Another 40 West Public Hearing

The 40 West Arts District Urban Design and Mobility Concepts document was adopted by the Lakewood Planning Commission on November 16. This document primarily deals with sidewalks and street and sign design. It is now a proposed amendment to the Lakewood Comprehensive Plan. To be become an actual part of that plan the document needs to be approved by the City Council of Lakewood. This is most likely to happen at the next City Council meeting on Monday, January 9 at 7 pm on the first floor of 480 S. Allison Parkway. Any decision will only be reached after the city council hears public comments, although it is unlikely that the document will not be accepted.

Anyone can attend City Council meetings in Lakewood. People who cannot attend can watch the proceedings live online at KLTV8. I believe that this station is also available to people who subscribe to Comcast cable TV.

Omaha asks its residents what their transportation priorities are

Recently the City of Omaha hired a private consulting firm to interview voters in Omaha over the phone about how they get around, how they would like to get around, and how they would like the city of Omaha to spend transportation dollars.

The study found that people want more transportation choices, they want roads to be maintained, and they want more money to be spent on sidewalks and other pedestrian infrastructure. 54% would like to spend less time in their cars, and 72% say that they have no choice but to drive as much as they do. 74% say that they would still prefer to drive even if they had other choices which still leaves 26% who would really like to be doing things differently. There are also lots of people who would like to usually drive, but maybe not always drive.

This post is based on a report (PDF) by Public Opinion Strategies, a public research firm with ties to the Republican party. That actually makes this report pretty convincing as the bias of the researchers would be to downplay support for public transportation. We can see this bias at work in the question where they ask voters in Omaha how much money should be spent on various forms of transportation. POS did not include public transportation in that question. They also conflated bus and pedestrian infrastructure even though voters obviously distinguish these two things. For example, sidewalks and pedestrian crossings are the second highest transportation priority for the people who took this study while bike infrastructure is the lowest.

On the other hand, the survey takers only asked people if they would support increasing funding for public transportation. 72% said they wanted public transportation to be increased, and 57% said that they would be willing to pay more taxes to do so. As far as I can tell, voters were not asked if they would be willing to pay more taxes to fund sidewalks or new roads.

I know that DRCOG did a similar survey in metro Denver, although I do not think think it was as extensive. I think that the people that they surveyed thought that walkability was very important, more important than for the people of Omaha. I would like to compare the two studies to see how they are different.

What Can We Do to Save the Southwest Chief?

Trinidad, CO

It is a good thing that people have started to organize to save the Southwest Chief because it looks like the entire route might be in danger. Congress has not given Amtrak the money that it needs to run its trains, so, as Fred Frailey points out, Amtrak may have to stop running some of its long-distance routes. He not only points out the five routes that lose the most money (Sunset Limited, Cardinal, Silver Star, Crescent, and Southwest Chief), he and commenters on his article point out that external factors influence how much a line loses money.

In the comments to Mr. Frailey's piece, people discuss both the fact that the Southwest Chief loses money because it is responsible for a greater percentage of maintenance of the track that it runs on than other long-distance routes, and the fact that the Cardinal and Sunset Limited both need large subsidies because not running daily only cuts a small portion of costs. Basically, there are fixed costs to running any route and to using any piece of track. If you double the number of trains that use a particular track, you do not double the costs to maintain that track. If you double the number of passenger trains that run on a particular route, you do not have to double the number of people that you need to hire to sell tickets and take care of passengers.

The Southwest Chief runs at 90% capacity through Colorado, so we can't sell more tickets to raise more money.

There are two things that we could do to increase revenue on this track.

For one, the states where this train runs could join together and fund a second daily train. Kansas is one of the states that is being asked to chip in to help fix the track, and so far they have not been very enthusiastic. Maybe that is because the Southwest Chief does not really work for the people of eastern Kansas. A lot of people get on the train for long-distance trips in Missouri which does not leave a lot of tickets for people in Kansas. And the train runs at night which means that it is not convenient for people who want to travel from Garden City to Hutchinson. A second train that would run through Kansas during the day would solve that problem. This would increase revenue more than costs.

We could also take action to increase freight on the line. If the BNSF abandons the line that runs through New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas, those states could encourage a Class 3 railroad to carry small loads of freight. It is my understanding that the state of Kansas already assists these kinds of carriers on other lines because they save the state money on road repairs. We could start looking into making it possible for refrigerated trains to run in Colorado which would make it easier to ship fresh foods, like cantaloupe, to market. Other states do so, why not us?


