Northwest Rail Public Meetings

There are going to be three public meetings about the draft Northwest Rail plans. This is the commuter rail line that is proposed to connect downtown Denver to Longmont, with stops in north Denver, Westminster, Flatiron/Broomfield, Louisville, and two stops in Boulder.

All meetings will have an open house that will be ongoing throughout the meeting and two presentations followed by question and answer sessions at 6:30 and 7:30. (How they are going to fit the Q&A sessions into less than an hour, I don't know. They will probably ignore everyone they don't agree with, as they usually do.)

Thursday, March 11

Longmont at the Civic Center at 350 Kimbark Street

The Civic Center is one block east from Main Street.

Regional buses J,L, and Bolt run down Main Street. Get off at the bus stop near the wear the road widens near the Used Book Emporium. Local bus 323 also serves this stop.

Local buses 326 and 327 also run close by.

Wednesday, March 17

Louisville at Louisville Middle School at 1341 Main Street.

This is near the intersection of Main Street and South Boulder Road.

There is a DASH stop in front of the school. It is also possible to walk to the school from the final stops of the 228 and Lynx buses by walking north along Main Street.

Thursday, March 18

North Denver at Hodgkins Elementary, 3475 W. 67th Avenue

The meeting is in Denver near the border with Westminster, so this is the meeting for Adams County folks.

Both the 31 and 72 buses stop nearish to this meeting. The closest stop on the 72's route is near W. 68th and Lowell. Walk east on 68th to get to the school. The closest stop via the 31 is between 66th and 67th. Walk west on 67th. The entrance to the school may be on Irvine, based on the google map on the area.

The draft Environmental Evaluation for the Northwest Corridor is being released tomorrow. It will be available at libraries in the northwest metro area and online through the FasTracks website.

I hope a lot of people go. I especially hope that people ask to have the stops be accessible to walkers, bikers, and bus riders. Sometimes it seems that FasTracks is being oriented to car owners who occasionally take the bus.

Some History of the Fight for Pay Equity

Lucy Randolph Mason was an early supporter of pay equity. During her tenure as the General Secretary of the National Consumer's League, she lead a protest against discrimination in federal jobs. The 1935 Recovery Act stated that women who worked for the government were to be paid 25% less than men doing the same job. The people who thought up this legislation probably thought they were being progressive as 75 cents on the dollar was better than most women did in non-government jobs at the time. In fact, it was better than most women did until quite recently.

The National Consumer's League thought differently. They thought that slightly less crappy was not good enough. They thought that the government pay should only be based on merit and on the work done, not on race or sex.

RTD, Denver area's transit agency, used to have one of the best records when it came to hiring women of all the transit agency's in the US. Which is to say it was pretty dismal, but not completely ridiculous. I wonder what it is now. Most people in RTD's planning department, like most transit planners in the US, are white men. This limits the experience that the planning department has to draw on, and it indicates that there are limits on the jobs that women can reasonably pursue.

(Since this blog is supposed to present a feminist perspective, I thought that I would write something overtly feminist.)

Why do trains in the US have higher status than buses?

Or Why Some People Don't Like Trains

Yesterday I read a book that helped me understand why trains in the US are considered to be higher status than buses.

It explained that back in the 19th century when there were few methods of transportation available to people, the railroads in the West deliberately did not build enough capacity so that they could keep prices high. They marketed themselves to the wealthy and the upper middle class. People in the middle class traveled by stagecoach, in some areas until the 1920's, with some rare long-distance trips by train.

I want to repeat, for some people the car replaced the stagecoach, not the train.

In addition, the main train company in the southwest competed agressively to put local businesses out of business. They prohibited local companies from advertising in their stations, in some cases lobbying for laws that prohibited local advertisements within sight of their stations. The Harvey company took care of train travelers and charged hefty rates for doing so. Harvey Hotels were clean and comfortable and Harvey Restaurant meals were produced in clean kitchens and were fast and filling. Both cost many times their nearest competitor.

