking around Denver from Union Station was great and I enjoyed it a lot), but the initial placement of my station (and the fact that it was kinda out of the way and the only way to get there was via. high traffic stroads) did hamper the utility a bit. If the train ran even just 4x an hour instead of 2 it would've been exponentially more useful. Getting to the station and sitting in the freezing cold in the middle of January as I watched the train just sit on the line doing nothing was... not great.
Calgary has one of the highest riderships in North America. If course there's still room for improvement with its light rail, but Calgary isn't the the one in charge of developing the regional rail, the provincial government is, as we've seen with the Alberta government messing with the Greenline they're the ones we have to worry about getting the regional rail correct.
It really worries me. I can 100% see the UCP going cheap instead of good and building stations without transit connections at the edge cities or on the side of the highway. Green Line is a great example. It would be utterly asinine to try and go at street level through downtown, and yet I bet that's what they'll try because it costs the least up front. We should have buried the other lines years ago. Would have greatly improved the speed, frequency, and reduced all the collisions at this time of year.
Most of the other Denver residents highlighted the main concerns. My final Denver light rail experience was sitting next to a homeless couple smoking weed in the rail car. A transit cop literally got in the car, looked at what was going on, got off and did nothing about it. That experience was a lasting effect on why I rarely use lightrail
I ride buses, trains, and my bike in Metro Denver. No car. Your thesis is off. 1. No enforcement of behavior. Scary and dirty people turn off work commuters. 2. At rush hour, trains and buses DO reduced congestion on roads. That matters. 3. The pandemic reversed ridership growth, and it struggles to change behavior back. 4. Denver is growing. All along the stations, housing is springing up , with reduced parking. Many young people with high student loan debt go without a car, families have just one car. This is national trend, and stronger in Denver, with technology job centers. Having a supperior transit system is a selling point to businesses that need younger workers. Imo, my #1 above, hygiene and safety enforcement would easily double ridership within two years, if implemented correctly.
All that is correct, but that said, I lived there 27 years, always trying to figure out a way to use it with any regularity or savings in time or money. No such luck. I rode it mostly as just a novel way to get somewhere once in awhile. Airport line certainly can work for a lot of folks, and probably the core system, but after that, pretty much a crapshoot.
I know this is probably purely anectdotal, but I am a Denverite and take the D Line downtown to work everyday. It takes me ~10min to get down to the station in the morning with a train leaving every 15min. I have been rather blown away by the ridership I see. Trains are often well occupied in the morning and during the 5pm rush leaving the downtown core the train gets absolutley PACKED; every seat taken, almost every day. Again, I know this is anecdotal based on my single expierence along a single route, but it makes me wonder if RTD is measuring ridership by tickets purchased. Because one thing that has never ever happened to me on the D line is have an operator come and check my pass (like they do on the A Line from Union to DIA). The train is packed and frequented loaded and unloaded at most stops with essentially everyone on board riding for free.
The southwest corridor has had a decent ridership since inception in 2000, with destinations like Arapahoe Community College and the entirety of Downtown Littleton existing long before the current trains. Now with new developments near Mineral and continuing growth of the area, I suspect it to have the most transit-oriented-development of all of the lines. That said, ridership possibly is not being counted due to the fare-checking conditions you describe.. I know that I always try to tap on my app at the readers even if I'm on a day or month pass, just to be counted, and show RTD someone's riding. I dont see many people actually doing that.
I've never ridden the A line, but I've ridden most of the others, & I've only remembered to buy a ticket _once..._ 😬🤦 When I get on a bus, the driver asks me at the entrance. When I get on a subway, I'm prompted to pay at the gate. Some ATM-looking unstaffed kiosk, >20 feet away from where everyone waits to board, is _not_ a great reminder that I'm supposed to pay before boarding! If I used it frequently, I'd get a pass (not that they're as good a deal as they used to be)... I do think you might be onto something, with the idea of unpaid riders going uncounted: The 10th & Osage station, seems quite busy relative to the scant number of people using the kiosks or passes, so far as I've seen?!
In Germany ridership is surveyed once a year by student jobbers asking the people in the trains where they boarded, where they go and what kind of ticket they have. If you have no ticked they check the box "no ticket" and nothing bad happens. (Because they are survey not ticket check. I guess when this answer is noted too often they increase ticket checks on that line. ^^)
Is your walk 5 minutes, then 5 minute wait, then 10 minute ride, then 5 minute walk, so 25... If 20mph train that's 3.33 miles which in car at 30mph is 6.66 minutes..... 25 minutes vs 6.6.. Transit takes time from good career and good family... I took buses till my 2nd job, buses are slow too, took my free time away ... Later I learned to walk listening to my favorite music, if in a good mood walking is joyful, but waiting and riding far less so.... Transit and bus will never work. 70% of French and Finns drive to work, the others life in pre1920 old city which ain't an option outside Europe... I cld be wrong .... But some dreams are silly and only liars push them...
@@mystica-subs Ridership on RTD trains and buses is counted with infrared scanners in the doorways. It is separate from the fare collection. There are quite a few riders who do not have to tap, because they have other types of fare payment.
Really enjoyed hearing you pop up on CBC's Front Burner podcast, Reece! The episode was Nov 12th: "Why can't Canada have fast trains?" if others want to listen.
Here's my use case... I live near Cherry Creek Mall, which is a massively upscale residential and shopping area, and I work in Golden. If I were to take the RTD, my commute would be over 2.5 hrs. If I drive, it's just 30 mins. The first mile bus service has a long wait, there's a long wait at the far away Colorado RTD station, there's a wait when I need to transfer lines sort of near downtown, and then there's the last mile issue, because the train ends at the courthouse, and doesn't even go into Golden, requiring another bus.
The courthouse is a great distance from downtown Golden. It's so far it's hard to describe. Also I got caught inside the crossing gate for the train in my car. The intersection is quite confusing. People apparently knew about the problem, because they jumped out of their cars to lift up the gate so I could back up. I called CDOT about it, but they were completely unconcerned. To them it was a non issue.
I commuted with RTD for work around downtown Denver from 2000-2019 - I stopped when I could start working from home about a year before the pandemic lockdowns - all I can say is that I will never commute again - I love remote work as I work in technology for healthcare orgs in other states - however, RTD buses, lightrail, and trains are all awful and unreliable - the schedules are horrible and not frequent enough - they also do not run late enough for an urban area - since 2019, I used lightrail once to get to a convention downtown - it was such a sketchy ride that I paid for an Uber home - took over an hour to get into downtown from Aurora, but the Uber took 20 minutes - I am good without RTD and its dysfunction in my life - I rode its transportation for almost 20 years and watched it go from bad to worse all while having to pay ever increasing prices.
I've lived in the Denver area for a long time. I remember when the light rail first came around, I thought it was a pretty good thing. Later, I used it as my only way to travel into downtown, which was only about 10-15 trips per year. During the morning and evening commutes, the light rail WAS pretty full, and during other times, I saw more than enough people on the trains I thought would justify their existence. HOWEVER, the recent crime increases affected the light rail more than most other areas. Downtown became too dangerous to me for even my minor number of trips per year in about 2015. I started going less often, only when absolutely needed. In 2017, I decided it was no longer even possible for those. I flat out refuse to set foot in the Denver city limits past 2018, except for the trips to the airport, which is far enough away to not consider it in Denver even if the city limits cover it. The light rail got hit just as badly by that, and I refuse to take the light rail at all anymore. It's just too dangerous. I've heard of too many robberies and beatings of random innocent people to even try anymore.
Metro Rail systems in the US are typically doomed from before inception particularly any place west of the Mississippi. The cities did not grow around trains. The US Industrial Revolution, the roaring 20’s and the WW2 and the post ware 0:15 Boom happened without commuter rail. The cities were shaped by roads, not rails. The roads, and the development pattern resulting from there are carved in stone. Rails have no physical place to go because something else is already there. Thus rail either has to get wedged in or relegated to less desirable land. To do otherwise could easily make a 7 billion dollar system a 14 billion dollar system. This is the core issue nobody wants to talk about. Advocates of commuter trains ignore this by talking about “land use”, “park and rail”, “parking lots”, “up-zoning”, and “higher levels of government.” What is ignored by comments like that, is that politicians created this situation and have a vested interest in maintaining it. Keep in mind, some cities including LA had thriving street cars systems, but they were not expanded as population grew, and as people moved to suburban or nearby cities, at a certain point, the street cars simply did not have riders. This entire process was assured by politicians beholden to auto manufacturers, etc. But now that the areas have been built, there is no undo button. So the call for “higher levels of government” I find hopeless, really all we need are more politicians?” I don’t buy it. Rail planners need to come up with business cases that work without magic wands.
@@reesbritton6623 Ahh, BART lost 3 Billion just in its operating budget in 2023. So Yes I am including San Francisco. Seattle’s light rail estimate to complete has increased by 50 Billion over the last 5 years (now over 140 Billion total.)
FasTracks' routes were largely determined by the availability of cheap right of way, mostly next to or in the middle of interstates. As in most of the US, the experience of riding the bus (contrary to your claim) is terrible, usually taking three to four times as long as driving. It's probably not a major factor contributing to low ridership, but Denver's housing crunch and enormous homeless population has resulted in homeless people riding public transit for want of anywhere else to be.
In California, there is a fast train project to connect San Francisco to LA. Originally, “only” 10b, now and no where close to completion, more like 100b!! Yeah, a massive money grab, that will take many years, or decades, to finish. Of course, many more billions will be “spent”.
I’ve lived in Denver for 5 years and I’ve commuted to two different jobs using RTD. A few years on the light rail and two years on the bus. Five years ago, I got really lucky and lived a 5 min walk away from a train station. There were two lines that could get me to work. I could walk over whenever and be on a train in 5-10 min. It was great. Unfortunately during Covid they eliminated one of those lines and cut service for the other. Now I commute by bus and I live a 2 min walk from the bus stop. I love being able to read and not deal with traffic, but it takes 2x as long as driving and it only comes every 30 minutes. Sometimes I miss it because it’s a few minutes earlier than posted and I’m not early enough. Then I have to drive to work. Anyway, this video is incredible!! I want RTD to be better so bad. You really broke this down in a coherent and insightful way. Thank you!
One bright spot for me visiting Denver from Indianapolis was that frequency felt awesome to me (coming from 30 minute and 1 hour bus frequencies). I walked right out of the airport and into a waiting train that took me right into Denver (it was already at the station and left about 8 minutes after I boarded). Once in Denver, I went where I needed on a lime bicycle. I then needed to go to Boulder, and a bus was ready to leave Union station right as I walked up. The trip to Boulder was awesome, comfortable and quick; I shared the bus with a group of German tourists and some university students. Overall I was really impressed with how it fit my needs while I was in town at least. Hopefully they can keep building on successes to improve where it's not resonating yet!
A so called metro line that has only 30 minutes service frequency is a waste of money. Even 10 minutes in rush hours would be too low unless it is a branch of a branch... 30 minutes should be the milestone for middle of the night service assuming the line operates 24/7. Add to that building it in the middle of nowhere useful...
Exactly, the Vancouver SkyTrain which is used as a comparison throughout the video has 3-5 minute frequency on peak and 6-12 minute frequency off peak, even late at night and on the weekend. Automated trains that require exactly zero on-board staff are a large part of the secret sauce.
@@lalakersproexactly. Denver doesn’t have density anywhere to support a subway/metro style system. We aren’t Taipei! (I’ve ridden the metro there and it’s fabulous)
@@mikegroberman247 Made possible entirely by computerized automatic train control and 100% dedicated right-of-way grade separated tracks. Denver has multiple lines with single-track sections, that make frequency greater than every 15 minutes with manual train control by operators going off of radio dispatch a near impossibility in many areas.
@@mystica-subs Having a grade-separated, dedicated ROW with at least two tracks is the biggest part of the equation. ATC helps, but it doesn't make much sense without improving the bulk of the infrastructure.
As a Denverite, frequency is absolutely the answer for a lot of people like you mention. At best, the trains come every 15 minutes. That isn’t too bad for the length some of these routes go, but many other cities in North America double the frequency. There are so many places I’d visit around the metro if I didn’t have to wait 30 minutes for the train, especially since the drive there is like 30 minutes haha. Also sometimes there is good land use around the station as far as housing, but the thousands of housing units have no 1st floor entertainment. Like there are literally these townhome complexes that span multiple blocks and house a couple thousand people and they still all need to get in their car and drive to the grocery store.
See the light rail 🚈 in Pittsburgh PA what was PAT ... The system got a new network 2022 or so. The light rail service played classical 🎶🎶🎶 . Clean stations. The line went to 5-6 upper class 🧐 areas.
After living outside of DC before the metro rail and using buses with my mother (born 1918) who was from Philadelphia who used public transportation all her life...At first driving to the station and getting on the metro was easy, then decades later.... station parking was hard to find which drove up anxiety, the trains were packed during certain hours, and the cost was considerable. Housing including apartments were financially outrageous. A way of life turned into a nightmare that squeezed out many local residents and businesses.
As someone who lives in the northern suburbs of Denver, I utilize the N line to downtown for Rockies games or other events in the area. It sure beats finding and paying for parking, as well as the traffic jam after the game is over. That said, I only ride it a handful of times per year...but I am greatful for it. Public transit is rarely a profitable endeavor, though I do hope they continue to expand service into suburban metro areas. It would be super to take the train to Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland to avoid the 1-25 traffic.