What do you think we should do to save the Southwest Chief and to make better use of the tracks that it runs on?

Going to Southern Colorado by Bus

Arrow/Black Hills Stage Lines runs a daily bus south from Denver Union Station to the following towns in central Colorado: Pine Junction, Grant, Jefferson, Fairplay, Buena Vista, Salida, Poncha Springs, Villa Grove, Moffat, and Alamosa. The Pine Junction stop is at the RTD Park-n-Ride, but RTD buses that run from here only run during rush hour. Also, it appears that the Fairplay stop is not actually in Fairplay.

This route starts in Main Street in Alamosa at 6:20 am, arrives in Salida at 7:50 am, and arrives at Union Station at 11:05 before continuing on to Denver's Greyhound Station. The afternoon bus leaves Union Station at 2:10 pm, leaves Salida at 5:20 pm, and ends in Alamosa at 6:45 pm. Currently, this bus runs daily; a roundtrip ticket costs $77.10. Tickets can only be bought online.

Passengers can transfer to buses for Gunnison or Pueblo in Salida.

I believe that the buses stop in front of Union Station rather than Amtrak's temporary station.

More Amtrak Trains Have Wi-Fi

Amtrak has extended its wi-fi service so that it is available on most trains in the northeast and in California. Please note that the wi-fi on the Coast Starlight is still only available for sleeping car passengers in their private lounge. Also note that speeds are severely restricted and some web pages are censored. Also, the connections are not secure. VPN's are only supported on some California trains.

Because the list of trains were wi-fi is available may change rapidly, I suggest that you check www.amtrak.com/wi-fi for a current list. This page also lists stations where wi-fi is available, but this list is way too short. I am finding that wi-fi is available at most urban stations. A few of them even offer secure wi-fi.

Please note that on train staff cannot help with wi-fi problems. Here is the add that Amtrak California produced to let people know about the improvements:

RTD Announces Town Halls After They Start

If you are in RTD districts E, F, H or M , you are out of luck. Those districts had their telephone town halls before they were actually announced. If you live in districts A or C, you might have seen the announcements that went out yesterday, the same day that the meetings happened.

If you are in the other districts, here is the schedule of the upcoming telephone conferences:

District I (East Boulder County/Broomfield) represented by Lee Kemp - Monday 12/5 at 6:15
District D (South Denver/Southeast Lakewood) represented by Jeff Walker - Monday 12/5 at 7:30

District N (Southwest Lakewood/Evergreen) represented by Bruce Daly - Wednesday 12/7 at 6:15 pm
District K (Brighton/Commerce City/Thornton) - Wednesday 12/7 at 7:30 pm

District O (Boulder/Boulder County) represented by John Tayer - Thursday 12/8 at 6:15 pm
District J (Westminster/south Broomfield) represented by Larry Hoy - Thursday 12/8 at 7:30 pm

District G (Centennial/Parker) represented by Jack O'Boyle - Monday 12/12 at 6:15 pm

District B (east Denver/north Aurora) represented by Barbara Deadwyler - Thursday 12/15 at 6:15 pm
District L (north Jefferson County) represented by Lorraine Anderson - Thursday 12/15 at 7:30 pm

To join a town hall, call 877-299-8493 at the specified time and enter code 19081.

I would be very interested to know if the number of participants increases for the later town halls.

Through Colorado Twice by Train (Another Guest Post)

Excerpts from Canyons, Curveballs and Cornfields

By Jim Loomis

Amtrak’s Train #4, the daily Southwest Chief, departs Los Angeles on time at 6:45 p.m., beginning a two-day, 2,200 mile journey to Chicago. I’ll be leaving the train at Kansas City, however, to watch the Boston Red Sox in a three-game series with the Kansas City Royals. It’s my annual summer indulgence of train travel and baseball.

As soon as the conductor collects tickets, it’s straight to the dining car for dinner. By the time I get back to Bedroom 2 in Sleeping Car 31, the bed is made up and waiting. San Bernardino is behind us, Barstow is just ahead, and all of Arizona slides quietly by during the night.