This started to change after World War I as the railroads lost more and more of the upper middle class. But the railroads could not change fast enough, and in many regions people simply did not like the railway companies.

More on Why This Blog

Lack of information is a serious barrier to people using public transportation.

Especially since so many transit stops are badly designed. Browne Molyneux is putting together a list of all the bus stops in LA, evaluating them for safety and ease of use. She has already posted about a dangerous stop and documented LA Metro's tendency to put bus stops between the exits and entrances of drive throughs.

Madison, Wisconsin might be a stop on a high speed train line. The station for the that line might be downtown and it might in the "Eastside", where ever that is. Hopefully, Madison gets a train, and hopefully the people taking it know where they are going to end up. (From a comments on a Political Environment post.)

People are more less likely to use transit if they know about the downsides ahead of time. But those people who start to use transit are more likely to keep using transit if they know the challenges ahead of time, and have a plan to overcome them. Also, citizens are more likely to put pressure on transit agencies and politicians to fix obstacles that have been documented.

Side Effects of Riding the Train

My mother's uncle became a dairy farmer after seeing dairy cows from the window of the train from New York to New Haven. He then convinced my grandfather (his sister's husband) to start raising dairy cows too.

The train, now called the Northeast Regional, still runs from New York to Boston.

Taking transit opens us up to new possibilities.

Diridon Station, San Jose, CA

Of Interest: downtown San Jose, historic San Jose, HP Pavilion

Lodging: yes

Tourist Office: no

Safe at Night: so-so. Lots of people get on and off here, so you won't be alone. However, the surrounding parking lot creates lots of deserted space to walk through, and I wouldn't describe San Jose as a low crime area.

There is a good map of the area on the Transit Unlimited Wiki. Map of Diridon Station

The station is close to two hotels, both locally owned. The Arena (to the west) is a locally owned budget hotel while the Hotel de Anza is more upscale and dates from 1931. Both are on the same road, although this road is called The Alameda to the west and Santa Clara Street to the east. There are also hotels to the southeast of the station.

Santa Clara Street will take you into the heart of San Jose which itself is the heart of Santa Clara County. The current downtown is to the south of the street while the area where San Jose started is to the north. The downtown is made up of office buildings and public spaces. There is a farmer's market every Friday from May to December. Its route starts at Santa Clara and connects the modern business centers with the old San Jose.

The VTA, San Jose's light rail system, runs through downtown. There is also a light rail station near Diridon Station. The system connects most of the area, including Silicon Valley. Local planners think that there would be more riders if the trains went a little faster, but I the distances in a car-oriented environment are more of problem. One of the busiest stops was within easy walking distance of a supermarket near stops that serve residential neighborhoods.

Diridon Station itself is a major rail hub. Amtrak, Caltrain, and ACE all serve this station.

Amtrak's Capitol Corridor starts here seven times a day. It takes one hour to get to Oakland and three hours to get to the terminus at Sacramento. The Coast Starlight runs through here in each direction once a day. This line starts in Los Angeles, 10 hours away and runs right along the coast before arriving in San Jose. From San Jose it follows the route of the Capitol Corridor to Sacramento before heading on to Portland (20 hours) and Seattle (24 hours).

Caltrain goes north from San Jose to San Francisco which is two hours away. Caltrain connects with the BART if you need to get to the airport. One train in the morning comes into San Jose from Gilroy (forty-five minutes away) and one train goes back in the evening. If you need to get to Gilroy at other times, you can there are buses. Trains are frequent during rush hour, hourly at other times.

The Altamont Commuter Express (ACE) runs a two hour commuter route to Stockton. Three trains come into San Jose in the morning and three trains go back out in the evening on workdays.

San Jose Station was named the Diridon Station in 1994 in honor of former Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon, a long-time California rail supporter.

Sacramento, CA

For the first time, I am moving a post from my old blog that has a picture. Yeah!