And I live in SE Denver, 1 block west of Aurora. Takes me 15min to drive to RiNo and probably 20min to reach LoDo by car, and 25-30min to drive to Golden depending on traffic. It would take over an hour to take the train to RiNo (R line to Peoira then A line to 38th and Blake) or LoDo (R line to Peoria, A line to Union) and 90mins to reach Golden (H line to Auraria, W line to south of Golden)
With family at 8th & I-25, & in Boulder & Lafayette, the last few decades, I watched the routes between those locations go through a veritable roller-coaster of reductions, additions, disconnections, stalled developments, & sometimes utterly bizarre byzantine routes, to go from ~58 minute rides, to ~40, to ~1hr40, to "try again Monday" & at no point have I ever seen the freight rail lines that run through the heart of Denver, actually used near capacity... _much less_ for rural passenger transit. All this to say, I'm hoping the Burnham Yard redevelopment, will be a big step toward rebuilding our nation's once great passenger rail routes!
On the land use side of things, Denver is actually improving! They have plans to develop multiple parking lots, and the state legislature has passed bills banning parking minimums near transit and setting TOD requirements.
@@dkd123Colorado BRT is definitely happening! It's in the design phase right now. Same with Federal! A new Flatiron Flyer-like line on the Diagonal Highway is also being built. Colfax BRT has started construction.
@@maitrilazaroff138so what is the use case for Colorado Blvd BRT? Who will it serve? Right now, it’s a cluster *** of traffic. I assume that’s people coming from multiple directions to patronize the businesses with expansive parking lots that line the road. How will people get to the BRT from their homes?
@@nimbusco8956 Colorado's 40 route is pretty high ridership, and a BRT would mean that Colorado would get denser due to TOD requirements. Bus delay is also pretty high on Colorado.
Preach, I decided to take light rail to a place that would have taken a 15 minute drive, for the first time in like half a year and got stranded for like an hour because the trains were supposed to come every 30 minutes, but randomly like 3 straight trains got cancelled
I live in the foothills and dont travel into denver often. My dad works in downtown Denver. He used to take the light rail from the courthouse to work but wont do it anymore due to homeless and substance abuse on the lightrail. He has been harrassed many times while riding. If its not safe for him, its not safe for me.
Norfolk Virginia built a 7 mile piece of light rail about a dozen years ago. The project was overrun with corruption and cost over 400 million bucks. It goes from downtown to the edge of the city. The idea was that by Norfolk investing in it, Virginia Beach would continue the line from there to the oceanfront. It never happened! Hardly no one rides it. There are reports that for every dollar it takes in, $32 is spent maintaining it.
Here in Maryland our governor has approved a light rail extension that the previous administration had rejected. Like many other cities, our light rail struggles, so a whole bunch of money is going to be spent on another dubious project. In addition, I have a good friend who recently retired as a municipal bus driver, and he told me hiring and retaining bus drivers is a problem. Young people aren’t really interested in driving a bus for a living. This affects how many buses you can actually put on the streets
As a Denver native who’s ridden the trains extensively I’ll tell exactly why nobody uses them. A) they are very unreliable. I once arrived at my station and missed the train by a minute only to find out that I now had to wait 40 minutes for the next one. (Trains use to come every 20 minutes) B) They are slow. My average ride on the train was about 45 minutes. In a car I could get downtown with no traffic in 25 minutes. That makes no sense. C) they don’t feel safe. 90% of the time I’ve ridden the train there’s been at least one homeless/sketchy person on as well.
Wife and I tried the train a few times, but were stranded once, and things got unsafe and sketchy quickly. It’s just doesn’t feel safe to use, and we’ve given up trying to use it
I live in Golden. We typically have trains every 30 minutes. If you're not timed perfectly you have to wait in the cold or the heat. If you miss the train you can drive pretty much anywhere before the next one leaves. It works perfectly for Nuggets games and the Beer Fest for us, thats about it...Other than that its just not convenient enough for us to commute...and the closer we get to downtown...you never know who's gonna pop on....sheeesh
Long time Denver resident, and my biggest problem with the light rail is that even if it was the height of rush hour, it would always be faster to just drive downtown instead of going to the light rail station, waiting, hitting every stop, then walking 5 blocks to my destination after I leave the train. So no reason to ever use it for work. The only other time would be weekend activities downtown where I don’t want to drive. The light rail did get use when all we had were Taxis and those were garbage, but since uber came around it is just way too convenient to ever bother with the light rail and all the walking (not to mention crazy people on the train) you have to deal with.
I live eight blocks from a station. I don't use our light rail for two reasons. 1) It doesn't go where I usually need to be, & 2) some of the people who live here are so obliviously obnoxious I prefer taking on all the expenses of owning and operating a car just to avoid being in the same space as them.
Here in Salt Lake City, the homeless are everywhere on the trains with their blankets, shopping carts, smell of urine, etc. during this time of year when it starts getting cold, especially early in the morning when the transit cops are less present! They are treated with kid gloves by order of the transit police chief vis-a-vis the mayor to be "compassionate" towards the homeless. Because of this, the deterrence is basically non-existent!
I live across the street from an E line station. I only use it occasionally to get to the airport or downtown, because I ride it free, & I don't want to bother with parking downtown .
8:57 that's super bizarre, and awfully frequent as an occurrence... Route planners put painfully slow turns in track, of course citing cost reasons... but reality proves their understanding of cost vs benefit is bogus... a crooked section slashes the entire return on investment.
@@loganwenzel1615 100%. The whole idea behind 'value engineering' is that you ultimately end up with the same result, just for a bit less money. Saving money for a worse end result defeats the purpose! So frustrating!!
I live in CO and work in downtown Denver and yeah, all of the points you made are valid. There is also an ongoing issue where track maintenance hasn’t been performed in a very long time, and now there are sections of light rail where the train is limited to 10 mph for several miles until they replace those sections of track. Service has also been consistently inconsistent, with trip cancellations and poor communication to riders. On the issue of housing, I think RTD understands that building housing near stations is a good thing but for a long time, there was a state law prohibiting RTD from using their land for anything but transit, so they were forced to just build parking lots or leave lots empty. I believe that restriction has been lifted so RTD can use land for building housing and mixed-use developments and generating value for the system through rent, but that ability has come too late.
We also live near the referenced Denver RTD 'R' line. When it first opened we had high hopes we could use it to get to downtown Denver. However, as you noted we discovered this took a long wait for the 'R' line to arrive. Then you have ANOTHER long wait to transfer to the 'H' line to get downtown. All the while standing in the elements hoping the next train might come soon. To start this experience we have to walk or drive a mile to the station. And for this pleasure you get to pay for the experience. Since we have already driven to the station we opt just to drive the full distance avoiding the waits. The system used to work when trains came every 15 minutes but then ridership dropped and they dropped service levels. Ridership went down further and it's become a system for the homeless to stay warm and crime to prosper. RTD is lovingly known here as... Reason To Drive. Hahaha. Management doesn't know how to run a good system. Sad
I’m airline crew and recently had an overnight at the DEN Westin . My room overlooked the train station. I saw maybe two people get on that train on my 17 hour overnight . If it’s empty leaving the airport I can’t imagine it’s getting a lot of ridership anywhere .
I think your argument fleshes out my intuitive experience growing up in the metro area- i have occasionally taken the light rail to hockey games, (rail stops literally at the stadium) but otherwise its just not a compelling option compared to driving because its not convenient enough. Taking public transit is slower and more expensive than driving, depending on where you park.
I used RTD in Denver for quite a few years, I will not use it again. The buses all stink and have dirty seats, same with the trains. The last time I attempted to use a train it took me to a sporting event and they decided to cancel the trains for the night while I was in the game. Taking an Uber home cost me $90 at peak time so I will never trust them to get me anywhere ever again.
Yeah, they just cancel buses and trains and don’t let anyone know. With the already low infrequency, people get stranded all the time. Happened to me a few times when I lived in Denver. My time there was stressful and bleak, I’m glad to be outta there.
I live in Westchester, NY and have worked in NYC for 15 years. I live walking distance to the local Metro North station and ride the train every day. Hands down the worst part of my day is the train/subway. I can’t help but think that the arguments made for zoning changes were nothing more than thinly veiled authoritarianism. As a taxpayer I deserve to have a say in the decisions made about my community.
Same. He advocates using the same strategy as EU politicians - "This is decided above me, so my hands are tied". It's not clever, and erodes public trust. I see this in my local Planning Department - viewing their jobs as IRL SimCity and the public who has to live with the decisions are an afterthought.
The issue is how you define your backyard. Sure, local government should be involved, but when one local government's actions only hurt their neigbhbouring jurisdictions, there's something going wrong. It's as if one municipality decides that a 10-lane highway through their territory should be limited to just 2 lanes. They can't, because not only, they don't pay for it, the greater good demands it (for just compensation, of course). It's even worse when we accept that for more damaging infrastructure, say a highway through residential areas, we can't be bothered, but when it's something else, the world is clearly ending. As if extra housing is hurting them specifically. Or a station without some big-ass parking lot.
@@barvdw You came across some public transit skeptical commments, and then pretended to be concerned about 10 lane highways being restricted to 2 lanes with the goal of appearing reasonable. You concluded with your actual goal: dense housing+public transit. Those developments already exist should you wish to live in one. You just don't like people being able to avoid living in a rabbit warren. Why? I don't know. But it's not a good look.
Also, public safety is a huge reason why ridership is down in Denver. In the rider parking areas, cars were being stollen, Catalytic Converters were being removed and in those large parking lots are a lot of homeless and migrants and it just feels sketchy. The A Line to the airport is $10 each way. Two people fly out for the weekend and pay $43, when you can go to a park and ride near the airport for $30 and feel like your car is being watched better there than at the airport itself.
Having ridden trains in Portland, San Diego, and Chicago, I make sure to live far enough from cities with commuter trains that I won't have to deal with them again.
Public transport in Denver is plagued by major security issues. Drug addicted vagrants smoking fentanyl on busses and trains. Busses can flex to demand areas, but still impractical for most. Both options now export criminals to the suburbs that prey on communities. Cars much better until security changes. If ever.
Private transport in the US is plagued by drivers under the influence of drugs. About half of fatal wrecks (that's about 22,000 lives in the US) involve alcohol. Until drivers stop consistently driving under the influence, we should halt drivers from driving until they can prove they won't drive drunk.
Man here in Denmark this feels especially relevant. An airport railway was opened here to the Aalborg airport in 2020. However despite this airport being the 3rd busiest in the country and home to the busiest domestic air route in the country, this airport rail service is seen as a massive failure, with only 41 passengers per day on average. And this combined with light rail systems which are doing ok but still underperforming a good chunk below the original estimates, is further turning people off from supporting transit investments here. As for the airport, not only is the station a good 100m walk from the terminal through the elements with basically no passenger facilities, but the land use around it is horrible. All parking, some military hangars, and a driving school. The land use plan actually allows for office developments right next to the station but nothing has been built yet despite the land use plan having been in effect for 10 years. Plus the fact that transit here is WAY too expensive, that parking at this airport costs just 4 canadian dollars per day (heck it was free until 2023), and that service too often gets shortturned and dont go to the airport at all as a result of delays is just making the issues even worse. So sadly many are now trying to call for this line to be completely closed but that really isnt the way forward. A lot of future developments for rail hinge on this line, including as a turnaround point for cross country express trains. And the tracks are already laid, so whats critical is getting that investment into this area so that the value around the laid tracks is maximized and become of more use to people.
Areas with the most public transit infrastructure in the United States also tend to be hotbeds of NIMBYism. The local government structure in the United States gives NIMBYs a lot more ways to stop housing. Most American politicians believe, rightly, that anything that can be seen as punishing people out of their cars will cost them in elections. Expensive gas is a political crisis.
I mean, when it comes to the car thing it is understandable from the voters' perspective - they live in the present, not the potential future. Induced demand is real and people can be convinced to plan to create it, but they also can't wait 20 years for the rail to be built, the dense housing to be developed and the services to be made transit-accessible. And that assumes a continuity of government planning (and competence), which is no guarantee. I see this all the time in Austin, TX. None of the residents want us to become Dallas, with endless highways and induced traffic. But people don't trust state or local government (for different but equally valid reasons), so transit projects get very little traction as the city hobbles along on with a transit system designed for a population half its current size.
I keep hearing the same subtle theme: Lack of government accountability. RTD in Denver still owes contractor Denver Transit Partners millions of dollars for the commuter rail line to the airport. Look at the Los Angeles to San Francisco high speed train project that has wasted literally billions of taxpayer dollars with very little to show for it.
I’ve used the Denver Rail Transit once. My girl and I parked at a park and ride and rode across town to the 16th street mall for a day of shopping. I thought it was really great because it saves us a big headache to park so far away, and ride the rail in. We’ve never found another occasion that actually made sense. There was an incident a few years ago where a group of kids mercilessly attacked people on the transit. This kind of thing can’t happen if the city wants people of Denver to use RTD. Denver isn’t New York and Chicago, people are usually not going to solely depend on RTD but instead it’s just an option. If it becomes a safety concern even in the slightest, regular people won’t consider that option.
I’m visiting Denver and have taken the A train from the airport to Union Station a number of times. It’s usually been fine, but this time there was a drugged out weirdo that hopped on without a ticket and he bothered my son. I had to track down the security guard, if you want to call him that , who was in the car next-door and get him to boot that guy off the train.
a video about Denver that barely focuses on Denver. There’s only a cursory mention of Ghost Train, it doesn’t delve into what FasTracks promised, ie train to Boulder, or political decision making behind light rail routing, it doesn’t speak to actual successes of the program (A line, union station redevelopment), or talk about long term outlook for the region, ie front range rail, increased trains to the Rockies etc. But the content machine must be served
You are missing his point.......its not about Denver, its about mass transit being built without taking into consideration the needs of the population and how that is evolving in several places......skytrain in Vancouver has a train almost every few minutes, most of the day. If Denver or for that matter any other place has less than frequent service, the public will not use it......
Front Range Rail isn't happening anymore, Trump will cancel that REAL quick. It was only really going to be another case of "there we did a transit" anyway, the plan was to run Amtrak hand-me-downs on the existing single track freight corridor, which would mean 90 minutes to Boulder from Denver and having to wait for freight trains since BNSF still owns the ROW. The idea of Chargers pulling Airo sets at 110mph up and down the front range was always a pipe dream.