Dawn finds the Southwest Chief crossing a New Mexico desert. We’re in the land of mesas now, some off in the distance, others in our path and causing the train to slow as it twists and turns through canyons separating these massive obstacles. Many have Jeep-sized boulders scattered up and down their flanks.

Just after a leisurely breakfast in the dining car, the Chief eases to a stop at Gallup, New Mexico. The town’s main street – at least the one seen from the train – is a collection of small buildings of stucco or adobe topped with large signs, most promoting Indian jewelry and crafts. One offers a startling opportunity for one-stop shopping: “GUNS & LIQUOR.”

Today the landscape east of Gallup is a desert in name only for there has clearly been a lot of rain recently. The wild grasses are green, there are large pools of standing water, and the usually dry stream beds that crisscross the landscape are running with brown water. The train sweeps around a long graceful curve and passes a dozen horses, including two spindly-legged foals, who look up for a moment, then resume their grazing.

Lamy, New Mexico, is the station stop for Santa Fe, the state’s capital, and a dozen or so people get off. Santa Fe is quaint and interesting and very old, dating back to the Spanish explorers who settled here in 1607, more than a decade before the pilgrims stepped off onto Plymouth Rock.

Leaving Lamy, the train climbs up through Apache Pass, a narrow, twisting cut in the mountains with steep red-rock sides. Once through, we’re again crossing grassland, home to several small herds of pronghorn antelope. Off and on for the next several hours, a rutty dirt path runs alongside the tracks – the original Santa Fe Trail.

Near Trinidad, Colorado, four men on horseback are coaxing a dozen steers into the back of a large semi-trailer truck. They stop for a moment to watch the train pass and one lifts his dusty cowboy hat rather grandly in response to waves from passengers in the lounge car.

The Southwest Chief pulls into the Kansas City station on time the next morning. It’s only 7:30, but it’s already hot when I step off the train: well over 100 degrees without the hint of a breeze.

I’ve picked a hotel that’s within walking distance of Kauffman Stadium and it’s full of Red Sox fans decked out in Boston caps and T-shirts. Checking in just before me is a father and his young son who have come all the way from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to see their team. Three nights later, after the last-place Royals have somehow managed to win all three games, I encounter the two of them again in the hotel parking lot. The dad is trying to console his son. “I know you’re disappointed,” he says to the boy, “but you might as well get used to it.” Every serious Red Sox fan knows what he means.

My train-baseball odyssey resumes the next morning with a five-hour ride to Galesburg, Illinois, once again aboard the Southwest Chief. East of Kansas City is corn country, endless rows of man-high stalks running off to the horizon. The train is really moving now, over 80 miles an hour, flashing through a small town every ten minutes or so. Most are just clusters of a few weathered buildings, but the defining feature of each little community is the water tower, a huge tank perched on 100-foot-high legs and emblazoned with the name of the town it serves: Marceline, La Plata, Wyaconda, Argyle.

Where there’s corn there are birds: black and white magpies, ducks, swallows, and a swarm of small dark-feathered starlings darting in and out through the exposed rafters of an abandoned barn. And settled comfortably in some soft green grass not 50 feet from the tracks, a flock of Canada geese ignore the train as it thunders by.

Fort Madison is the Southwest Chief’s last port-of-call before leaving Iowa and crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois. From here it’s another hour to Galesburg, where I’ll stop for tonight. There’s a lot of history in these parts. Abe Lincoln and Steven Douglas held one of their debates on a street corner right here in Galesburg. A plaque in the sidewalk marks the spot.  

(After a stop to see the baseball field that inspired the film "Field of Dreams", Jim picks up the California Zephyr at Burlington, IA.)

Tonight in the dining car the table is shared with two sisters, both teachers from New York City enjoying their first cross-country train ride. Proving the theory that everybody has at least one interesting story to tell, it turns out that their father was the chief electrician at the old Polo Grounds in New York, home of the New York Giants baseball team until it moved to San Francisco. The older sister says her father installed some special wiring behind the center field bleachers which he thought could have been used for a signaling system to tell Giant batters what pitches were coming. Conspiracy theorists have suspected that nefarious plot ever since the Giants won the National League pennant in 1951 with a dramatic last-inning home run by Bobby Thompson, although Thompson and others in a position to know have always denied it.

