Excerpts from an extensive article that Scot thinks is worth the read – especially since Denver thinks it can surpass Vancouver as a transit city. Lessons, too, for the transit referendum, which if it fails pretty much assures that Denver and other cities will pass us by.
Ten years ago, Denver’s new mayor (and current Colorado governor) John Hickenlooper began to ramp up a campaign to convince voters to approve an ambitious expansion of the region’s embryonic light rail network. … The plan, to add 121 miles of new commuter and light-rail tracks to the region, 18 miles of bus rapid transit lanes, 57 new rapid transit stations, and 21,000 park-and-ride spots, was approved 58-to-42, precisely reversing the results of the ’97 referendum. (The pricetag has since risen to $7.8 billion.)
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Washington attributes the approval of FasTracks, in part, to growing frustration with traffic congestion. An earlier program called T-REX (for Transportation Expansion) built not only a light rail line to the city’s southeast, but also widened Interstate 25, the region’s main north-south axis. Following the apparently immutable laws of induced demand, increased road supply led to increased traffic. Within a year, I-25 was just as congested as it had ever been. Voters, Washington believes, came to the conclusion that transit offered a better path.
Another key factor in the referendum’s success, Washington insists, was a concerted public relations campaign. RTD, supported by the Denver Chamber of Commerce and the Denver Regional Congress of Governments (DRCOG), launched a communications blitz which had them doing presentations in schools and city halls across most of the region’s 60 municipalities.
“From the start, we made it clear we weren’t competing with the car,” says Washington. “And we explained, to the average Joe, that for only four cents on most ten dollar purchases, he’d be getting a whole lot of new transportation.”
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By 2018, when all but one of the ten FasTracks lines should be completed, a metropolitan area with a projected population of 3 million, spread out over 2,340 square miles, will be served by nine rail lines, 18 miles of bus rapid transit, and 95 stations. Many argue it will turn Denver into the west’s most advanced transit city, vaulting it beyond better-known peers Portland, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, British Columbia.
“We’re witnessing the transformation of a North American city through transportation infrastructure investment,” says Washington. He foresees a not-too-distant future when Denverites will be able to access not only light and commuter rail but also RTD buses, B-Cycle bicycles, and car-share vehicles using a single stored-value fare card.
“You’ll wheel your suitcase out of Denver International Airport, ride the train to Union Station, and hop a Car2Go — or even a B-Cycle if you’re traveling light — to your house or hotel. All using one card.”
It’s a beautiful vision, if one undermined by an uncomfortable truth. Denver’s mode share for transit — the proportion of people who use buses or light rail to commute — is only about 6 percent. Contrast this with the Canadian city of Calgary, where a similarly sized bus and light-rail fleet operating in a similarly dispersed landscape draws in a mode share of nearly 17 percent. Even epically sprawled Atlanta and automobile-mad Los Angeles manage to achieve almost twice Denver’s per capita transit ridership. …
Will FasTracks make an appreciable number of people in Denver give up their horses — or their contemporary equivalent, private automobiles? The RTD is betting heavily that the answer will be yes. To achieve the transition, they’re planning on changing not only the commuting habits of Denverites, but also the DNA of Denver itself, making it into a far denser city.
It’s a multi-billion-dollar gamble not only on the future of transportation, but also on the future of the American metropolis — one whose outcome other cities will be watching very closely. …
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Since the Great Recession, Denver has also become a hotspot for Millennials, knocking out such car-centric rivals as Phoenix and Atlanta. Members of Generation Y are less likely to own cars (or want to own them), and more likely to opt for transit or active transportation. They are also multi-modal by instinct: a recent survey found that 70 percent of those in the 25-to-34 age range reported using multiple forms of transportation to complete trips, several times a week.
All this bodes well for the future of FasTracks. RTD is counting not only on increased residential density around stations, but also the network effect — the synergy that happens when new transit comes on line, making more parts of a region accessible to more users — to drive ridership forward.
“The system is developing and merging,” says University of Denver transportation scholar Andrew Goetz. “The opening of Union Station is a major threshold. It’s the intermodal heart of the network, bringing together rail and the regional bus system. The connectivity we’re going to see as a result is going to be quite impressive.”
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The RTD has also reaped the rewards of regionalism. Rather than being forced to work with a variety of smaller agencies, RTD (like Vancouver’s TransLink and Portland’s TriMet) has authority over a large service area, allowing it to streamline the riding experience for users.
Denver’s reboot as a train town isn’t based on wishful thinking, or blind nostalgia for Gilded Age choo-choo trains. The engineers of FasTracks are well aware that Denver International Airport will continue to be the true gateway to the region. But as Kevin Flynn, an RTD public communications manager who drives me out the airport terminal worksite points out, once off the plane, travellers will be able to ride escalators down to a platform to trains that will offer access to an entire region.
“I think our riders will be pleasantly surprised by our commuter rail,” says Flynn “They’ll be able to roll right on to our commuter rail from the terminal, with bicycles, ski bags, golf bags, wheelchairs, strollers, or whatever they’re carrying.” …
By building a multi-poled system, RTD is tailoring transit to the contemporary metropolis. Crucially, by building it in conjunction with high-density transit-oriented development, the agency is also scheming to change the very nature of the American metropolis.
That’s why, when it comes to the future of transportation on this continent, Denver may be the city to watch.
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