This is super common in just about every state. “If you build it, they will come “ doesn’t always apply. In NY, MTA opened a new link to grand central on the LIRR for a mere 11 billion dollars. No one is using it. On LI, not so nice bus took over operations of the bus system. They cut it down to the bone so bad that it’s basically unusable. Thank goodness we had some politician living near the N80 route-which they cut altogether. She or he made a stink about it so they put ONE-count em-ONE bus back on the route. Which means, by schedule, every hour and 5 minutes for a total of 4 trips in the morning, nothing between 11am and 330pm, and 4 trips in the afternoon.
I live in Denver, and in order to travel the 2-3 miles from Broadway/Baker to the University of Denver, where I'm a student, it takes me at least 1hr--sometimes more--due to how infrequently the buses and light rail come (not to mention I walk 15m to the light rail station). Traveling that same distance on my bike takes 10 minutes! Due to weather and health issues, I can't always bike, but the astronomically high wait times make transit completely unviable for me. It is totally absurd how long it takes to travel such a short distance. At least 20-30 times I've stood alone or in a huge group of people waiting 30m+ for the light rail to come (on its "popular" E and H lines). And service is still gutting cut back. I often have to take an uber. Waiting an hour is not worth $10. Again, this is traveling between two very high-traffic areas. The worst transit of any city I've ever lived in.
I live in Denver. I don't have a commute anymore, buy when I did, light rail wasn't much of an option. Denver has a housing crisis too, and has not prioritized availability of reasonable priced housing. We do have a huge number of self-storage buildings though. Perhaps that's old news now. Prioritizing high density housing next to light rail would make sense to me as long as they connect to shopping and employment centers.
Another issue is last mile connectivity. There needs to be more offices, industry, and entertainment near transit stops. Housing is needed near transit but jobs are also needed! Too many office parks, industrial centers, and universities in Denver aren’t near transit at all!
park and rides are what solve last mile. Uber/drive to the station, or bike. Housing neat stations doesn't do anything for people who live maybe 2-3 miles from the station
FYI highest ridership corridor in Denver is the commuter rail to the airport. Hxly it took 2 metro wide votes to build transit in Denver. Political considerations had to provide transit corridors for everyone and Aurora's R line (2d biggest city) was one of those considerations. The H line from Aurora to Denver became a more successful line, whereas the R connecting the Tech Center did not.
The problem is RTD. They love to spend money with no accountability. Hence, lousy maintenance, poor security, but plenty of raises for their executives.
The Denver government does not look to understand the problem, but to feel good that they "made" a "green" solution. Mass transit in the US does not work unless it works with speed (underground or aboveground)
Speaking of 30 minutes. TTC just switched nighttime 49 route to 15 minutes, and that makes for a big difference. Now if only Miway did the same for the 3 route...
@@GlynFrench-n5w correct. absolutely correct. I of course have a car like pretty much every adult in America that isn’t homeless, and I will look on my phone map system and it’ll say that the deli that I want to go to RIGHT NOW is something like 11 minutes away by car and an hour and six minutes away by bus, or figures near that. It’s ridiculous. And that’s buses. Don’t even get me started on “the Metrolink” in St. Louis. If I wanted to die, I would just drown myself in a bathtub. I wouldn’t take the trouble to show up at a Metrolink station and ride that thing. 🤨
My experience when I lived in Seattle was if you eschew park-and-rides and build dense housing around your transit stops, you limit access to only people who can afford expensive luxury condos. Park-and-rides are the only way that the poorer people can access the system.
Park and rides are incredibly inefficient. Parking lots are an awful use of space. Believe it or not, those minimal density condos and apartments are cheaper than the 3 or 4 single family homes that would occupy the land. Land use in Seattle is bad enough, parking lots would not be better. The fact that the southern spur of Light Rail (the Federal Way extension) is going to use I-5 for right-of-way and rely on park-and-ride's essentially is repeating Denver's mistake.
@ I used to live there and never really got to use the light rail system because I couldn't afford to live close to it and there weren't park-and-rides or decent feeder bus routes. (Metro and Sound Transit being different agencies meant schedules never even remotely lined up.) Light rail might be efficient at moving people but what it really excels at is gentrification -- nothing drives up rents like a rail station. You can talk about theoretical efficiency all you want, but I f you have to be rich to access it what's the point? Rich people don't ride public transit anyway.
Yeah but at least the light rail in Seattle has subway stops in dense neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and the U District, and growing neighborhoods that are fulfilling their urban potential like Roosevelt and Beacon Hill. The 1 Line in Seattle actually does pretty well and the reason is the station locations within the city at least are actually pretty good. The same cannot be said about Denver and most other light rail systems in the US. Also, the grade-separation in Seattle definitely helps.
@@MrBirdnose i mean if you intentionally don't want to understand that renting an apartment is cheaper than renting a house, you can lie about how light rail "drives up rents".
I’m in one of the Denver suburbs who rides the train for college and it’s almost always empty. 9 times out of 10 I’ll end up with an entire row all to myself.
I live in Denver, in one of the densest residential areas, not particularly near a highway. I work within easy walking distance of a light rail station. It would still take me about twice the time to commute by public transit than it does by car.
The buses take the same roads to the highway, where they transfer to the light rail. The lightrail runs along the highway, where it’s slower than all but the worst commuting traffic. The buses run every half hour. The light rail line I need runs every half hour. Those times don’t always line up.
Frequency is the only reason it doesn’t make sense.
Your comment highlights what I would say is my thesis, land use (while absolutely not good enough) is a secondary problem to frequency and speed (which is hurt by low frequency!)
transit should not be faster than cars. its good to have taxis in a soft emergency or for ultra high priority traffic. the trade off in every other continent is cheap slow transit or prohibitively expensive but fast car. only here where cars must never "overpay" for parking or tolls or gas tax or congestion tax can we possibly suggest that a train that has multiple stops should have speed parity with a car travelling non stop.
@@FullLengthInterstates Transit shouldn't also take double the time it takes cars to travel the same distance...
See pretty much every damn successful public transit system, which are pretty much all subways that can travel as fast or faster than cars covering the same distance above ground...
In order to be successful, public transit needs to have their own dedicated priority access lanes.
@@FullLengthInterstates Why shouldn't public transit compete with cars on speed? That's a silly thing to say.
Denver and other mid cities need more density. I’m from one of the most populated cities in the world but a relative lives in Downtown Denver. It surprises me how infrastructure is wasted on projects that could be good but density doesn’t serve anyone whatsoever. That needs to change . For the better of the world and urban development
As a resident of Aurora, a suburb of Denver, I used the light rail for about six months. My commute involved driving 30 minutes to the station and then riding the train for another 40 minutes to get to work. However, when RTD changed its policy and restricted free parking to residents within certain areas, it no longer saved me money-parking downtown and paying directly became just as costly.
For a year, I adjusted by driving 5 minutes to a free parking lot, taking a 35-minute bus ride to the station, and then riding the train for another 35 minutes. By the time I got off, my total commute was about 1.5 hours each way. Eventually, I switched back to driving, paying for parking (which my company partially subsidized), and cutting my commute down to just 40 minutes one way. The change made me much happier because I saved 1.5 hours daily and avoided standing in Colorado’s freezing cold or intense heat waiting for public transit.
The only times I saw the light rail truly full were during breakdowns when service resumed or during sporting events. Even during regular business hours, trains were about three-quarters full at best but were mostly empty the rest of the time.
Agree, if transit isn't a financial & convenience no-brainer, it won't be used, explaining why many developed/rich countries where broader societal needs are valued prioritize/subsidize it to such a great extent.
What about the safety aspect. I know a lot of people that will try metro/LRT lines just for fun, and get turned off of ever using it in the foreseeable future because the seats smell like pee and if you ride for over 20 minutes, you are guaranteed to see suspicious people on the train/ drug abuse.
@@AG-yc7vt Yes, an enforcement priority/behavior tolerance problem when underfunded transit can't compete with subsidized cheap fuel/car ownership. Transit police are a thing where it's funded, and people don't have to put up with that nonsense in public places.
Yep, sports/events are really the value of light rail when parking is even harder than usual and people can get to the city without needing a DD or an expensive rideshare. Light rail doesn't feel like it was every invented to replace cars, but to supplement when parking is going to be hard downtown (or the trip to the airport is long).
@@DaleSteadman I took it from aurora to the airport. It was such a pain, and at the time I had to pay to park at the train station, that I took an uber when i got back into town to where I had parked. The cost and time to use the train versus an uber is just not worth it.
I’m a denverite and probably the perfect use case for the RTD. My house is just a few train stops on one train line from the university that I attend, and the university stop is convenient. There is also a train stop literally 15 feet from my house.
Unfortunately, if I wanted to ride this train, I’d either have to hop a 15 foot concrete wall and precariously cross the train tracks, or walk 10 minutes to exit my neighborhood, 5 minutes to cross the highway, walk another 15 minutes through empty parking lots, and cross the highway again, all just to access a train station on the same side of the highway as my house, 15 feet from my house.
The drive to the university is 20 minutes on a bad day.
They built a train station on the residential side of the highway, just to make it inaccessible and inconvenient to anyone who actually wants to use it.
this is meant to be a funny story...right? well, i am laughing at how ridiculous it is.
Mine isn't as bad as yours but my commuter rail train drives right past my work then adds another 15-20 mins to the trip because you need to get off at the next station then switch back to the subway to go back. This isn't too terrible except that the subway is always having problems and will make you late for the rail when heading home... which is a problem at night when the rail only runs once per 2 hours.
sounds like the southmoor station
wow! just wow!!
If you're talking about the southmoor station, it was on purpose after HOA types in those neighborhoods complained. So RTD made it's services intentionally difficult to access from a residential area 🙄
I live in Aurora, which is 6 miles from my workplace. I would have to leave home at 6:45am to get to work at 8am if I were to use public transit, or I could leave at 7:45am in my car and be in my office by 8am. This was the biggest reason that forced me into buying a car. The trains and busses don't go everywhere, and are super infrequent.
6 miles is a good distance for E-bike, or scooter... think about it, I'm biking to work all year around and winter here is pretty dry, (much better than NY's winter rains)
In 2016, 2017 and 2018 the light rail (2 cars) ran between downtown and Arvada with NO passengers. They couldn't get the crossing arms to properly respond. A guard was posted at several train/auto intersections around the clock for years at taxpayer expense I'm sure. A local T-shirt company made a printing commemorating the Ghost Train. On the back was written,
"Taking Nobody Nowhere, Real Fast."
I live in Aurora, and work in Golden. My commute by car averages about 45 minutes each way. If I were to use RTD, it would be 2 hrs and 50 minutes. As a Colorado native, growing up in Lakewood in the 70s and 80s, I'm dismayed by what has become of my state. As a teen, I rode buses all over town, they were cheap and convenient. Add my voice to the chorus saying that light rail is a safety nightmare. I am an able bodied male with the means to defend myself, and I'm still on edge anytime I use RTD. I can only imagine what it feels like for those less able to deal with the aggressive homeless, mentally ill, or substance abusers.
👍
Real! The light rail is so sketchy. I’d rather drive in traffic than have some guy openly smoking a crack pipe sitting across from me.
Safety is a HUGE problem.
What a waste of taxpayer dollars on top of inflation. 👎 I hardly recognize Colo
@@TFogguys I lived in the Denver media market from 1999-2016 and I still remember a tragic incident where a graduate student was the victim of a heinous crime at a rail stop. I've lived in three cities with modern rail... Washington DC, Dallas and Denver. In each city criminal activity was covered extensively by the media and I thought the crimes and attendant publicity negatively affected ridership.
I tried taking the R line to work in Denver. It's important to note, in addition to the service being infrequent, we're talking about Colorado. The stops/stations are just open to the elements. Standing outside in the freezing cold and snow for 20 minutes is a brutal start to the day. Then I get to watch traffic on the highway going faster than the train, and to add insult to injury I was paying for the experience. It made no sense to do all this when I had a perfect alternative on hand: my warm, fast, ready-when-I-am car.
Every 20 mins for "rapid" transit is a joke
Same in Ottawa, Canada (the world's second-coldest national capital, after Ulan Bataar in Mongolia) where our new LRT's stations are largely open, inadequately-heated and often in empty, windswept fields or the middle of a highway. 🙄
@@michaelvickers4437 And the O-train also has an unusual tendency to break. (also it's Ulaanbaatar)
The lack of better protection from the elements is a total own goal, almost as big as forcing people to wait so long in the first place! Fortunately both are fixable!
Also, having stations next to the Interstate is painfully loud.
As a Denverite, it's so much worse than this... central downtown stations were closed all summer, rail burn is forcing trains to go 10mph, vandalism and substance abuse are super common. Fastracks projects took forever to complete but the new infrastructure has low usage because of unreliability and low service frequency worsened by operator shortages. When some of these lines opened they had fatal accidents at road crossings because the gates didn't work. Nowadays I mostly ride an ebike to commute, suffer through riding the train during poor weather, and only drive when I have to.
I visited Denver twice this summer from London. I think your points are fair. I wanted to ride the transit but it wasn't operating in the city centre for some reason. Strangely the city centre generally did not seem busy enough to justify a high frequency transit system compared to a crowded European city and sadly the number of zombie druggies and vagrants seemed a major reason not to visit downtown at all. 🙁 I did though have a great train ride into the city from Grand Junction to Union station but that was not transit.
you would be very happy in Parker.
@@Pesmog YOu cant compare denver to london lol, london is a world famous city. You can compare london to SF or New York, but not denver
@@lalakerspro Yes, you are absolutely right. I just wonder though if Denver did enough research into Transit systems around the world before they committed to building their network the way that they did. From what others are saying here it seems to need some improvements. I am hoping to visit again in 2025 so hopefully more of the network will be active then. 👍
@@Pesmog No, RTD is it's own worst enemy, it has an elected board and they just play turf wars with each other trying to get all the funding for their district at the expense of other districts. That's the reason for the idiotic routing of the R line, the G line getting NIMBYd and the B line never being completed.