Of Interest: downtown Sacramento, old Sacramento

Lodging: yes

Tourist Office: yes, in old Sacramento

Safe at night: yes, but watch out for traffic

There are two hotels close to Sacramento Station, but the city makes it a little hard to walk their direction. The hotels are in front to the station to the right, but to cross the street in front of the station, you have to go left from the station. In fact, just to start going in the general direction of the hotels, you have to cross the street three times. You need to cross the street in the crosswalk because the street in front of the station is an entry way to the highway. The cars drive fast, so you need the lights and the crosswalk to keep from dying horribly.

The two hotels nearest the station are to the south of the west part of the station area. Old Sacramento is to the west on the other side of the highway. There is a pedestrian underpass to the south near the Holiday Inn. The historic buildings of Old Sacramento mostly contain restaurants and shops, but the California State Railroad Museum, the Sacramento History Museum, and the Schoolhouse Museum are also on these historic streets. Other museums are located in downtown Sacramento.

Downtown Sacramento's buildings are not as old as those in old Sacramento, but many have some history and are quite attractive. The Capitol is in this area as are multiple office buildings. There are several hotels in this area, the closest of which is about a half an hour's walk from the station.

Luckily, the hotels.com page is accurate for Sacramento. Just look for the Amtrak link under Landmarks.

One of Sacramento's light rail lines stops at the station. Unfortunately, not many people in the area seem to know where it goes.

Sacramento is the last stop for most of the Capitol Corridor trains. The city is three hours from San Jose (7/day) and a little less than two hours from Oakland (16/day). Once a day the train continues on to/comes back from Auburn, an hour away. There are regular thruway buses to Roseville, Rocklin, and Colfax as well as Auburn.

The California Zephyr (to Reno, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Chicago) and the Coast Starlight (Los Angeles to Portland and Seattle) stop here once going each direction daily. Both these trains cover the Capitol Corridor route, although neither stops in Auburn.

Practical Information about Traveling in the Seattle area

The Seattle Transit Blog has a lot of practical information about using transit in the Seattle area.

One post is about traveling from Seattle, WA to Vancouver, BC by municipal bus including how to walk from the the bus on the US side through customs to the bus on the Vancouver side. Even if you would never take this kind of trip, it gives the reader a sense of the kind of bus service available in northwestern Washington state.

(Note: There is an Amtrak bus and an intercity bus that makes this trip, although they are both more expensive.)

Today's post is about changes in the morning schedule of Sound Transit trains, improving service in the morning. Notably this change is happening in between printings of the train schedules. So currently the online schedules are correct, but the printed brochures are slightly off.

I think that it is good that Sound Transit is flexible enough to make changes as needed, but visitor and new residents should be aware that they need to check online if minor schedule variations could cause them problems.

The comments can be as interesting and informative as the posts. One poster pointed out that the first train of the morning runs slow because it is checking for obstructions and problems with the track. Of course, the site has at least one resident curmudgeon. (I don't want me tax money going to any line I don't personally ride. Grr.)

Reno, Nevada

Of Interest: Casinos, river walk, University of Nevada, downtown Reno
Hotels: yes, cheap during the week if you can avoid the temptation of gambling
Tourist Office: I got a very good map somewhere and I don't think that I got it at the hotel

Safe at Night: There are no night trains, but the area should have lots of pedestrian traffic at all hours. The station itself is well-designed, pedestrian-oriented without spooky corners.

The first time I took the train from San Francisco to Denver, I stopped in Reno. I like trains, but I don't like to spend days on a train. The California Zephyr has started to run on time lately, but in 2007 you never knew when you were likely to get to your destination.

Hotels.com has gotten much more accurate in the last couple of years, but at the time the website told me that the Sands was the closest hotel to the Amtrak station. They are not, but they are cheap and they have a really great traditional diner on site. The station is in the middle of the casino area which is like a little Las Vegas. One of the fancier casinos is right across the street from the train station.

