Guide to Businesses near Light Rail

The Light Rail Network website has maps of businesses around light rail stations in multiple cities. There are also links to rail related news stories.

RTD-Denver is having public meetings about August service changes

The proposed changes are at http://www.rtd-denver.com/PDF_Files/Service_Proposals/currentReport.pdf.

There are no public meetings in most of the areas that are actually seeing service cuts. If you can make it to one of these meetings, please go.

Here is the schedule:

Friday, May 28

Downtown Denver - 2 meetings - 12 pm and 5 pm

RTD Administration Offices, Room T&D

1600 Blake

This meeting is right next to Market Street Station. Almost all Denver local buses go downtown as well as most regional ones.

Westminster - 6pm

Westminster Recreation Center

10455 Sheridan Boulevard

The 51 and the 104 serve the Rec Center, although be careful of the time if you are taking the 104. The last bus runs by Sheridan at 7:13.

Tuesday, June 1

Denver Tech Center - 12pm

Hyatt Regency DTC

7800 East Tufts Avenue

The 65 goes by the Hyatt.

Wednesday, June 2

West Denver - 5:30 pm

Cowell Elementary School

4540 W. 10th Avenue (10th and Vrain)

The 9 goes near the school, but the last bus passes at 7:40, and buses may not serve the nearest stop after 6:26.

Thursday, June 3

Green Mountain - 7 pm

Green Mountain High School

13175 West Green Mountain Drive

The 21 goes by the high school.

Louisville - 7 pm

Louisville Recreation Center

900 Via Appia Way

The 228 goes by the rec center which is also a 5-10 minute walk from the DASH.

South Federal - 7 pm

Athmar Recreation Center

2680 W. Mexico Avenue

There are no bus stops near this location. The nearest bus is the 30 which is about a ten minute walk away. The 14 may also be within walking distance.

Stapleton - 6:30 pm

Stapleton Foundation

7350 E. 29th Street, Suite 300

The 28 is the nearest bus. Tthe 38, 40, 43, 65, 73, 88, 105, AB, and AS all stop at the Stapleton Park-n-Ride which is within walking distance.

Friday, June 4

North Federal - 7 pm

Escuela Tlateloco, Community Room

2949 Federal Boulevard

The 29 and the 28B stop close to here. The 32 is also within walking distance. (Note: The 28 crosses Federal at 23rd Avenue.)

Monday, June 7 - note this meeting was added later

Longmont - 7 pm

Longmont Senior Center

910 Longs Peak Avenue

The Longmont Senior Center is on the 327, the route that is scheduled for cuts. The last bus of the day passes at 6:20. If you are taking the bus, your best bet is to take the bus to Main Street and then walk. Longs Peak Avenue would be 7th Avenue if it was numbered

Restore the North Coast Hiawatha

The North Coast Hiawatha ran from Chicago through Minnesota, southern North Dakota, and southern Montana to Seattle. Amtrak estimates that this route would have over 350,000 riders a year and is currently looking for sources of funding.

Among other places, this route would bring service to the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana. Students there have created a petition, and if you are in one of the states that would be served by this route, you can sign here:

Petition to restart the North Coast Hiawatha

The Bring Back Amtrak website has a map of the proposed route and proposed actions. As more and more people leave cars for other forms of transportation, we need to start moving those subsidies as well.

Federal Railroad Administration is holding public meetings

The Federal Railroad Administration has issued its Preliminary National Rail Plan. You can download the plan at http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RailPlanPrelim10-15.pdf. The FRA is accepting comments until June 4, which also happens to be the date of their last public meetings. You can submit comments online at http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#docketDetail?R=FRA-2010-0020.

Here is the schedule of meetings that I have so far:

19 May - Kansas City, MO

20 May - Atlanta, GA

26 May - New York, NY

3 June - Salt Lake City, UT

4 June - Portland, OR - at the Benson Hotel, 309 SW Broadway from 1-5 pm

If anyone has any more specific information, I will publish it here.

I hope that someone from each city monitors the comments and makes sure that Congress and the FRA takes them into account. I may be able to go to the Salt Lake City meeting, if I can find out where it is.

(I am depressed about the state of the world today.)

More ways to reuse old tickets

Here is another idea for a fun way to recycle your old transit tickets from The North by Northwestern, a blog about student life at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. This is for those of us who have a lot of old tickets or transit cards.

52 old tickets. Julia Gang suggests making a deck of playing cards. She used CTA (Chicago) cards, but Washington, DC transit cards actually would actually work better. For those who are also readers of my Asian Trains blog, so would Korean train tickets.

You can also make an UNO deck. I think you may be able to do this with only 40 cards.

Julia even has a clever idea for keeping your deck together.