The light rail is so bad that we spent $10,000 on a second car. We moved into a place near a station because we remembered how good public transit was abroad and my wife didn't want to drive in Denver. We started thinking about a second car when the light rail shifted from fifteen minutes intervals to half hour intervals with half hour delays (usually 45 minute delays). And then one day it took my wife three hours to make her nine mile journey home. Walking pace. And then it happened again. We had a new car within a week. And the train still trundles past our apartment at three miles per hour.
Having lived in Denver since 2006 I have seen the demise of RTD. When you live in a town that it cost $2,000 a month for an apartment for any one bedroom. You can't afford to live there. Free Transit doesn't help. Especially with all the muggings and thugs. I've been approached or attempted assault at least six times in a since I've been here. That's why there's no ridership anymore.
Are there many blacks in Denver?
great video! As a Denverite, it's disappointing how much was built only to squander it by having poor land use. The A line to airport is quite phenomenal, but the rest of the lines for the most part just don't go anywhere useful. Particularly frustrating are the G and W lines that stop just short of the actual downtown of Golden which would be a great connection.
Thankfully, the state just passed a law requiring upzoning around transit stops (trains and frequent buses). I don't foresee us building towers to the degree of Vancouver, but it's a big step in the right direction. Shame that the state has to force it rather than cities doing what's right.
Also, Ghost Train was an excellent podcast!
I'm sure the residents of Golden (read, suburbs of Golden) didn't want it to come all the way downtown because it would attract "those kinds" of people.
Exclusion is part of the point.
The state TOD bill is great! I hope Colorado keeps its pro-transit/YIMBY politics 🎉
The slate of bills has lots of additional good features (like getting rid of parking minimums!)
We keep waiting for these magical people who live near a transit system and do not maintain a personal motor vehicle to exist. For whatever reason or benefit, individual mobility persists in US. It seems to get baked into the DNA somehow.
one "fun" thing that frustrates me to no end is that RTD _literally_ owns the rail tracks between the current end of the G line and downtown Golden (they run all the way to Ford street behind the brewery). They bought them from BNSF as part of the fastracks project, lease them back to BNSF for freight, and as far as I'm aware have zero current plans to actually use them for passenger service. It's so goddamn annoying.
As someone who has ridden the LA Metro, Denver RTD and Portland MAX the biggest reasons why people don't use the systems is the lack of frequency (sometimes 15-20 minutes) and lack of security on these trains to remove the druggies/homeless and people who are not paying for their fares. Besides that if you cannot catch a bus in a relatively short time to finish your journey it would take sometimes 2x or 3x vs driving a car.
The LA Metro has made significant improvements over the last 18 months. It has improved frequencies, safety, cleanliness, and continues to expand.
LA Metro ridership over the last two months passed the 1 million daily weekday ridership. Ridership has gone up over the last 24 months.
@@mrxman581 you say that. but for some reason. The train seats still smell like urine. And every time I am using the metro transit infrastructure (time waiting on platform + time on train) for over 20 minutes. There's some random druggie acting strange, and they get half a car to themselves due to their erratic behavior.
@AG-yc7vt The ridership numbers are LA Metro's, not mine. More people are using the LA Metro today compared to the recent past.
I have not experienced what you described. The only time I had to wait over 20 minutes for a train was when the E line had a technical issue. That happened once, and I waited for 40 minutes. Other than that, I rarely wait for more than 15 minutes. Usually, I wait less than 10 minutes, more like 5-8 minutes.
What lines are you riding, and when was the last time? I use the A and E lines about once a week and have never had any of the problems you describe. The worst was a homeless person getting on at the last minute,and he stunk to high heaven. I simply moved to the next car. He wasn't bothering anyone but smelled really bad. Other than that, it's been fine, great even, and very convenient.
When I went to grad school in Boston, I rented an apartment less than 2 miles from school and on a bus route (straight shot, no transfers). In theory, the bus was scheduled every 30 minutes.
In practice, one of the drivers liked to drive faster. So what should have been one bus every 30 min, turned into two buses within 5 min of each other every hour. I ended up waiting 15 min for a bus, then walking to school most of the time because that was the only way I could guarantee I'd arrive in time for class (the buses would pass me during my walk half the time).
I was so happy when my sister gave me my car back, even if I had to spend 15 minutes looking for parking at school. I'd given her the car because "finding parking in Boston sucks; I'll just take the bus." Only to find out the bus sucks more. (The T was good though. It wasn't subject to traffic and driver whims.)
I used to live in a suburb of London, UK, and to visit my parents 100 miles away, despite trains from London running at up to 125mph, and leaving every 30 minutes, it was _far_ quicker, door-to-door to drive, than take the extremely frequent train into central London, take the extremely frequent tube across London, and then, on arrival in the city where my parents lived, take a taxi to their home (because trying to catch a bus at 9pm would have been insane).
Then there's the matter of the train ticket costing several times the (high) cost of the petrol in the UK, that it took to drive there.
Real Talk, I live in Denver and I used to love the light rail. But you can't just dump and run. You have to maintain it. The stops are all decayed, vandalized, and unsafe, and also filled with trash and used needles. People smoking in your face so you have to walk out of the stop just to breathe clean air. All the glass is broken out of the shelters. The only "clean" ones are the few right downtown. Vehicles get frequently broken into at the Park-N-Rides. The trains are filthy. They don't really feel safe to travel on anymore and I'm a man. I get randomly accosted by drug addicts and crazies. I can only imagine how some women must feel. I know I wouldn't want my girlfriend traveling on it alone, especially at night. I never see any transit security or police on our around the light rail. The tracks and trains are falling apart, making the trains go slower than they ever have before. RTD invested all the money building it and not enough in maintenance, upkeep, cleaniliness, or public safety.
Then the service became so bad and unpleasant that nobody wanted to use it, so ridership goes down, they lose money, and then it gets even worse, and trains run less frequently, making it useless for most. Many lines used to run far more frequently until budget cuts due to lack of ridership. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. On top of that, their "honor system" for purchasing tickets with practically zero enforcement, made it so only honest people do buy tickets. They made it so easy for everyone to just ride without paying anyway. Based on what I've seen, I'd guess only 35% of people who ride do pay, leading to even more lost revenue, and even crappier service, and even less ridership. RTD is letting it rot, leaving it as a bare minimum, barely functional service, and spending as little money as possible on it. I don't know how you turn it around now.
On top of that, it's not even reliable. And RTD doesn't care if people get stranded. I took the lightrail downtown once and got stranded after midnight when 3 straight trains failed to show up. Turns out the track got shut down but they never told anyone waiting. RTD never sent buses to pick anyone up. I had to take a ridiculously expensive peak-time, long-distance Uber home.
@@BrandonBaecker wow, I used to ride the light rail all the time 10 years ago. It was such a great way of commuting downtown and beyond convenient for getting to the airport and back. This is so disappointing to hear.
@@BrandonBaecker Exactly!
This sounds like the Denver airport. I was there last year and was shocked at the dirty, rundown condition. You all get what you vote for.
Try voting out your mayor and DA. That tends to help deal with people using mass transit as mobile homes and drug dens.
That's a problem with most transit system in the US. Unlike in some other countries in Europe and Asia.
Crime on RTD is horrible. Normal, sane people won't ride it...
Correct!
EXCELLENT VIDEO. And a classic example of how politicians throwing money at a problem is almost always a waste
Good video. Some things were not discussed, though. I will tell you about my last experience coming back from Europe to Denver. I caught the train at the airport. This should be the flagship station welcoming travellers from all over, but it is just a drab platform with no services and little shelter from the elements. This being a relatively new route, I don't understand why it takes so long to reach downtown. That ride should be no more than 20 minutes. All the stops along the route slow it down.
Then, you need to transfer at Union Station when heading further. I had to take the W line. I looked up the schedule and realized I only had 5 minutes to make it all the way through the bus concourse to reach the light rail terminal with heavy bags. I only got on the train because it was about 5 minutes late. Otherwise, I would have been stranded there for 30 minutes.
That station is always grimy and the train is absolutely filthy. Trash lying around, floors and seats are disgusting, windows are dirty. A character got on board with a pizza box. She spent the entire ride eating pizza and loudly cussing out some imaginary person (she was alone), as well as shouting at people if they want pizza. On previous trips I witnessed open drug use (nasty smell) and smelly homeless people with all their belongings and dogs just camping out in the trains. Very few normal passengers. No wonder people would drive and pay for parking.
a big problem is the system was mainly built for commuters, and a huge proportion of them are permanently gone after covid. One thing that makes the A line so successful is it's _not_ tuned for commuters; it has 15 minute frequency, 7 days a week, which makes it useful for something beyond going to work
Honestly, with all the big stores & affordable restaurants gone, I see less & less reason to even go into Denver.
Living _in_ Denver has become a real PITA in the last 10-20 years, as more & more stores, services, etc, moved their locations out of Denver.
Want to return a cable modem? Just drive to one of our suburban locations! Cellphone-provider service location? Not in this town!
Without offices, dining, & shopping, what is a city even good for?
A train frequency drops to every half hour after 7:30 p.m.
A train has a big markup to go to the airport.
@@prophetzarquon Besides the state Capitol and sporting events, Denver is pretty mid for the most part
it is for commuters if you work at the airport
This is so typically US: begrudgingly fumble into the current century with modern-ish infrastructure. Do it so piss-poorly and design it so unbelievably terribly that it doesn't work well, then when it's not immensely popular complain that it doesn't work and people don't want it, use that as a justification to not develop anything anymore. This is the government equivalent of a child doing the dishes so poorly that their parents stop asking them to do the dishes.
This is not uncommon even in places with OK transit. Here in Melbourne, AU, we run great services at peak hour, but outside of that service levels drop off a cliff down to 20, 30 minute levels, or even longer later at night. It really feels like the people making the decisions just have no idea how transit services work - I have to wonder if planners/designers just aren't advocating enough, or if government really is so cynical as to not care because it doesn't seem as flashy as new construction...
@@lalakerspro The issue is many, many ppl are ok living like that, or at least living in a denser suburb. However, the options are so limited that the supply fo such places is less than demand, hence housing in the very few car based places is insanely expensive. Ppl do indeed want it, it’s a choice whether the US will meet the demand.
@@bobsteve4812 In any major city, there is plenty of dense living. I walked around union station and saw plenty of apartments, retail, etc. Youre not gonna get that in the suburbs. Suburbs are not meant to be dense, otherwise they would just be urban cities
I‘ll say that every 20 minutes for an outer-suburban service like the Melbourne Metro is fine late in the evening. Wanting to have fewer operators on the night shift is understandable and if you can‘t plan around a 20-minute frequency then maybe you really are better off driving.
More generally though, something I've seen again and again in North American transit projects and existing services is a seemingly fundamental lack of understanding of what a well-developed transit service looks like. Corners are being cut left and right, basic technologies aren't being implemented, important measures aren't being taken and things are needlessly overcomplicated.
Several examples:
Basically every modern US streetcar line: slow, poor alignments, unnecessary use of wireless sections further complicating and slowing operations, bad frequencies. It's no wonder few people ride these lines when any bus could a similar or better job. Most of them are just beautification tools but have very little actual merit.
Brightline and Caltrain Electrification: Both systems have failed to improve grade crossings along their alignments to a degree that stops people accidentally wandering onto the tracks or stops cars from swerving around lowered barriers. A barrier system that makes both of those things basically impossible exists and is in use every day in countries like the UK or Germany. Why not muster up the funds to install it? With these safer barriers the noise pollution from constant horns and bells could also be mitigated, because quiet zones could be implemented safely.
OTrain Lines 2 and 4: In a recent video by Railfans Canada it was shown just how needlessly slow operations on those lines will be, with station approaches being crawls and the line speed limits being unnecessarily low. Additionally, the fact that one has to transfer twice to get from downtown to the airport is kind of ridiculous and I assume will lead to a lot people choosing taxis/ubers if they can afford to.
And finally a failure to understand the roles of regional and intercity rail: There is almost no truly regional rail system in the US, because almost everything is centered on a single urban area and effectively acts as a commuter feeder to that core area, even if frequencies allow journeys in both directions equally. Much of the Northeastern US could support a complex regional rail network connecting all of the more important towns and cities without always having to travel through the few major metropolises. On top of that, many corridors that currently only see intercity service (like in the Midwest or potentially the PNW) should be studied for an additional regional rail layer to be added. Far too often it's either regional rail or intercity rail, but in basically every country with a successful rail system they both run on the same routes, just one as a local and the other as an express. This needs to be taken seriously so that smaller places can also receive a rail connection without slowing longer-distance trains down.
I ride RTD every once in a while. It’s nice when the roads are bad during storms or if I am having car issues. However, the main reason people don’t ride it here is because of safety concerns. The first time I rode RTD, I literally was across from someone smoking crack at one point. Many don’t feel safe or secure, especially when drug use is rampant. If Denver fixed the drug abuse issues as well as the homeless epidemic, more people would ride it.
In addition, the trains/light rail are often delayed, so I have to build in extra time when waiting for them so that I am not late to work. This is a pain when it’s freezing cold outside.
Another major issue you missed was drug abuse and homelessness. I use to ride the light rail in Denver back in the early 2000’s it was great as a college student. Today, I don’t feel safe on the train because it is overrun with the homeless, and people high on drugs.
This is the problem that no politician wants to deal with.
Yep, even the biggest urbanists dance around the subject as though we’re supposed to ignore the violent screaming people and the ones shooting up on the trains in NA. It shouldn’t be the transit system’s problem to solve but unfortunately it has become it.