Reno is cool because you can walk out of the little Las Vegas to the downtown of a nice Western town or to a funky university area. Everywhere I went was very walkable. The Truckee River runs through downtown Reno and is accessible to bikers and pedestrians.

If the California Zephyr ran a little faster and more than once a day or if the Capitol Corridor extended out further, Reno Station would be a good transit center for people in the area.

As it is, one west-bound and one east-bound California Zephyr stop in Reno each day. All trains are scheduled to stop during the day. Sacramento is five hours away to the west. There are also thruway buses that connect to the Capitol Corridor. Those buses get to Sacramento in three and a half hours. (The crappiest trains in Korea go about the same speed as cars and buses if not faster.) The route continues on to the coat of the San Francisco Bay area and ends at Emeryville.

Salt Lake City is ten hours away to the east. In that direction, the train continues on to Denver, Omaha, and Chicago.

You can check recent on-time performance of the California Zephyr at Amtrak Delays. Train 6 is eastbound; train 5 is westbound. If the train is running on time, it is a cheap and pretty trip coming from the west, and cheap and saves you a hotel night coming from the east.

"A response to why cars and planes are better than trains" by George Robertson

1. Airports are single pupoose expensive and quite dangerous (9/11), Freeways aresingle purpose, expensive and quite Dangerous 40,000 fatalities annually (As if Al Quaida succeeded a little over once a month)

2. Planes go where they want but landing is mainly done at airports,  we call it crashing when it is not at an airport.  Cars, Trucks and Buses mostly confine themselves to roads.

3. Flying before or after your scheduled flight is very expensive, very energy intensive, or very very tiring. 
Cars do leave when they want, but they are very energy inefficient, and you have to drive.  You cannot read or work or relax and have dinner with four interesting people you just met on the train while you travel.

4.  Getting off the plane between airports is generally fatal.  
You can get out of the car where ever you want, but they are very energy inefficient, and you have to drive.  You cannot read or work or relax and have dinner with four interesting people you just met on the train while you travel.

5. But trainsets are modular and as a result they can be easily sized to fit their load, unlike both planes and cars.

Furthermore.... Did someone propose having only trains?

Buses are more flexible....but they get stuck in traffic, , are much much smaller and carry a tiny fractionn of the number of people and and much less freight, They cannot reach half the speed that modern trains can for longer trips.  they are handy for getting to the train however and you don't have to park.

Cars are more.....but they are very energy inefficient, and you have to drive.  You cannot read or work or relax and have dinner with four interesting people you just met on the train while you travel.

Why not make a better automobile engine....yes why not do that? you get right on that.  I'm going to take the Train to LA while you work on that and  I'll read a couple of novels. meet and dine with about twenty strangers on the way and have a thoroughly wonderful trip.

(Reposted here because the original disappeared from Ideas for Change: Rebuild American's Rail System. George Robertson has his own blog, Khyimo.)

Buses vs. Trains (unfortunately)

Obviously, I love trains. I would not have started this blog or my Asian one if that was the case. However, I am disturbed by the attitude exhibited by some train supporters in the US, particularly the way some people look down on bus riders. A good transit system serves walkers, people who take the bus, bikers, and people who take the train. In fact, some people do all four.

In most successful transit systems, buses carry many more people than trains. Buses are more flexible and can be used to carry people to and from dispersed locations. Trains are a cost effective way to carry large numbers of people who want to along the same route.

It is especially interesting that some Americans think that trains are inherently more classy than buses because in Korea the opposite is the case. The chattering classes take buses, especially the intercity kind, while trains are for people trying to save money, the disabled, and environmentalists. The truly rich drive.

National Association of Railway Passengers

Curious about how you can support rail in the US? The National Association of Railway Passengers offers ways to take action with other people. The NARP is also a great source of information.