Within minutes of leaving Denver the next morning, the Zephyr begins a slow, steady climb into the Rocky Mountains. Off to the right are the Flatirons, huge slabs of rock, mountains in their own right, that literally lean up against the Rockies.

It’s 275 rail miles from Denver to Grand Junction on Colorado’s Western Slope and along the way we pass though 43 tunnels. The longest, at 6.2 miles, is the Moffat Tunnel, boring through the mountains at an elevation of 9,000 feet. It’s the highest point of the Zephyr’s route and, when we emerge at the far end, we’ve crossed under the Continental Divide. Back on the Denver side of the tunnel, all the water flows east to the Mississippi River, eventually ending up in the Gulf of Mexico. From this point forward, water flows west toward the Pacific Ocean.

After brief stops in Winter Park and Granby, the train begins following the Colorado River, which will be off to the left for the next 100 miles or so. All along the way it’s dotted with people floating in a variety of watercraft ranging from elaborate inflatable imitations of double-hulled canoes to simple inner tubes. Many of the rafters cheerfully observe a time-honored tradition: they moon the train as it passes.

A mid-afternoon stop is Glenwood Springs where the gunfighter Doc Holiday came hoping his lung disease would benefit from the natural minerals of the springs. It didn’t and he’s buried here. This is a refueling stop for our twin locomotives and, although passengers are invited to step off the train to stretch their legs, the conductor warns everyone several times over the P.A. system against straying too far from the platform.

An hour later, with the Zephyr underway again, a man in his 40s tells the conductor he thinks his wife was left behind in Glenwood Springs. Sure enough, she’s paged several times with no response. With

Grand Junction still some 80 miles ahead, the husband is ping-ponging back and forth between real distress over his wife’s predicament and near-rage at her carelessness. The conductor shrugs. “It happens all the time,” he says.

I hit the jackpot for dinner companions tonight: a personable young film animator whose parents emigrated to Australia from Malta and a Japanese doctor doing research on organ donations in Boston. He, of course, has become a Red Sox fan and we happily exchange high-fives across the table. But the laws of probability are really stretched by the fourth person at our table: Keith Lewin, a 40-year resident of Kailua before moving to Las Vegas five years ago. Conversation flows all through dinner and it’s well past dark by the time everyone heads off to their respective bedrooms.

It’s still hot and dry the next morning, but no longer desolate. In fact, the vegetation is green and wild flowers – yellow and purple and white – are growing in profusion. There’s a lot more wildlife, too: jack rabbits, antelope, crows, more magpies, vultures soaring overhead and, floating placidly on a small lake, white pelicans. From his perch on top of a fence post, a large golden eagle glares at us as we pass. Cattle by the hundreds are grazing with heads buried almost out of sight in the tall lush grass.

By late morning, it’s all changed. The Humboldt River is alongside now, meandering westward through what has once again become hot, dry country. How hot and how dry? Well, a few miles from Reno, Nevada, the river simply gives up. It slows down, spreads out and quietly disappears into the desert.

After leaving Reno, the Zephyr crosses into California and begins climbing into the Sierra Nevada mountains. This is where the Donner Party – some 90 men, women and children – arrived from Indiana in 1846. It was late in the year, but they nevertheless attempted to cross the Sierras and were trapped

by heavy snows. By the time a rescue team reached them, more than half of the party had died. This stretch of the Zephyr’s route, overlooking the American River Gorge at an elevation of some 7,200 feet, is appropriately called Donner Pass.

Less than three hours later, the train has descended all the way to sea level and by late afternoon the California Zephyr reaches its final stop at Emeryville, just across the bay from San Francisco.

Jim Loomis has crossed the North American continent by train more than twenty times and is the author of All Aboard: The Complete North American Train Travel Guide.

Like Model Railroads?

There are two model railroad clubs in the basement of Denver's Union Station, the Denver Society of Model Railroaders and the Platte Valley & Western Model Railroad Club.

The Denver Society of Model Railroaders runs the Colorado Midland O Gauge Route which they have done for over seventy years. The public can watch them run trains on their 6500 square feet of track the last Friday of every month and during their open houses. The next open house is this Saturday (Dec. 3) from 2 to 5 pm. In their extensive space, the Colorado Midland represents several different eras as well as each region of Colorado.