This is the real reason we can't have nice stuff. Crime and bad behavior are way to high in the usa. I'm a man and I've had bad experiences. I can't imagine what it would be like for a woman.
"Home of a hockey team that never wins" was so unnecessary hahaha
He forgot the Vancouver Millionnaires who won the Stanley Cup in 1914-1915. Maybe if the team (Canucks) had an original names like the Vancouver Orcas instead of trying to copy the Montréal Canadiens without copyright infringements.
I live near to Toronto, I know how much it hurts lol
Agreed! It was an attempt at humor. A sad one at that.
That’s such a Canadian burn
Canucks win at choking.
I think you are missing the biggest issue. It's not the origin, it's the destination. Even with poor headways, people will still take transit if it goes where they want to go. In the US, far too many places of interest are located where land was cheap at the time, in other words anywhere but where transit runs.
I don't agree that large numbers of people WILL take transit with poor headways, especially given in a city like Denver driving is easy and fast. But of course the lack of TOD is a problem.
San Diego's Mid-Coast Trolley serves the city's largest university, several hospitals, and a megamall (with centrally located, non-freeway stations). Ridership is amazing compared to Denver but it is still bad compared to Seattle's Link, because while the Mid-Coast runs every 15 min, Seattle Link runs every 6.
@@RMTransit I'll second this. When the 3-5 minute headway for my commuter train went to 20-30 minutes during coronapanic, I quickly switched to driving even though my destination was a 3-minute walk from the station.
Exactly, I live close to the N line, and it is very convenient to get to Union Station. But... then what? If I wanted to take public transportation to the zoo, for example, it's either a 20 minute drive or a 90 minute train to bus to walk. I could bike there faster.
The lesson to be learned in America is if you build it they will NOT come.
Everything is too spread out for transit to be viable in this country. The transit ends up being built where people don't want to go.
Parking is plentiful in this metro area. The stations tend to be unsheltered and crime-ridden. The transit cops are not enforcing against vagrancy and drug use. It's just easier to drive.
~4:00 Weird to argue that we need to pressure people into reducing their options. Wouldnt a more logical and progressive solution be to provide as many options as possible and make public transit SO MUCH better, faster, cheaper, that people elect that and sell their car? Nobody like to be told what to do, but they do like to shop and choose the better option.
@@JH-vx2dn facts but having options doesn’t allow env activists who want us all living in studio apartments, eating bugs, and compliant with whatever hot button issue of the day the gov/upper echelon office libz want to impose on us from their ivory towers
I think the core of the issue in the US is: in the US you need a car, almost every adult has one. If you have a car in the US, you’re going to use it, it’s more convenient the way this country is designed
Question. In what century was "this country" designed?
@ From the late 18th century to the mid 20th I suppose. Point is this country was designed around cars, not public transportation
America has always valued individual liberty. People prefer cars because they’re faster, offer more freedom of time and places to go, and can be shared, sold, given away, etc. But many Americans also like having the option of public transit, taxis, rental cars, and trains, which is why we also have all of those things, too. It was a little concerning when the narrator casually mentioned squeezing citizens out of parking in order to force them to ride the trains, as if this was a real possible solution and not creepy and tyrannical.
Loud and wrong. Cars are only faster because that’s how America has been built. Freedom comes with choice and right now Americans don’t have a choice only to choice to have an expensive loud and noisy car. You get more freedom actually living in a place with good transit and it’s better to drive there as well.
Denver (ok wheat ridge) resident and CDOT employee here! You hit the nail on the head with land use. The problem though largely comes back to RTD. RTD is actually one of the biggest land holders in the city and the current director and many board members have repeatedly expressed a lack of interest or desire in developing it. The upper management has abandoned he trains and the mantra is "the future is the bus" (I've heard that from important people multiple times). RTD has minimal interest in converting their parking lots into housing.
Likewise CDOT, which is currently overseeing turning Federal Blvd into their own definition of BRT, is obsessed with busses in urban Denver. Despite the fact that there is near universal consensus that improved mixed traffic buses won't introduce significant mode shift.
I'm a regular RTD commuter and because the scheduling and PTC on the G line (holy crap that is a cluster) leads to me missing my W line connection I end up taking a lime scooter to the office which most of my coworkers have said they wouldn't do. It takes effort to take transit.
Thankfully the local transit advocacy agency, Greater Denver Transit, has had a mildly hostile takeover of the RTD board and change might actually happen soon.
In my experience with RTD, they do not believe that induced demand works with transit so they just run whatever service level they want while trying to gaslight us into forgetting what RTD was like before Covid. Reliability has gone to trash in addition to safety. Trains and busses regularly get canceled without notice. Trains don't adhere to schedules. In the winter the trains can turn into rolling homeless shelters
TLDR, the land development is a major issue for sure but most of the issues with RTD stem from the board and management
On the bright side, most of the incumbent board members seem to have been thrown out in the latest election and replaced with some younger folks who are active advocates for transit (and actually ride it lol). Idk when the actual transition occurs there but hopefully it'll lead to improvements.
I swear the only part of RTD that works well is the A line. The B line never being completed was just ridiculous, especially when they had a perfect opportunity to run it in the US36 median when 36 was rebuilt in 2016. Then of course the G line got NIMBYd by Golden, the light rail is just a mess, the R, W, E and H lines should've all been built as heavy commuter rail and can't be converted due to steep grades and tight curves on the expansion tracks. And then not even considering things like shuttle bus services in Golden/Morrison to reach all the open space parks which all have parking problems on the weekends.
@@leightonmoreland great summary of the situation
Speaking to the choir... I want the 28/32 back, looping at Clear Creek Crossing (new Lutheran campus area) and the 100 to go far later, and to Independence/Ralston Rd. on Sundays. I can't get anywhere without walking a mile or more so often its just not worth it to take the bus. I stay home, or spend out my rear end for an uber.
💯 *Yes* to OP & every comment in this thread. For far too long now, the RTD board has behaved like postmaster Louis DeJoy / T.rump cabinet appointees: Sabotaging & dismantling & calling it "streamlining".
It actually started even before CoViD '19 (yes, that is the most correct capitalization for the acronym). Bus routes were shifted to _not_ connect as conveniently & rail service expansion was deprioritized _even as new routes/sites came under RTD ownership,_ as far back as 2012.
The RTD board takeover by seemingly anti-rider "leadership", took some time to make itself known... Hopefully the new boardmembers are quick to improve the situation!
I was watching a cabride of a light rail near San Jose, and the tracks ran along a highway, and cars were going faster than the train. That's an issue in my opinion. How do you want to make people leave their cars if the train running next to the freeway is visibly slower?!?
To come back to the video, yes, frequent service is absolutely crucial and a must have for any rapid transit. I'll take Paris' example, 30min-1hr frequency is more of a suburban train frequency, in off-peak hours.
30 minute frequency? the train in denver runs through single family suburbs all right
This is a bit of a light rail / alignment problem, if you are running down the middle of a highway and winding around its going to be much harder for a rail vehicle which needs to stop for stations to hit highway speeds. Rail can be fast - much faster than cars - but only with the right design.
@@PM_ME_MESSIAEN_PICS And suburban trains of Paris run through wheat fields in between suburban towns.
@@RMTransit It feel like even fast subways like BART are still slightly slower than the cars on the freeway, even when hitting top speed in between wide spaced stops.
@@AdiposeExpress The whole idea of BART is to beat freeway traffic. During rush hour traffic, BART is truly a miracle
i want to say also, and you already sort of mentioned this, but rtd's rail is extremely commuter focused. it only really goes to low density suburbs, while all the high traffic transit corridors like east colfax are stuck with just buses
Colfax should have had a subway under it since the 70's. it's wide and perfect for a cut & cover, Broad Street Line style heavy rail metro.
Yeah . . . thats where rail should have gone!
Yes, they put the trains in the worst places. Historically dense neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, City Park, and the Highlands have no rail while the existing rail parallels highways and freight lines that make reaching many stations take way longer.
They're lucky Colfax got a BRT, and even then I don't think it goes into Aurora. East Colfax is the worst area of Denver so never gets priority for anything because "those people" live there.
I went to one of the public meetings for East Colfax BRT over 10 years ago, and construction is just now starting. For bus service! I still struggle to understand how it’s going to serve the needs of the users of the 15 bus. That is a super busy line because it’s very local. It’s mass transit, not rapid transit. Stops need to be frequent. The FAQ talks about riders saving 30 minutes Broadway to Yosemite by 2040 and an average 3 mile trip savings of 10 minutes. But they are only estimating 7500 additional transit riders per day in 2040 over 2019 ridership. Local businesses will suffer during construction. These projects always lead to closures of low margin enterprises that can survive the loss of foot traffic and street parking. Welton Street has never really recovered as was hoped after the installation of light rail 30 years ago.
It bothers me very much that when people talk about "housing" they keep referring to renting, and leases that go up each time you sign a new one, and you're basically living in a big house with roommates that you share walls with, and you will never own anything.
Is that what you want? To die in an apartment having never owned a REAL home with LAND?
Fook that😁, I want what everyone else before me got to have...I want the American dream, they can keep the trains.
Low ridership is also because people do not want to ride with the riffraff. Additionally, I pass a rail station parking lot every day I go to work: it harbors 5-10 vehicles or none.
edit: another problem is one of corruption, imo: traffic in Denver is crowded, there is no "rush" about it. But the people who are in charge create "express" lanes you pay to use after out tax dollars have paid for the lane. Express lane ONLY benefit the government coffers and not by very much. It may benefit those who pay to use the lane, but that is stupid because some of their taxes also paid for the construction. Those who don't use it also paid taxes for the construction.
The only benefit is the small amount of extra money paid into express lanes that pays for the mayor and governor lunches.
The construction company owners love it, too.
No matter how obviously unneeded and unwanted something is, if you get public money behind it, someone will take that money and build that unwanted thing. Politicians get to say they did something, contractors, employees, managers get paid and the only one who gets screwed in all of this is the taxpayers...and it's their fault if they don't use it. Ain't it grand?
Creates government workers who will support the regime at the taxpayers expense.
@@jefflynnalex also allows money to flow to the political class
Gas prices are only going up, we’ve known that since 1973 so transit is needed. The key problem we face is that we’ve created low density, car focused living areas that assume cars will always exist. Then when a “supply shock” happens, we pay whatever the market charges while screaming about how expensive it is.
The trains are not wear the tax payers live.. and there are No Public decency laws anymore either.. add crime and you get only the bottom of the barrel riders.. I lived in Colorado Springs for 7 years and one year on the far east side of Denver.. east of the tollway.. I watched how it was destroyed by the Leftist in less than 3 years when California moved in
buying votes with the peoples money
“A reduced frequency after 8pm. As if people don’t need to travel around in the evening.” Shots fired at YRT LMAO.
I took the viva blue last night around 9pm when frequency drops to every 20 minutes and the bus was packed, standing room only. All I could think the entire time was “YRT run ONE more bus per hour, you have the ridership ahhhhhhhh”
It's the over time payments for the drivers .
HELLO. RTD's route 100 in Lakewood Colorado 5 years ago before the great sickness, matched their regional transit plan of "until 8pm at least for feeder lines". Then everyone gets sick, and RTD goes on Saturday Schedule as their disaster plan. Saturday on the 100 ended at 6pm... At least they have a bus on sunday _at all_, it didn't run before then... But it stops at 6pm. Every night. Can't use it to get to work without having to walk at least a mile, or more, home from either Colfax or 38th.
This is because government run services respond to their bureaucratic masters, not the customer. If the buses had to turn a profit, and roads were toll roads, these things wouldn’t happen.
In LA my light rail was supposed to be better than the bus I took (which was dangerous at times). The light rail became even worse…even more dangerous people rode them as an alternative to a shelter, brought 1,000’s into a river flood zone setting off fires in the mountain area (new fire feet from my house EVERY year for 10 years), and personal safety was a nightmare (criminals in their orange jumpsuits, and those recently dumped on the street out of hospitals were VERY common). It all sounded good and I rode it out until I moved. They needed to seriously upgrade safety. Sad things was the local police warned us while the train would be easier commutes, it would also increase crime, etc. These need to be addressed when putting in more transit.
"Death Wish"
A major deterrent for me, I’m a resident, is the homeless and those who live with nothing to lose. They devalue the RTD trains and surround station stops. Why would I wanna position myself near that sort of filth?
I live next to a light rails stop in Denver. We have over 900 units in my complex and we are a 3 minute walk from the light rail stop. The problem is frequency yes but the bigger issue is that the Train to get to Denver is on time 75% of the time but the train leaving denver is almost an hour behind schedule by the end of the line. Also adding to the problem is the fact that these light rail have little to no security so most people don’t pay to use it and if you leave your car in the parking garage it is only a matter of time until it gets broken into. It makes no sense to use the light rail unless you are going to an event or you are using it for weekend travel.
You're missing an important point - personal safety! These days it's hard to feel safe on RTD light rail trains. Lots of homeless and other sketchy characters in parking garages, station platforms and on the trains with no security personnel in sight. In addition it costs too much to park at RTD stations which is counterintuitive because they are depending on the apartments and condos built within walking distance of the stations for patronage which explains the empty garages and parking lots. In addition the upholstery on the seats smells of urine, as bad or worse than the NYC subways, which makes you question if you should even sit or touch anything on these trains. There is no incentive in time, cost or convenience to use RTD light rail trains. Denver, and Colorado in general, needs to clean up their act, hire appropriately qualified personell and make it affordable for those living outside of RTD districts to adopt and use this mode of transportation.
RTD= ROUGH, TOUGH, AND DANGEROUS.
I think you’re spot on with respect to personal safety. At least in the Baltimore area, groups of youths use the light rail to move from area to area with criminal intent on their minds. And sadly, homelessness adds to the problem. If you have nothing to do, no place to go, and no where to live, it’s pretty tempting to spend the day riding mass transit back and forth ( if for no other reason than to get out of the weather).
