I don’t think that Denver/RTD intended to make transit inconvenient, These stations and their apparent uselessness today was pretty much brought on by the era in which they were planned and developed. Denver’s transit system was designed and built through the 90s and early 00s as a park and ride system for the convenience of suburbanites. The idea was for suburban living, downtown working people to drive a few minutes to their local station, park,hop a train to Union Station or California/Stout and then walk or take the MallRide to their office. As a park and ride system, it worked very well, ample free parking, convienient connections within downtown. Obviously, Covid has drastically changed this office working/commuting Landscape, where far more people are working remotely and downtown Office jobs are dwindling. Also, people are wanting to have destinations for entertainment, eating, Drinking, working in the area where they live. These dynamics have made the park-and-ride model just not as feasible. I do agree the Denver/RTD has been very slow to catch up to these changing dynamics .
Great video, I will definitely be following your channel as a transit nerd originally from Denver. I don’t see access to the west side happening. I think as one poster mentioned, the people in that neighborhood don’t want anything to do with transit. Sadly, Denver is a weird mix of progressiveness yet very Nimby at the same time. I think this West neighborhood encapsulates the latter. But even if the neighborhood was all about transit, the cost of acquiring the land to build a connection or a tunnel would be prohibitively expensive for what may add 100 riders a day, best case. Now I do see the Eastside being developed in a similar fashion that you mentioned. RTD is slowly turning the page from having a park-and-ride oriented to having a TOD oriented system. There is some really impressive TOD going on just one station down at Belleview. On the A -line, Central Park Station will have much of its parking developed into TOD. I think if RTD sees success here (which I don’t know why they wouldn’t), that will set the stage for many of RTD’s parking footprint to be developed into useful TOD.
There are many stations along the RTD network that are developing and becoming more useful. It's crazy how right next to Southmoor is Belleview, which is becoming one of the best stations in the city. The Southmoor Park neighborhood denied transit access 20 years ago, I think there's a good chance that the neighborhood will allow it in the future.
Are you aware of the FRPR (Front Range Passenger Rail) & NW rail proposals? Yes, the train to Boulder & Longmont is still not available but it’s not dead. Also consider the station locations for the train vs the FF coach that is much more convenient to get into Boulder itself.
@@ttopero They missed their opportunity to build the B line as RTD when they didn't build it in the US36 median when they rebuilt 36 back in 2016. Now it will end up being a less frequent probably more expensive to build project as part of FRPR. FRPR to reach the potential the state wants will require massive federal investment to build an entire rail corridor with few if any grade crossings to achieve the 110-125mph speeds they want to run. There is real concern that they will just throw hand me down Amtrak equipment at the existing freight corridor and create a useless service that nobody but transit vloggers will ride.
The Contenenal theater has been vacant for a couple of years and can be bulldozed. (it makes me sad to see that cuz ive' seen a lot of movies there). The king Soopers is a dump, but is one of the busier grocery stores in the city. It should be rebuilt elsewhere on the property. I live near there, so if you need pictures let me know.
There's a reason why the neighborhood on the west side has no access to the station, that's what the residents of the neighborhood wanted, they NIMBYd access to the station to keep "undesirables" out of their neighborhood. And that pedestrian tunnel is probably a homeless camp at this point if it's like the other pedestrian tunnels near light rail stations. It's a station that should never have been built, it's in an inner suburb in a bad area for TOD
I definitely do not see the “never should have been built” logic. If for absolutely nothing else, given its proximity to hampden and monico, it’s absolutely necessary as a bus transfer station Could it have been built better? Absolutely..
Southmoor was a pre-light rail park n ride already owned by RTD. The original plan was to upgrade what was already there. it was one of the bigger PnR's in the area and made sense at the time.
Blows my mind that a city would build transit and then seemingly actively try to make it as inconvenient as possible to use.
Welcome to Denver, where our trains have the prerequisite of surviving a whole season of Wipeout.
I don’t think that Denver/RTD intended to make transit inconvenient, These stations and their apparent uselessness today was pretty much brought on by the era in which they were planned and developed.
Denver’s transit system was designed and built through the 90s and early 00s as a park and ride system for the convenience of suburbanites. The idea was for suburban living, downtown working people to drive a few minutes to their local station, park,hop a train to Union Station or California/Stout and then walk or take the MallRide to their office. As a park and ride system, it worked very well, ample free parking, convienient connections within downtown.
Obviously, Covid has drastically changed this office working/commuting Landscape, where far more people are working remotely and downtown Office jobs are dwindling. Also, people are wanting to have destinations for entertainment, eating, Drinking, working in the area where they live. These dynamics have made the park-and-ride model just not as feasible.
I do agree the Denver/RTD has been very slow to catch up to these changing dynamics .
Great video, I will definitely be following your channel as a transit nerd originally from Denver.
I don’t see access to the west side happening. I think as one poster mentioned, the people in that neighborhood don’t want anything to do with transit. Sadly, Denver is a weird mix of progressiveness yet very Nimby at the same time. I think this West neighborhood encapsulates the latter. But even if the neighborhood was all about transit, the cost of acquiring the land to build a connection or a tunnel would be prohibitively expensive for what may add 100 riders a day, best case.
Now I do see the Eastside being developed in a similar fashion that you mentioned. RTD is slowly turning the page from having a park-and-ride oriented to having a TOD oriented system. There is some really impressive TOD going on just one station down at Belleview. On the A -line, Central Park Station will have much of its parking developed into TOD. I think if RTD sees success here (which I don’t know why they wouldn’t), that will set the stage for many of RTD’s parking footprint to be developed into useful TOD.
There are many stations along the RTD network that are developing and becoming more useful. It's crazy how right next to Southmoor is Belleview, which is becoming one of the best stations in the city. The Southmoor Park neighborhood denied transit access 20 years ago, I think there's a good chance that the neighborhood will allow it in the future.
Wow, this is really interesting. Could you maybe talk about the B Line and the Northwest Corridor that never was?
Are you aware of the FRPR (Front Range Passenger Rail) & NW rail proposals? Yes, the train to Boulder & Longmont is still not available but it’s not dead. Also consider the station locations for the train vs the FF coach that is much more convenient to get into Boulder itself.
@@ttopero They missed their opportunity to build the B line as RTD when they didn't build it in the US36 median when they rebuilt 36 back in 2016. Now it will end up being a less frequent probably more expensive to build project as part of FRPR. FRPR to reach the potential the state wants will require massive federal investment to build an entire rail corridor with few if any grade crossings to achieve the 110-125mph speeds they want to run. There is real concern that they will just throw hand me down Amtrak equipment at the existing freight corridor and create a useless service that nobody but transit vloggers will ride.
The Contenenal theater has been vacant for a couple of years and can be bulldozed. (it makes me sad to see that cuz ive' seen a lot of movies there). The king Soopers is a dump, but is one of the busier grocery stores in the city. It should be rebuilt elsewhere on the property. I live near there, so if you need pictures let me know.
There's a reason why the neighborhood on the west side has no access to the station, that's what the residents of the neighborhood wanted, they NIMBYd access to the station to keep "undesirables" out of their neighborhood. And that pedestrian tunnel is probably a homeless camp at this point if it's like the other pedestrian tunnels near light rail stations. It's a station that should never have been built, it's in an inner suburb in a bad area for TOD
I definitely do not see the “never should have been built” logic. If for absolutely nothing else, given its proximity to hampden and monico, it’s absolutely necessary as a bus transfer station Could it have been built better? Absolutely..
Southmoor was a pre-light rail park n ride already owned by RTD. The original plan was to upgrade what was already there. it was one of the bigger PnR's in the area and made sense at the time.