The Platte Valley and Western Railroad invites people to join them every Friday evening although they do not run trains every Friday. On some Fridays they invite people to see how their setup is maintained. Their business meetings are also open to the public. When they do run trains for an open house, usually twice a month, they run a lot of trains, just like a real railroad would. Their holiday open house is going to be on Saturday, December 17 from 9 am to 4 pm.

People may only go into the basement of Union Station when the clubs are open. Open houses may be rescheduled or cancelled when Union Station is remodeled.

The picture above is from the PVWRR and the video below is from Colorado Midland.

How Much Will Losing the Tower Line Cost Us?

Four short-line railroads in Kansas save that state $49 million a year in road repair costs. The smallest of those saves the state almost $2.5 million annually.

I bring these statistics up because Colorado may be losing the last remnants of the Towner Line forever. The VS Railroad is in the process of buying the line, and there is evidence that they are buying it solely to tear up the tracks and sell them for scrap. VS has already stopped operating the line west of Eads which has caused Kiowa County to lose $6.5 million over the last three years. And the steel in the rails is worth more than what VS is paying for the line, so they may have little incentive to keep the line intact.

It also goes without saying that trucks do not have to fully fund the roads they go over, unlike rail companies which must fully fund their basic infrastucture.

But here is the thing, if we cannot afford to maintain this rail line, how are we going to find the extra money to fund our roads? How are we going to replace the tax revenues lost from the industry that we lose? What happens if there are not enough trucks to get our grain to market? Colorado needs to be expanding the ways that we move our food to market, not reducing them.

(I would like to thank Evan Stair of Passenger Rail Kansas for the Kansas stats. A variety of studies, but unfortunately not the one that provided my statistic, can be reached by going to the KDOT home page and clicking where it says "Rail Maps & Publications".)

Vindication by Train by Elia Fisher

It seems that more than ever these days nearly every person has a profound opinion about the state of our local, regional, and national affairs. The disquiet stems from Main Street to Wall Street, exists from the front lawn of my house to your house to the White House and all points in between. Public distrust of our central council and regional governments has been demonstrated on sidewalks, inside of beltways, overheard on the outside patio of coffee shops, and expressed over the airwaves of talk radio communities in almost every corner of the US.

Personal responsibility and proactive ownership on the other hand seems far less exercised. This, too, has been greatly demonstrated to the extreme by the American citizenry. From the occasional motorist sporting a “Pro-Life” bumper sticker on the back of his or her Ford Excursion while barreling carelessly down the roadway at high speeds to the self-professed libertarian who views “free” curbside parking as a non-government-subsidized public entitlement (like there is such a thing) to the anti-corporate, pro-tax human rights activists who demand impunity for undocumented immigrants to the hard working blue collar unionist who does all of his weekly shopping at a multinational big-box merchant, it seems that society is as equally rich in hypocrisy as it is in opinion.

Undoubtedly the biggest cause of pollution, human illness, social injustice, the weakening condition of our national security, our ever inflating health care costs, and our economic stagnation is America‘s love affair with the car. The impacts of the “private” automobile has been hugely ignored by the many modern Americans as equally as much as the many benefits of taking public transportation have been greatly overlooked.

Personally, I feel that the most powerful way to bring about change is to take unspoken action, like the lifestyle Christians and the Ralph Naders of this country tend to do. So where can the average person like me find a magic fulcrum for taking action and fostering great change in our country? Right at our front doorstep in the buses and trains that run in front of our own house or apartment.

A Gallup poll released earlier this year found that at least 3 out of every 4 Americans are highly concerned about “contamination by of soil and water by toxic waste”. This is in spite of the fact that many of them don’t mind or either don’t bother to care about their own heavy contribution to the rising cancer rates in many Canadian cities, towns, and villages that have been caused by the mining of oil sands. Canada is, after all, America’s biggest supplier of the crude that we use to fuel our automobiles. In several places affected by the steam extraction of the Athabasca oil sands, some cancer rates are 30% higher than the Canadian average. But I guess if it is not happening to us, we shouldn’t care, right? Well at least that seems to be the prevailing attitude. To me that is a prime example of the usual double standard.

