Denver’s Regional Transit District (RTD) has a tough decision to make. Should it spend under $300 million on bus-rapid transit and get an estimated 16,300 to 26,600 daily riders? Or should it spend $600 million to $700 million on a commuter train that is projected to attract 2,100 to 3,400 daily riders?
To officials in the cities of Boulder and Longmont, this is a no-brainer. Every other major city in the Denver urban area is getting a train, so therefore they need a train too, no matter what the cost and how few the riders. RTD’s general manager piously says, “we want to reach a consensus with the stakeholders,” referring to the fact that Boulder, Longmont, and other city officials only agreed to RTD’s multi-billion-dollar “SlowTracks” rail scheme in the first place on the condition that every major city would get a rail line.
While it seems absurd to spend twice as much money on a technology that will attract barely a tenth as many riders, the truth is that bus-rapid transit would perform better than trains in all of the region’s major corridors. RTD simply ignored that option in those other corridors, even when its own analysis showed that buses were better than trains (which it did every time RTD did a complete alternatives analysis).
The only reason buses were given serious consideration in the Boulder corridor is that there was no way to get train tracks into downtown Boulder. Instead, RTD’s original plan, approved by voters in 2004, proposed to use existing BNSF tracks that by-pass the heart of Boulder, continuing into Longmont while running BRT to downtown Boulder.
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As a result, some people hoped Boulder and Longmont would settle for BRT instead of rail. Fat chance. RTD’s “consensus” process has almost always resulted in the most expensive possible solution to any problem.
The fundamental problem, of course, is that rails don’t go where people want to go and are very expensive to build or move. Buses can go anywhere there are streets or roads, and do so for far less money and actually can carry more people per hour than almost any train. But buses don’t earn contractors fat profits and thus don’t provide huge contributions to political campaigns.
In 1990, before it began building rail transit, Denver’s transit system had the highest market share of commuters of any urban area in the Rocky Mountain West, while Las Vegas had the lowest. Since then, transit’s share has declined in Denver but more than doubled in Las Vegas, precisely because Vegas’s transit agency didn’t build any rail lines (the bankrupt monorail, which was privately funded, doesn’t count).
If RTD really wants to serve transit riders, it should stop all of its rail projects and focus on improving buses. In the meantime, Denver can serve as an example for other regions of what not to do.
That is a funny joke, Antiplanner! As if Boulder, Colorado, PC capital of Mountain West, could continue to exist if it did not get light/slow rail and solar powered latte machines.
I want to take an Ethnic Studies class at Boulder! Do you think you have to be an ethnic minority to teach it?
Ah Fastracks, the gift that keeps giving. So over budget and so underfunded that at this point they’re essentially crossing their fingers and hoping they can finish it a full generation later than promised.
@Antiplanner, have you looked at the Southwest LRT project in the Twin Cities? I think you’ll find a lot of interesting twists to it. I thought of it when mentioning the union aspect. In short, the plan has reached a point where it’s a Mexican stand off. In steps the UTU recently and puts out a press release or three and starts to essentially say that some much, much, much less expensive solution for the freight rail exists so officials should go ahead and build the line. What is that solution? We don’t know. They won’t tell us! Usually when people say “I know something that you don’t” but refuse to share the details of it, it’s not really true.
Man, I’m out of the loop. I thought the Fastracks decision to move forward with BRT was already made.
Just my opinion here, but living here in the magical land of Portlandia it’s become evident to me that urban rail has more to do with manipulating real estate development than actually building a transit system people will want to use. Just take a close look at where it gets routed and follow the money before and after it’s built.
JC, you are a suppressive. The Church of Light Rail has many followers in Portlandia. I am sure if the true mayor of Portland (Developer Homer Williams) heard your unkind words, it would make him sad. You see, many moons ago a terrible monster called “Suburbia” threatened Portland, and it was only by the sacrifice
of many of our tax dollars that the development gods were appeased. Everyday we send the street car around to please the development gods. Some say the streetcar runs on real dollar bills burned in its motor, but others say it runs on special rails that cost a lot per mile.
Seek forgiveness on the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability website.