Agree 100%. The A line is nice, but that’s it. Union station, the flagship of the system, is sometimes a security risk.
I’ve literally been chased out of a station before by a hoard of fent heads/thugs. I’m a young able bodied 6’3 white man who is somewhat brave. Not sure why anyone else would do it.
Also, despite locals complaining there’s more traffic than they used to be, traffic just isn’t that bad. It’s easy to drive in Denver as long as you aren’t trying to park in Lodo. Biking is nice except for the fact my bike was stolen once per year when I lived there while locked…
Still safer than driving on 25
@brainwasnthere Agree and I've definitely driven in worse metro areas like LA and Atlanta. Denver is becoming notorious for theft of cars and catalytic converters as well...
The light rail had plenty of ridership pre-Covid. THE issue for me personally is the homeless. They use the terminals and the trains as their "home". Get rid of the homeless and riders might return. The WFH paradigm is another major headwind.
Do you have transit cops?
In Philly, the transit system( Septa) has its own police force.
During the pandemic they frequently dealt with homeless transit " riders".
@@yvonneplant9434 very little and mostly only on the A line to the airport.
I live by the W line and in 4 years I have never been ticket checked. And surprise, surprise, a massive amount of homeless people use the W line and smoke fentanyl in the trains.
It seems like RTD wants the rails to fail.
@yvonneplant9434 Not enough. A big reason there are far fewer drivers, and therefore frequency, is that it's borderline dangerous to be a driver, train or bus. They need a bulletproof cubes. But then the wheelchair patrons would have to get on by themselves..... it's a mess.
"...THE issue for me personally is the homeless. They use the terminals and the trains as their "home"."
I've used the light rail from the Denver airport to the city center (& returned to the airport) at least a dozen times (both ways), & can tell you that this is only a modest annoyance. "Modest" when compared with the homeless problem in Mpls & St Paul where this problem seems to be increasing noticeably. We have transit cops, but they seem to be generally inadequate & not up to the task. Were it not for this particular problem I suspect that the ridership would be up at least 25% -- but that's anecdotal.
@@rogerforsberg3910 homeless people aren't going to the airport
I live in SW KS and visit Denver a few times a year and try to use their rail system, but the fact that the commute times are about double what it would take if we drove makes it hard to justify 😅 They really have great rail infrastructure but it’s just really limited by the speed and frequency of service
You've hit the nail on the head! The lack of TOD also makes trips you could make on the system less attractive because the car almost always gets you closer to your destination
That makes me sad
I live a distant suburb north of Denver and if the bus in my town took twice as long as driving takes that would be a significant improvement from how fast it is now.
I'm from Washington, DC and my childhood saw the opening of the Metro. It's taken 50 years (and counting) for density to build around the Metro stations. This is a multi-generational project.
I rode the trains in Denver last year -- that town NEEDS public transportation -- and with my old eyes I could see where in 20 years time there'd be malls, condos, and shops where all those parking lots now sit.
I live in Denver, but I steer clear of the money-pit public transportation system because: 1) Most of the buses I need only run every 30 minutes, and missing just one connection means I'm late (or need to reach my destination 30 minutes early to be safe), 2) I can't reliably bike to a bus since there are only 2 spots on the front of the bus or inside each train car to put a bike, so that only off-hours work for combined bike rides. 3) The buses and trains are lawless. There is often vaping, loud music, drugged or drunk people, and no drivers nor ex-military riders like Daniel Penny are foolish enough to risk getting involved even if some homeless guy says he's going to kill other riders.
Denver Metro area resident here. I grew up in NYC, so I know what a good transit setup looks like.
I live way north of Denver, about 22 miles. The only rail line I can use, is the N line.
Lets say I want to go watch a sporting event at Ball Arena. It's a 27 mile drive, through I-25, and the worst of the traffic. 30 to 40 minutes.
The only rail line I can use, is the N line. I have to drive 15 miles to get to that station. Wait for the twice an hour train to start rolling.
Its a nice 30 minute ride to get to Union Station. I have to then either walk the last half a mile for 11 minutes directly to the Arena, or walk 3 tenths of a mile to the light rail station that would then take me to a stop closer to the Arena, where I still have to walk over the freight rail tracks, because the light rail tracks are on the wrong side of the rail tracks from the arena.
It only gets worse if you want to go home after the game, because the N train stops running north at 10:56 pm, which you may not have left the stadium if it was a late start game.
And it gets even worse if you want to go to Coors Field or Mile High, because they are further away from Union Station, so even more walking is in your future.
I love trains. I love riding them, but I can't get home after the game is finished, so I can't use the train.
In NYC, I could walk 7 minutes to an LIRR station, transfer to a second LIRR train at the Jamaica station, and then I'm IN Penn Station, and right above is MSG.
They proposed a possible extension to the N line to bring it up to highway 7, and even have the right of way for the old abandoned train lines, but that extension project has been scrapped.
And RTD promised a train line to go from Union Station up to Longmont, through Boulder, where ridership would have been high.
They took money from the residents all through the regions this train would service, and they have provided the tax payers absolutely nothing for the money they took.
RTD sucks. I wish I could use it, but they made the section I live near useless for my needs.
Perfect example why trains stink.
@@originalfred66 Trains are fantastic.
The people who design where the trains go, and what time tables they have, they suck.
Technically the Flatiron Flyer buses are provided by this funding. But that's no excuse for the fact that it's not what taxpayers voted for.
@@octorokpie If people wanted to take a bus and get stuck in traffic, then they wouldn't have voted for rail service to be created in between Longmont, Boulder, and Denver.
I volunteer at a horse rescue stable South of Denver and 16 miles from my house. It takes about 45 minutes to get there by car. There is absolutely no public transportation at all. A cab would be ridiculously expensive. Especially when you consider going and coming. It's a car or nothing. Just getting to the stable is a big part of my volunteer time.
As a person who regularly took the RTD G-Line train 4 days a week for 2 straight years, I can say that the fact that the schedule only ran every 30 minutes was (while, again, better than nothing) rather inconvenient. Because there was no meaningful pedestrian infrastructure near it I had to drive there during the morning rush, which meant I would miss the train pretty frequently due to traffic. Don't get me wrong, after I got on the train everything was good (walking around Denver from Union Station was great and I enjoyed it a lot), but the initial placement of my station (and the fact that it was kinda out of the way and the only way to get there was via. high traffic stroads) did hamper the utility a bit. If the train ran even just 4x an hour instead of 2 it would've been exponentially more useful. Getting to the station and sitting in the freezing cold in the middle of January as I watched the train just sit on the line doing nothing was... not great.
Important lesson for Calgary/Alberta as it begins developing a regional passenger rail network.
Calgary has one of the highest riderships in North America. If course there's still room for improvement with its light rail, but Calgary isn't the the one in charge of developing the regional rail, the provincial government is, as we've seen with the Alberta government messing with the Greenline they're the ones we have to worry about getting the regional rail correct.
It really worries me. I can 100% see the UCP going cheap instead of good and building stations without transit connections at the edge cities or on the side of the highway. Green Line is a great example. It would be utterly asinine to try and go at street level through downtown, and yet I bet that's what they'll try because it costs the least up front. We should have buried the other lines years ago. Would have greatly improved the speed, frequency, and reduced all the collisions at this time of year.
Most of the other Denver residents highlighted the main concerns. My final Denver light rail experience was sitting next to a homeless couple smoking weed in the rail car. A transit cop literally got in the car, looked at what was going on, got off and did nothing about it. That experience was a lasting effect on why I rarely use lightrail
I ride buses, trains, and my bike in Metro Denver. No car. Your thesis is off.
1. No enforcement of behavior. Scary and dirty people turn off work commuters.
2. At rush hour, trains and buses DO reduced congestion on roads. That matters.
3. The pandemic reversed ridership growth, and it struggles to change behavior back.
4. Denver is growing. All along the stations, housing is springing up , with reduced parking. Many young people with high student loan debt go without a car, families have just one car. This is national trend, and stronger in Denver, with technology job centers. Having a supperior transit system is a selling point to businesses that need younger workers.
Imo, my #1 above, hygiene and safety enforcement would easily double ridership within two years, if implemented correctly.
All that is correct, but that said, I lived there 27 years, always trying to figure out a way to use it with any regularity or savings in time or money. No such luck. I rode it mostly as just a novel way to get somewhere once in awhile. Airport line certainly can work for a lot of folks, and probably the core system, but after that, pretty much a crapshoot.
I know this is probably purely anectdotal, but I am a Denverite and take the D Line downtown to work everyday. It takes me ~10min to get down to the station in the morning with a train leaving every 15min. I have been rather blown away by the ridership I see. Trains are often well occupied in the morning and during the 5pm rush leaving the downtown core the train gets absolutley PACKED; every seat taken, almost every day.
Again, I know this is anecdotal based on my single expierence along a single route, but it makes me wonder if RTD is measuring ridership by tickets purchased. Because one thing that has never ever happened to me on the D line is have an operator come and check my pass (like they do on the A Line from Union to DIA). The train is packed and frequented loaded and unloaded at most stops with essentially everyone on board riding for free.
The southwest corridor has had a decent ridership since inception in 2000, with destinations like Arapahoe Community College and the entirety of Downtown Littleton existing long before the current trains. Now with new developments near Mineral and continuing growth of the area, I suspect it to have the most transit-oriented-development of all of the lines. That said, ridership possibly is not being counted due to the fare-checking conditions you describe.. I know that I always try to tap on my app at the readers even if I'm on a day or month pass, just to be counted, and show RTD someone's riding. I dont see many people actually doing that.
I've never ridden the A line, but I've ridden most of the others, & I've only remembered to buy a ticket _once..._ 😬🤦
When I get on a bus, the driver asks me at the entrance. When I get on a subway, I'm prompted to pay at the gate. Some ATM-looking unstaffed kiosk, >20 feet away from where everyone waits to board, is _not_ a great reminder that I'm supposed to pay before boarding!
If I used it frequently, I'd get a pass (not that they're as good a deal as they used to be)...
I do think you might be onto something, with the idea of unpaid riders going uncounted: The 10th & Osage station, seems quite busy relative to the scant number of people using the kiosks or passes, so far as I've seen?!
In Germany ridership is surveyed once a year by student jobbers asking the people in the trains where they boarded, where they go and what kind of ticket they have. If you have no ticked they check the box "no ticket" and nothing bad happens. (Because they are survey not ticket check. I guess when this answer is noted too often they increase ticket checks on that line. ^^)
Is your walk 5 minutes, then 5 minute wait, then 10 minute ride, then 5 minute walk, so 25... If 20mph train that's 3.33 miles which in car at 30mph is 6.66 minutes..... 25 minutes vs 6.6.. Transit takes time from good career and good family... I took buses till my 2nd job, buses are slow too, took my free time away ... Later I learned to walk listening to my favorite music, if in a good mood walking is joyful, but waiting and riding far less so.... Transit and bus will never work. 70% of French and Finns drive to work, the others life in pre1920 old city which ain't an option outside Europe... I cld be wrong .... But some dreams are silly and only liars push them...
@@mystica-subs Ridership on RTD trains and buses is counted with infrared scanners in the doorways. It is separate from the fare collection. There are quite a few riders who do not have to tap, because they have other types of fare payment.
Really enjoyed hearing you pop up on CBC's Front Burner podcast, Reece! The episode was Nov 12th: "Why can't Canada have fast trains?" if others want to listen.
Happy to hear you enjoyed it!
Here's my use case... I live near Cherry Creek Mall, which is a massively upscale residential and shopping area, and I work in Golden. If I were to take the RTD, my commute would be over 2.5 hrs. If I drive, it's just 30 mins. The first mile bus service has a long wait, there's a long wait at the far away Colorado RTD station, there's a wait when I need to transfer lines sort of near downtown, and then there's the last mile issue, because the train ends at the courthouse, and doesn't even go into Golden, requiring another bus.
The golden train ends at the courthouse 😂 useless
It's the west it's not new york.
@@darwinbarrie751 it's a city. It should support city like transportation options
The courthouse is a great distance from downtown Golden. It's so far it's hard to describe. Also I got caught inside the crossing gate for the train in my car. The intersection is quite confusing. People apparently knew about the problem, because they jumped out of their cars to lift up the gate so I could back up. I called CDOT about it, but they were completely unconcerned. To them it was a non issue.
I commuted with RTD for work around downtown Denver from 2000-2019 - I stopped when I could start working from home about a year before the pandemic lockdowns - all I can say is that I will never commute again - I love remote work as I work in technology for healthcare orgs in other states - however, RTD buses, lightrail, and trains are all awful and unreliable - the schedules are horrible and not frequent enough - they also do not run late enough for an urban area - since 2019, I used lightrail once to get to a convention downtown - it was such a sketchy ride that I paid for an Uber home - took over an hour to get into downtown from Aurora, but the Uber took 20 minutes - I am good without RTD and its dysfunction in my life - I rode its transportation for almost 20 years and watched it go from bad to worse all while having to pay ever increasing prices.
I've lived in the Denver area for a long time. I remember when the light rail first came around, I thought it was a pretty good thing. Later, I used it as my only way to travel into downtown, which was only about 10-15 trips per year. During the morning and evening commutes, the light rail WAS pretty full, and during other times, I saw more than enough people on the trains I thought would justify their existence.
HOWEVER, the recent crime increases affected the light rail more than most other areas. Downtown became too dangerous to me for even my minor number of trips per year in about 2015. I started going less often, only when absolutely needed. In 2017, I decided it was no longer even possible for those. I flat out refuse to set foot in the Denver city limits past 2018, except for the trips to the airport, which is far enough away to not consider it in Denver even if the city limits cover it. The light rail got hit just as badly by that, and I refuse to take the light rail at all anymore. It's just too dangerous. I've heard of too many robberies and beatings of random innocent people to even try anymore.