Throughout the past decade, several US senators and house members have introduced bills calling for the issuance of an official apology to American Indians for the wrong-doings committed throughout the past. Strangely, these same lawmakers have recently and continually voted in favor of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the interests of big oil. Offering an apology for destroying an ancient, God-given lifestyle while simultaneously opening their land to exploitation is a moot gesture to say the least. Like many parents tell their kids, sorry is a sorry word- the best way to apologize is to refrain from repeating the guilty offense. Therefore if an elected official wants to truly apologize for the near extermination of the American buffalo and the resulting ultra-high diabetes rates and chemical addictions (also now linked to non-paleo diets) that are found among the today’s remaining indigenous Great Plains cultures, he or she should instead prove that they really care for aboriginal people by protecting the moose, caribou, and salmon that Alaskan Natives and Canadian First Nations still subsist on today. One way to do this would be to invest in a national train system instead of highway infrastructure and the billions of dollars worth of big oil subsidies that have gone along with it. Together with keeping oil companies out of the remaining traditional hunting grounds, this would be a sincere act of contrition.

And for you Tea Party activists out there, I am sorry to say that you have not escaped the scope on this one. Those of you who have criticized the government are often just as guilty of double standard thinking as the next guy over. As you often and rightfully suggest, nothing in this world is free. To exist costs money. And it would only be right to enact a tax strategy that lowers national spending and eases the taxpayer burden, right? Well, if you didn’t know, an investment is when you use capital to save capital. May I ask if you have missed the multitudes of independent studies throughout the last several decades that have proven rail’s cost effectiveness over air and highway travel?

There is a special magic in public transit that holds a golden benefit for everyone. I could go on and on about how taking the bus or train can improve the world in which we live, but instead I encourage you as an individual to look into the power that it beholds.

So in all the confusion it should be good to know that changing the world really is easy. Whether you are a private citizen with a bumper sticker on your vehicle that reads, “Live simply so that other may simply live”, or are an elected public official who is an extreme hardcore national security hawk, right now is your opportunity to mean what you say by exchanging your hippy hotrod Volkswagen or gas guzzling pickup truck for a transit pass. Actions speak far louder than words.

The next you want to help preserve the culture of an indigenous American community, limit your environmental footprint, or take a stand against a government that is hostile to western society, get out of your car and get onto a train. The time for concerned citizens to reevaluate the worth of public transportation is here and is way overdue.Just a simple observation from a commonsense independent voter.

RTD Customer Panel is looking for participants

Want to give your input to RTD and get free transit service? RTD is looking for participants for the 2012 Customer Panel. The RTD website describes this a discussion group, but I suspect that participants mostly fill out surveys and answer questions from RTD staff members. The group meets four times a year on Wednesday at 5:15 pm at RTD's offices at 1600 Blake Street. Participants get a Regional monthly pass for each meeting they attend. Participants who attend all four meetings get a free Eco Pass for all of 2013.

Application deadline is December 16. You can fill out an application online.

I just applied; I hope you do too.

Update: If you apply, you get two free Regional bus tickets.

Organizing to Defend the Southwest Chief

The City of La Junta is working to organize a grassroots effort to get funding to keep the Southwest Chief on its current route. That means keeping it in Colorado as well as in southwestern Kansas and in northeastern New Mexico to Albuquerque. The first meeting is:

Tuesday, November 10
2 to 4 pm
La Junta City Hall
601 Colorado Avenue
The meeting is happening at this time so that people can come from the east on train 3 and then go home on train 4. City Hall is five blocks south of the Amtrak station. Just look for Colorado Avenue when you leave the station area.

If this is a genuine grassroots effort, they should be able to find the money. Lakewood spent $7 million widening 4 blocks of road; I would much rather that we spent that money on something that I would actually use.

CDOT Survey

The Colorado Department of Transportation now has a brief survey online to help them set transportation priorities. Technically, the time to answer the survey ended last Friday, but since the announcement of the survey came out on Thursday, I am not too worried about that. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VZYMYTF You can then tell Stacey Stegman at stacey.stegman@dot.co.us or 303-757-9362 that you did.


I told her that most of the people with constituents do not care much what those people think.


What do you think CDOT's priorities should be?

What if Neither Proposal is OK?