Here is a short video that NARP put together to inform people about the benefits of rail.

another bookstore

Someone commented on my original post about Denver which told readers about the Tattered Cover bookstore in downtown Denver. This commenter mentioned another bookstore that is accessible by rail, the Eliot Bay Book Company in downtown Seattle, Washington. The King Street Station serves this area. Amtrak and Souter Commuter Rail stop in two parallel stations.

What are smoke stops?

Smoke stop

You cannot smoke on any Amtrak train, but some people, including some Amtrak employees, are smokers. And some of Amtrak's routes last multiple days. So every so often on the longer routes, there are stops that are longer than the others, so people can get out of the train and walk around and, yes, smoke. Always stay within earshot of the train, in case there is something wrong with your watch or you heard the wrong time to come back.

There is one exception to the rule that you should never be out of earshot of the train station. That is if the train is early. The longer routes have extra time built into their schedules in case something goes wrong. But some routes, such as the Southwest Chief, are running on improved track and with improved overall operations and they have fewer delays than they used to. The trains will not leave a stop early, so passengers sometimes get to explore places like Albuquerque. You should be back in the station area ten to fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure or when the conductor has told you to be back, whichever is earlier.

Do not ever get off the train at a regular stop. Ever. They will leave you behind. (By the way, this is true in France, and Korea, and Japan and every other country that has trains.)

Glenwood Springs, CO

Of Interest: The Hot Springs Pool, scenic location

Lodging: hotel next to the station, other hotels within walking distance

Glenwood Springs is famouns for its outdoor hot springs and its beautiful location in the Rocky Mountains. The station is on 7th Street, which is where Glenwood Spring began. The historic Hotel Denver is right next to the station. There has been a hotel on this spot since 1915 with the present hotel dating from 1938.

Most of the town has since moved to the other side of the river. It sounds like walking over an interstate would be inherently dangerous, but the bridge is pedestrian friendly. Close to the other side is the Hot Springs Pool, the most famous hot springs in Colorado. It is actually two pools. The larger is two blocks long, and its water is 90 degrees. The smaller is 104 degrees.

Glenwood Springs is six and a half hours from Denver and nine hours to Salt Lake City via Amtrak's California Zephyr. All trains arrive and depart in the early afternoon.

Grand Junction, CO

Of Interest: downtown Grand Junction

Lodging: two within walking distance, two by shuttle bus

Tourist Office: no, but there is a map on the wall and a shop selling local products

I went through Grand Junction recently on a trip from California to Denver. Grand Junction is a smoke stop, so I had a little time. I spent about half at the local products shop and half walking around the station area. The road that the station in on is at an angle to downtown, so you have to walk five-ten minutes directly toward the downtown area before you can see anything. From the station it looks like a typical midwestern town, except you don't get to most midwestern towns by going through some of the most beautiful valleys in the world.

According to its website, downtown Grand Junction is notable for its galleries, outdoor sculpture, and restaurants with patio seating. According to hotels.com, there is a convention center downtown, and two hotels within walking distance of the station. (Hotels.com is really inconsistent about the cities that list the Amtrak station as a landmark. It is good that Grand Junction's station is listed, it would be better if stations were considered landmarks in all the cities that have a significant number of hotels near their stations.) There are also two hotels that will send shuttles to the station. Both are near the interstate (I-70), so I wouldn't recommend them. But it is unlikely that anyone would get stuck without a place to stay.

In the station building itself, there is a restaurant and a local products shop. Excellent fruit is grown in the local valleys, and I bought some apricot jam. Readers of my Asian site will know that I am a sucker for good jam. There are a wide variety of food products, both locally made and snacks for the journey. There are also books and postcards of the local area, including a guide to the California Zephyr, the train that passes through this town.

A train in each direction (east/west) arrives once during the day. Both Denver and Salt Lake City are about eight hours away in opposite directions. The Zephyr continues on to either Chicago or the San Francisco Bay area, obviously depending on the direction that you are going.