Metro Rail systems in the US are typically doomed from before inception particularly any place west of the Mississippi. The cities did not grow around trains. The US Industrial Revolution, the roaring 20’s and the WW2 and the post ware 0:15 Boom happened without commuter rail. The cities were shaped by roads, not rails. The roads, and the development pattern resulting from there are carved in stone. Rails have no physical place to go because something else is already there. Thus rail either has to get wedged in or relegated to less desirable land. To do otherwise could easily make a 7 billion dollar system a 14 billion dollar system. This is the core issue nobody wants to talk about. Advocates of commuter trains ignore this by talking about “land use”, “park and rail”, “parking lots”, “up-zoning”, and “higher levels of government.” What is ignored by comments like that, is that politicians created this situation and have a vested interest in maintaining it. Keep in mind, some cities including LA had thriving street cars systems, but they were not expanded as population grew, and as people moved to suburban or nearby cities, at a certain point, the street cars simply did not have riders. This entire process was assured by politicians beholden to auto manufacturers, etc. But now that the areas have been built, there is no undo button. So the call for “higher levels of government” I find hopeless, really all we need are more politicians?” I don’t buy it. Rail planners need to come up with business cases that work without magic wands.
@@Why_ask_ I guess you’ve never been to San Francisco or Seattle just to name two…
@@reesbritton6623 or San Diego
The Denver light rail is very new. It will bring new construction around it
@@Why_ask_ sorry? You aren't from the US, are you? ALL CITIES IN THE US GREW UP AROUND FREIGHT AND PASSENGER RAIL TRANSIT.
@@reesbritton6623 Ahh, BART lost 3 Billion just in its operating budget in 2023. So Yes I am including San Francisco. Seattle’s light rail estimate to complete has increased by 50 Billion over the last 5 years (now over 140 Billion total.)
9:35 This is a great summary as to why people don't utilize the light rail system in Denver. 🤷♂️🤦♂️
FasTracks' routes were largely determined by the availability of cheap right of way, mostly next to or in the middle of interstates. As in most of the US, the experience of riding the bus (contrary to your claim) is terrible, usually taking three to four times as long as driving. It's probably not a major factor contributing to low ridership, but Denver's housing crunch and enormous homeless population has resulted in homeless people riding public transit for want of anywhere else to be.
In California, there is a fast train project to connect San Francisco to LA. Originally, “only” 10b, now and no where close to completion, more like 100b!!
Yeah, a massive money grab, that will take many years, or decades, to finish. Of course, many more billions will be “spent”.
I’ve lived in Denver for 5 years and I’ve commuted to two different jobs using RTD. A few years on the light rail and two years on the bus.
Five years ago, I got really lucky and lived a 5 min walk away from a train station. There were two lines that could get me to work. I could walk over whenever and be on a train in 5-10 min. It was great. Unfortunately during Covid they eliminated one of those lines and cut service for the other.
Now I commute by bus and I live a 2 min walk from the bus stop. I love being able to read and not deal with traffic, but it takes 2x as long as driving and it only comes every 30 minutes. Sometimes I miss it because it’s a few minutes earlier than posted and I’m not early enough. Then I have to drive to work.
Anyway, this video is incredible!! I want RTD to be better so bad. You really broke this down in a coherent and insightful way. Thank you!
One bright spot for me visiting Denver from Indianapolis was that frequency felt awesome to me (coming from 30 minute and 1 hour bus frequencies). I walked right out of the airport and into a waiting train that took me right into Denver (it was already at the station and left about 8 minutes after I boarded).
Once in Denver, I went where I needed on a lime bicycle. I then needed to go to Boulder, and a bus was ready to leave Union station right as I walked up. The trip to Boulder was awesome, comfortable and quick; I shared the bus with a group of German tourists and some university students.
Overall I was really impressed with how it fit my needs while I was in town at least. Hopefully they can keep building on successes to improve where it's not resonating yet!
A so called metro line that has only 30 minutes service frequency is a waste of money. Even 10 minutes in rush hours would be too low unless it is a branch of a branch...
30 minutes should be the milestone for middle of the night service assuming the line operates 24/7.
Add to that building it in the middle of nowhere useful...
Exactly, the Vancouver SkyTrain which is used as a comparison throughout the video has 3-5 minute frequency on peak and 6-12 minute frequency off peak, even late at night and on the weekend. Automated trains that require exactly zero on-board staff are a large part of the secret sauce.
Its not a metro though. Denver does not have a metro. BART and NYC subway are high frequency metros, denver is only comm/light rail
@@lalakersproexactly. Denver doesn’t have density anywhere to support a subway/metro style system. We aren’t Taipei! (I’ve ridden the metro there and it’s fabulous)
@@mikegroberman247 Made possible entirely by computerized automatic train control and 100% dedicated right-of-way grade separated tracks. Denver has multiple lines with single-track sections, that make frequency greater than every 15 minutes with manual train control by operators going off of radio dispatch a near impossibility in many areas.
@@mystica-subs Having a grade-separated, dedicated ROW with at least two tracks is the biggest part of the equation. ATC helps, but it doesn't make much sense without improving the bulk of the infrastructure.
As a Denverite, frequency is absolutely the answer for a lot of people like you mention. At best, the trains come every 15 minutes. That isn’t too bad for the length some of these routes go, but many other cities in North America double the frequency. There are so many places I’d visit around the metro if I didn’t have to wait 30 minutes for the train, especially since the drive there is like 30 minutes haha.
Also sometimes there is good land use around the station as far as housing, but the thousands of housing units have no 1st floor entertainment. Like there are literally these townhome complexes that span multiple blocks and house a couple thousand people and they still all need to get in their car and drive to the grocery store.
@@MrFolton17 I miss before CoViD when the trains ran way later and more frequently.
The Light Rail is so elite for exactly 1 thing and that thing is getting sloshed at a sporting event and making it back to the suburbs
See the light rail 🚈 in Pittsburgh PA what was PAT ... The system got a new network 2022 or so. The light rail service played classical 🎶🎶🎶 . Clean stations. The line went to 5-6 upper class 🧐 areas.
After living outside of DC before the metro rail and using buses with my mother (born 1918) who was from Philadelphia who used public transportation all her life...At first driving to the station and getting on the metro was easy, then decades later.... station parking was hard to find which drove up anxiety, the trains were packed during certain hours, and the cost was considerable. Housing including apartments were financially outrageous. A way of life turned into a nightmare that squeezed out many local residents and businesses.
As someone who lives in the northern suburbs of Denver, I utilize the N line to downtown for Rockies games or other events in the area. It sure beats finding and paying for parking, as well as the traffic jam after the game is over. That said, I only ride it a handful of times per year...but I am greatful for it. Public transit is rarely a profitable endeavor, though I do hope they continue to expand service into suburban metro areas. It would be super to take the train to Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland to avoid the 1-25 traffic.
And I live in SE Denver, 1 block west of Aurora. Takes me 15min to drive to RiNo and probably 20min to reach LoDo by car, and 25-30min to drive to Golden depending on traffic. It would take over an hour to take the train to RiNo (R line to Peoira then A line to 38th and Blake) or LoDo (R line to Peoria, A line to Union) and 90mins to reach Golden (H line to Auraria, W line to south of Golden)
With family at 8th & I-25, & in Boulder & Lafayette, the last few decades, I watched the routes between those locations go through a veritable roller-coaster of reductions, additions, disconnections, stalled developments, & sometimes utterly bizarre byzantine routes, to go from ~58 minute rides, to ~40, to ~1hr40, to "try again Monday" & at no point have I ever seen the freight rail lines that run through the heart of Denver, actually used near capacity... _much less_ for rural passenger transit.
All this to say, I'm hoping the Burnham Yard redevelopment, will be a big step toward rebuilding our nation's once great passenger rail routes!
The Bustang North Line recently opened new stations.
On the land use side of things, Denver is actually improving! They have plans to develop multiple parking lots, and the state legislature has passed bills banning parking minimums near transit and setting TOD requirements.
he forgot to google it
Colfax BRT is also moving forward and the concept for a Colorado Blvd BRT are being floated.
@@dkd123Colorado BRT is definitely happening! It's in the design phase right now. Same with Federal! A new Flatiron Flyer-like line on the Diagonal Highway is also being built. Colfax BRT has started construction.
@@maitrilazaroff138so what is the use case for Colorado Blvd BRT? Who will it serve? Right now, it’s a cluster *** of traffic. I assume that’s people coming from multiple directions to patronize the businesses with expansive parking lots that line the road. How will people get to the BRT from their homes?
@@nimbusco8956 Colorado's 40 route is pretty high ridership, and a BRT would mean that Colorado would get denser due to TOD requirements. Bus delay is also pretty high on Colorado.
Preach, I decided to take light rail to a place that would have taken a 15 minute drive, for the first time in like half a year and got stranded for like an hour because the trains were supposed to come every 30 minutes, but randomly like 3 straight trains got cancelled
Yeah, they do that a lot, I learned quickly not to count on trains or buses coming at all
I live in the foothills and dont travel into denver often. My dad works in downtown Denver. He used to take the light rail from the courthouse to work but wont do it anymore due to homeless and substance abuse on the lightrail. He has been harrassed many times while riding. If its not safe for him, its not safe for me.
Norfolk Virginia built a 7 mile piece of light rail about a dozen years ago. The project was overrun with corruption and cost over 400 million bucks. It goes from downtown to the edge of the city. The idea was that by Norfolk investing in it, Virginia Beach would continue the line from there to the oceanfront. It never happened! Hardly no one rides it. There are reports that for every dollar it takes in, $32 is spent maintaining it.
Here in Maryland our governor has approved a light rail extension that the previous administration had rejected. Like many other cities, our light rail struggles, so a whole bunch of money is going to be spent on another dubious project. In addition, I have a good friend who recently retired as a municipal bus driver, and he told me hiring and retaining bus drivers is a problem. Young people aren’t really interested in driving a bus for a living. This affects how many buses you can actually put on the streets
Ironically, buying 2-3 small busses for each new large bus helps - because you do not need a commercial license to drive a van-sized mini-bus.
As a Denver native who’s ridden the trains extensively I’ll tell exactly why nobody uses them. A) they are very unreliable. I once arrived at my station and missed the train by a minute only to find out that I now had to wait 40 minutes for the next one. (Trains use to come every 20 minutes) B) They are slow. My average ride on the train was about 45 minutes. In a car I could get downtown with no traffic in 25 minutes. That makes no sense. C) they don’t feel safe. 90% of the time I’ve ridden the train there’s been at least one homeless/sketchy person on as well.
Wife and I tried the train a few times, but were stranded once, and things got unsafe and sketchy quickly. It’s just doesn’t feel safe to use, and we’ve given up trying to use it
I live in Golden. We typically have trains every 30 minutes. If you're not timed perfectly you have to wait in the cold or the heat. If you miss the train you can drive pretty much anywhere before the next one leaves. It works perfectly for Nuggets games and the Beer Fest for us, thats about it...Other than that its just not convenient enough for us to commute...and the closer we get to downtown...you never know who's gonna pop on....sheeesh
Long time Denver resident, and my biggest problem with the light rail is that even if it was the height of rush hour, it would always be faster to just drive downtown instead of going to the light rail station, waiting, hitting every stop, then walking 5 blocks to my destination after I leave the train. So no reason to ever use it for work. The only other time would be weekend activities downtown where I don’t want to drive. The light rail did get use when all we had were Taxis and those were garbage, but since uber came around it is just way too convenient to ever bother with the light rail and all the walking (not to mention crazy people on the train) you have to deal with.
I live eight blocks from a station. I don't use our light rail for two reasons. 1) It doesn't go where I usually need to be, & 2) some of the people who live here are so obliviously obnoxious I prefer taking on all the expenses of owning and operating a car just to avoid being in the same space as them.
Here in Salt Lake City, the homeless are everywhere on the trains with their blankets, shopping carts, smell of urine, etc. during this time of year when it starts getting cold, especially early in the morning when the transit cops are less present! They are treated with kid gloves by order of the transit police chief vis-a-vis the mayor to be "compassionate" towards the homeless. Because of this, the deterrence is basically non-existent!
I live across the street from an E line station. I only use it occasionally to get to the airport or downtown, because I ride it free, & I don't want to bother with parking downtown .
I'm curious are the obnoxious people Republicons or undemocratic Democrats?
8:57 that's super bizarre, and awfully frequent as an occurrence...
Route planners put painfully slow turns in track, of course citing cost reasons... but reality proves their understanding of cost vs benefit is bogus... a crooked section slashes the entire return on investment.
@@u1zha exacly. If you're going to spend $10bn for a severely compromised system, just spend $15bn for a great one
@@loganwenzel1615 100%. The whole idea behind 'value engineering' is that you ultimately end up with the same result, just for a bit less money. Saving money for a worse end result defeats the purpose! So frustrating!!
I live in CO and work in downtown Denver and yeah, all of the points you made are valid. There is also an ongoing issue where track maintenance hasn’t been performed in a very long time, and now there are sections of light rail where the train is limited to 10 mph for several miles until they replace those sections of track. Service has also been consistently inconsistent, with trip cancellations and poor communication to riders.
On the issue of housing, I think RTD understands that building housing near stations is a good thing but for a long time, there was a state law prohibiting RTD from using their land for anything but transit, so they were forced to just build parking lots or leave lots empty. I believe that restriction has been lifted so RTD can use land for building housing and mixed-use developments and generating value for the system through rent, but that ability has come too late.