6 pm, Thursday, November 3
Denver Union Station Historic Building Presentations
Colorado Convention Center, Rooms 201 & 203
700 14th Street, Denver
Light Rail: D, F, H

There are two competing proposals for the redevelopment of Union Station, both of which you can see in a couple of weeks. One by the Union Station Neighborhood Company and one by the Union Station Alliance. I cannot find any recent information about what the proposals will be, but it looks like Union Station Neighborhood Company is proposing a public market and restaurant and retail space with office space on the upper floors. Apparently, the Union Station Alliance is proposing a hotel for the upper floors with lots of retail on the ground floor. They are also proposing a lot of space for security.

I think that the public market concept looks better. There is more space given over to people who are taking the train and the services in the station are ones that train passengers would use. The more trains that run into the station, the more money that this concept can make. It creates an entity that might advocate for more long-distance trains to and from Denver as these are the passengers who are most likely to buy large amounts of food. It also might bring a farmer's market back to Union Station. In fact, this is the proposal that is the most flexible.

I am concerned about the hotel concept as boutique hotels are not usually successful near train stations because of the noise. There are a few large convention type hotels that are successful on top of train stations, but these are much larger than what is being proposed. Let's take the hotel over Nagoya Station in Japan as an example of a successful hotel in a similar price range to what is being proposed for Denver. First, the trains all run underground. Second, there are several stories of mall in between the train halls and the hotel. Third, more trains run into this station than will run into Denver, and they come from further away. Fourth, four million people live in the city of Nagoya. Small hotels near train stations with ground level tracks are usually cheap. I am concerned that putting a hotel in the station would create a reason not to put more trains into Union Station.

I am hoping that we do get something that allows people to buy groceries and relatively cheap takeout in the station, so the public market option looks to best.

How do you think we should use Union Station?

You can take the bus to CEC's Hoedown tomorrow in Palisade

Friday, October 21 6-11pm
CEC's Harvest Hoedown
Palisade Brewing Company
200 Peach Avenue, Palisade, CO
Cost: $18 (advance), $20 at the door, children 12 and under free
Bus: 4 to go (schedule is slowloading PDF), free shuttle to get back

The last 4 bus will take you to the Palisade Brewing Company where the event is being held, but how would you get back? Luckily the Colorado Environmental Coalition (CEC) is running a shuttle when the show ends at 11 pm. The shuttle goes to the Peach Tree Shopping Center in Clifton, the Safeway on F Road and 29th, the Ale House at 12th and Patterson, the Moss Performing Arts Center on the CMU Campus, and downtown Grand Junction at 7th and Main.

All tickets include bluegrass music by Waiting on Trial and a free beer. Buying online enters you in a drawing to win a CEC T-shirt and a gift-certificate for two beer-filled growlers form the Palisade Brewing Company. (You must be present at the drawing to win.) Dinner will be available for $9 and there will be a silent auction, mainly of travel good and outdoor gear.

This could be a part of a possible train trip. The journey from Glenwood Springs costs $36 round trip. You leave Glenwood Springs at 1:53 pm and arrive in Grand Junction at 3:57. Typically, this train runs a couple of hours late, so this might be a good option for a last minute trip if you can get out of work early. Watch the price though. The return leaves at 10:23 and arrives in Glenwood Springs at 12:10. This train is more likely to be on time. There are several hotels or B&B's in downtown Grand Junction and a few (more expensive) in Palisade.

And if you go to this by transit, make sure that you tell your elected officials AND the organizers of the event that you did. We need to get more funding for transit and we need to get the environmental organizations that we support to advocate for transit more.

We need to reduce car dependence to reduce poverty

Friday, October 21

Economic Opportunity and Poverty Reduction Task Force

Sister Carmen Center

655 Aspen Ridge, Lafayette

Bus: 225, L. The 225 may get you there a little late. The L will absolutely get you there late running both directions, although you may be better of missing the presentations.

The Economic Opportunity and Poverty Reduction Task Force will be meeting this Friday in Lafayette at the Sister Carmen Center, 655 Aspen Ridge from 2 to 5 for a meeting focused on poverty in Boulder County. The EOPR was created by the Colorado legislature in 2009 to create a plan to cut poverty in our state by half by 2019. They are not doing so well; poverty, especially child poverty, is up. Perhaps the length of the meeting is to make up for the fact that the group really has not accomplished anything so far. Hopefully, it is partly to let people influence the process.

The focus of the meeting will be to introduce people to the Circles Campaign. There is an hour of this.