We also live near the referenced Denver RTD 'R' line. When it first opened we had high hopes we could use it to get to downtown Denver. However, as you noted we discovered this took a long wait for the 'R' line to arrive. Then you have ANOTHER long wait to transfer to the 'H' line to get downtown. All the while standing in the elements hoping the next train might come soon. To start this experience we have to walk or drive a mile to the station. And for this pleasure you get to pay for the experience. Since we have already driven to the station we opt just to drive the full distance avoiding the waits. The system used to work when trains came every 15 minutes but then ridership dropped and they dropped service levels. Ridership went down further and it's become a system for the homeless to stay warm and crime to prosper. RTD is lovingly known here as... Reason To Drive. Hahaha. Management doesn't know how to run a good system. Sad
I’m airline crew and recently had an overnight at the DEN Westin . My room overlooked the train station. I saw maybe two people get on that train on my 17 hour overnight . If it’s empty leaving the airport I can’t imagine it’s getting a lot of ridership anywhere .
@@NCrdwlf I travel and ride light rail to and from airport. Never have I seen underuse. Don’t agree with you.
I think your argument fleshes out my intuitive experience growing up in the metro area- i have occasionally taken the light rail to hockey games, (rail stops literally at the stadium) but otherwise its just not a compelling option compared to driving because its not convenient enough. Taking public transit is slower and more expensive than driving, depending on where you park.
I used RTD in Denver for quite a few years, I will not use it again. The buses all stink and have dirty seats, same with the trains. The last time I attempted to use a train it took me to a sporting event and they decided to cancel the trains for the night while I was in the game. Taking an Uber home cost me $90 at peak time so I will never trust them to get me anywhere ever again.
Yeah, they just cancel buses and trains and don’t let anyone know. With the already low infrequency, people get stranded all the time. Happened to me a few times when I lived in Denver. My time there was stressful and bleak, I’m glad to be outta there.
I live in Westchester, NY and have worked in NYC for 15 years. I live walking distance to the local Metro North station and ride the train every day. Hands down the worst part of my day is the train/subway.
I can’t help but think that the arguments made for zoning changes were nothing more than thinly veiled authoritarianism. As a taxpayer I deserve to have a say in the decisions made about my community.
Same. He advocates using the same strategy as EU politicians - "This is decided above me, so my hands are tied". It's not clever, and erodes public trust. I see this in my local Planning Department - viewing their jobs as IRL SimCity and the public who has to live with the decisions are an afterthought.
He uses NIMBY as an insult it seems. People hate nimbys until they have their own back yard.
The issue is how you define your backyard. Sure, local government should be involved, but when one local government's actions only hurt their neigbhbouring jurisdictions, there's something going wrong. It's as if one municipality decides that a 10-lane highway through their territory should be limited to just 2 lanes. They can't, because not only, they don't pay for it, the greater good demands it (for just compensation, of course).
It's even worse when we accept that for more damaging infrastructure, say a highway through residential areas, we can't be bothered, but when it's something else, the world is clearly ending. As if extra housing is hurting them specifically. Or a station without some big-ass parking lot.
@@barvdw You came across some public transit skeptical commments, and then pretended to be concerned about 10 lane highways being restricted to 2 lanes with the goal of appearing reasonable. You concluded with your actual goal: dense housing+public transit. Those developments already exist should you wish to live in one. You just don't like people being able to avoid living in a rabbit warren. Why? I don't know. But it's not a good look.
@@too1leasy💯
How many politicians take the train?
I’ll wait…..
Also, public safety is a huge reason why ridership is down in Denver. In the rider parking areas, cars were being stollen, Catalytic Converters were being removed and in those large parking lots are a lot of homeless and migrants and it just feels sketchy. The A Line to the airport is $10 each way. Two people fly out for the weekend and pay $43, when you can go to a park and ride near the airport for $30 and feel like your car is being watched better there than at the airport itself.
Democratic city … $10 x 4 = $43 …
Having ridden trains in Portland, San Diego, and Chicago, I make sure to live far enough from cities with commuter trains that I won't have to deal with them again.
Public transport in Denver is plagued by major security issues. Drug addicted vagrants smoking fentanyl on busses and trains. Busses can flex to demand areas, but still impractical for most. Both options now export criminals to the suburbs that prey on communities. Cars much better until security changes. If ever.
Yeah cars are safe; until you crash yours or get hit by one. 🐑
Exporting cardboard sign holders to the suburbs you hit the nail that's all it brought.
@@brickcast7986 Much better odds using your own car.
Exactly. Lots of vehicle break ins at the parking lots.
Private transport in the US is plagued by drivers under the influence of drugs. About half of fatal wrecks (that's about 22,000 lives in the US) involve alcohol. Until drivers stop consistently driving under the influence, we should halt drivers from driving until they can prove they won't drive drunk.
Man here in Denmark this feels especially relevant. An airport railway was opened here to the Aalborg airport in 2020. However despite this airport being the 3rd busiest in the country and home to the busiest domestic air route in the country, this airport rail service is seen as a massive failure, with only 41 passengers per day on average. And this combined with light rail systems which are doing ok but still underperforming a good chunk below the original estimates, is further turning people off from supporting transit investments here.
As for the airport, not only is the station a good 100m walk from the terminal through the elements with basically no passenger facilities, but the land use around it is horrible. All parking, some military hangars, and a driving school. The land use plan actually allows for office developments right next to the station but nothing has been built yet despite the land use plan having been in effect for 10 years.
Plus the fact that transit here is WAY too expensive, that parking at this airport costs just 4 canadian dollars per day (heck it was free until 2023), and that service too often gets shortturned and dont go to the airport at all as a result of delays is just making the issues even worse.
So sadly many are now trying to call for this line to be completely closed but that really isnt the way forward. A lot of future developments for rail hinge on this line, including as a turnaround point for cross country express trains. And the tracks are already laid, so whats critical is getting that investment into this area so that the value around the laid tracks is maximized and become of more use to people.
Areas with the most public transit infrastructure in the United States also tend to be hotbeds of NIMBYism. The local government structure in the United States gives NIMBYs a lot more ways to stop housing. Most American politicians believe, rightly, that anything that can be seen as punishing people out of their cars will cost them in elections. Expensive gas is a political crisis.
I mean, when it comes to the car thing it is understandable from the voters' perspective - they live in the present, not the potential future. Induced demand is real and people can be convinced to plan to create it, but they also can't wait 20 years for the rail to be built, the dense housing to be developed and the services to be made transit-accessible. And that assumes a continuity of government planning (and competence), which is no guarantee.
I see this all the time in Austin, TX. None of the residents want us to become Dallas, with endless highways and induced traffic. But people don't trust state or local government (for different but equally valid reasons), so transit projects get very little traction as the city hobbles along on with a transit system designed for a population half its current size.
I keep hearing the same subtle theme: Lack of government accountability. RTD in Denver still owes contractor Denver Transit Partners millions of dollars for the commuter rail line to the airport. Look at the Los Angeles to San Francisco high speed train project that has wasted literally billions of taxpayer dollars with very little to show for it.
I’ve used the Denver Rail Transit once. My girl and I parked at a park and ride and rode across town to the 16th street mall for a day of shopping. I thought it was really great because it saves us a big headache to park so far away, and ride the rail in.
We’ve never found another occasion that actually made sense. There was an incident a few years ago where a group of kids mercilessly attacked people on the transit. This kind of thing can’t happen if the city wants people of Denver to use RTD. Denver isn’t New York and Chicago, people are usually not going to solely depend on RTD but instead it’s just an option. If it becomes a safety concern even in the slightest, regular people won’t consider that option.
I’m visiting Denver and have taken the A train from the airport to Union Station a number of times. It’s usually been fine, but this time there was a drugged out weirdo that hopped on without a ticket and he bothered my son. I had to track down the security guard, if you want to call him that , who was in the car next-door and get him to boot that guy off the train.
a video about Denver that barely focuses on Denver. There’s only a cursory mention of Ghost Train, it doesn’t delve into what FasTracks promised, ie train to Boulder, or political decision making behind light rail routing, it doesn’t speak to actual successes of the program (A line, union station redevelopment), or talk about long term outlook for the region, ie front range rail, increased trains to the Rockies etc. But the content machine must be served
You are missing his point.......its not about Denver, its about mass transit being built without taking into consideration the needs of the population and how that is evolving in several places......skytrain in Vancouver has a train almost every few minutes, most of the day. If Denver or for that matter any other place has less than frequent service, the public will not use it......
@@derrickharvey295 who is missing Potato's point is you.
@@derrickharvey295 Vancouver is almosy 4x as dense as denver. The density of denver isnt gonna get you a nyc subway or vancouver system
Front Range Rail isn't happening anymore, Trump will cancel that REAL quick. It was only really going to be another case of "there we did a transit" anyway, the plan was to run Amtrak hand-me-downs on the existing single track freight corridor, which would mean 90 minutes to Boulder from Denver and having to wait for freight trains since BNSF still owns the ROW. The idea of Chargers pulling Airo sets at 110mph up and down the front range was always a pipe dream.
This is super common in just about every state. “If you build it, they will come “ doesn’t always apply. In NY, MTA opened a new link to grand central on the LIRR for a mere 11 billion dollars. No one is using it. On LI, not so nice bus took over operations of the bus system. They cut it down to the bone so bad that it’s basically unusable. Thank goodness we had some politician living near the N80 route-which they cut altogether. She or he made a stink about it so they put ONE-count em-ONE bus back on the route. Which means, by schedule, every hour and 5 minutes for a total of 4 trips in the morning, nothing between 11am and 330pm, and 4 trips in the afternoon.
I live in Denver, and in order to travel the 2-3 miles from Broadway/Baker to the University of Denver, where I'm a student, it takes me at least 1hr--sometimes more--due to how infrequently the buses and light rail come (not to mention I walk 15m to the light rail station).
Traveling that same distance on my bike takes 10 minutes! Due to weather and health issues, I can't always bike, but the astronomically high wait times make transit completely unviable for me. It is totally absurd how long it takes to travel such a short distance.
At least 20-30 times I've stood alone or in a huge group of people waiting 30m+ for the light rail to come (on its "popular" E and H lines). And service is still gutting cut back. I often have to take an uber. Waiting an hour is not worth $10. Again, this is traveling between two very high-traffic areas.
The worst transit of any city I've ever lived in.
There’s almost nothing I can think of that would lower the property value of my home than having a train station next door dude 😂
I live in Denver. I don't have a commute anymore, buy when I did, light rail wasn't much of an option. Denver has a housing crisis too, and has not prioritized availability of reasonable priced housing. We do have a huge number of self-storage buildings though. Perhaps that's old news now. Prioritizing high density housing next to light rail would make sense to me as long as they connect to shopping and employment centers.
Another issue is last mile connectivity. There needs to be more offices, industry, and entertainment near transit stops. Housing is needed near transit but jobs are also needed! Too many office parks, industrial centers, and universities in Denver aren’t near transit at all!
park and rides are what solve last mile. Uber/drive to the station, or bike. Housing neat stations doesn't do anything for people who live maybe 2-3 miles from the station
FYI highest ridership corridor in Denver is the commuter rail to the airport. Hxly it took 2 metro wide votes to build transit in Denver. Political considerations had to provide transit corridors for everyone and Aurora's R line (2d biggest city) was one of those considerations. The H line from Aurora to Denver became a more successful line, whereas the R connecting the Tech Center did not.
The problem is RTD. They love to spend money with no accountability. Hence, lousy maintenance, poor security, but plenty of raises for their executives.
The Denver government does not look to understand the problem, but to feel good that they "made" a "green" solution. Mass transit in the US does not work unless it works with speed (underground or aboveground)
Speaking of 30 minutes. TTC just switched nighttime 49 route to 15 minutes, and that makes for a big difference. Now if only Miway did the same for the 3 route...
Mass transit in the US is in competition with the automobile. People want freedom of travel on their personal schedules.
@@GlynFrench-n5w correct. absolutely correct. I of course have a car like pretty much every adult in America that isn’t homeless, and I will look on my phone map system and it’ll say that the deli that I want to go to RIGHT NOW is something like 11 minutes away by car and an hour and six minutes away by bus, or figures near that. It’s ridiculous. And that’s buses. Don’t even get me started on “the Metrolink” in St. Louis. If I wanted to die, I would just drown myself in a bathtub. I wouldn’t take the trouble to show up at a Metrolink station and ride that thing. 🤨
My experience when I lived in Seattle was if you eschew park-and-rides and build dense housing around your transit stops, you limit access to only people who can afford expensive luxury condos. Park-and-rides are the only way that the poorer people can access the system.
Park and rides are incredibly inefficient. Parking lots are an awful use of space. Believe it or not, those minimal density condos and apartments are cheaper than the 3 or 4 single family homes that would occupy the land. Land use in Seattle is bad enough, parking lots would not be better. The fact that the southern spur of Light Rail (the Federal Way extension) is going to use I-5 for right-of-way and rely on park-and-ride's essentially is repeating Denver's mistake.
@ I used to live there and never really got to use the light rail system because I couldn't afford to live close to it and there weren't park-and-rides or decent feeder bus routes. (Metro and Sound Transit being different agencies meant schedules never even remotely lined up.) Light rail might be efficient at moving people but what it really excels at is gentrification -- nothing drives up rents like a rail station. You can talk about theoretical efficiency all you want, but I f you have to be rich to access it what's the point? Rich people don't ride public transit anyway.
Yeah but at least the light rail in Seattle has subway stops in dense neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and the U District, and growing neighborhoods that are fulfilling their urban potential like Roosevelt and Beacon Hill. The 1 Line in Seattle actually does pretty well and the reason is the station locations within the city at least are actually pretty good. The same cannot be said about Denver and most other light rail systems in the US. Also, the grade-separation in Seattle definitely helps.
@@MrBirdnose i mean if you intentionally don't want to understand that renting an apartment is cheaper than renting a house, you can lie about how light rail "drives up rents".
@@From.the.408They just knock down older, cheaper buildings to put up luxury towers.
The problem is you have to keep Denver a place people want to visit. Good job Johnston.
We avoid going into Denver for anything!
I’m in one of the Denver suburbs who rides the train for college and it’s almost always empty.
9 times out of 10 I’ll end up with an entire row all to myself.