There is also more than an hour of public participation as well, including both public testimony and small group discussion. I hope that someone brings up the role that forcing people to drive plays in creating poverty and the potential for poverty. Maintaining a car costs between $6-9,000 a year, and this is a cost that people in most other developed countries can chose to spend or not. In other developed countries it is unusual for anyone to lose their job because they can no longer drive or because of transit cuts.

Right now the EOPR has four committees: education, consumer protection, metrics, and employment. Housing does get some attention under consumer protection, but transit is nowhere to be found. If we are going to reduce poverty, we need to directly attack the things that make life in the US so expensive. This means looking at housing policy, industrial policy, and transportation policy.

(I would like to thank Megan Davis and Boulder County for letting me know about this meeting and for providing some of the information in this post.)

No local potatoes?

When I went to the store today, the peaches were from Utah rather than Colorado. This may have been because of climate; the peach season in Colorado was actually longer than usual this year. But I am often surprised at how hard it it is to get food that is grown in state. Potatoes keep all year and grow well in some parts of the state. I can get potatoes from Idaho and Michigan all year round, why not from Colorado? Do they all sell before the end of the season?

We cannot grow enough food here in Colorado to feed ourselves, our growing season is too short. Even states that have more farm-friendly climates import a lot of food because people in the US are used to having the same foods in their supermarkets year round. Most of this food is shipped by truck, and some fresh food companies are having a hard time finding trucks to transport their goods. This may be because higher diesel prices have made things harder for trucking companies, meaning that there are fewer trucks out there.

Whatever the reason, train companies, such as Railex, are filling the gap. Each Railex train takes 200 trucks off our highways which reduces traffic congestion, making all forms of transportation more reliable. It also means that the states that rail serves have a more flexible food delivery system. If food can't get where it needs to go by truck, a train can bring it before it rots.

Colorado is particularly dependent on trucks for our food. Some grain is shipped by rail, usually heading out of state, but vegetable and fruits usually come in by truck. Railex does not ship here.

Trains not only add depth to our transportation system, they have the additional benefit of being more environmentally friendly than trucks. A Railex train uses a third the diesel fuel that those 200 trucks do and produces a third the greenhouse gases. For companies like Albert's Organics, this is important.

But services like Railex need a certain kind of infrastructure to work. Tracks need to be smooth so that food does not get bruised in transport. The trains need to be able to go fast, more like passenger trains, so that the produce does not rot before it can be sold. The slow speed of a coal train does not work. There also needs to be the capacity to load and unload trains indoors. That I know of, these conditions can only be met in California, Washington, New York with a new distribution center coming in the southeast (North Carolina?). Illinois may have the tracks that can meet this demand, but may not have the proper warehouse capacity anymore.

How does this influence what foods we can get in our supermarkets? It means that farmers in the states of California, Washington, and New York know that they can distribute fresh foods and vegetables around the country, no matter what happens to our transportation system. It means that distributors operating in those states can boast about being environmentally sensitive and sustainable in a way that distributors in other states cannot. It means that it is always worth more to invest in agriculture in states with good rail infrastructure even when the climate and soil conditions are comparable (or even better) elsewhere.

It means that our uneven infrastructure promotes the centralization of agriculture. If we want a more balanced food supply, which includes being able to buy local when we are buying produce that grows well where we live, we need to have more consistent rail infrastructure. If rail in Colorado is only good for coal trains, that is the only thing that they will carry. And all the businesses that could benefit from good trains will go elsewhere.

City of Boulder Transportation Advisory Board

I have written a few posts about the Transportation Master Plan that Boulder County is developing, but I think is my first about a meeting by the city.  The City of Boulder Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) usually meets the second Monday of each month. This month they are meeting the third Monday, October 17 at 6 pm at the Municipal Building Lobby, 1777 Broadway, Boulder.

Each meeting starts with 45 minutes of public participation about anything that is not on the agenda. Then each agenda item gets its own comment period. In addition, the first agenda item next week is "Public Participation".

So if you want to have your say about transportation in the City of Boulder, next Monday would be the perfect time.

New Sidewalks Near Colfax?

Update: The plans for sidewalks and other urban elements in the 40 West art district will be presented at the next public meeting of the Lakewood Planning Commission on Wednesday, November 17 at 7pm in the City Council Chambers at 480 S. Allison Parkway. Buses 1, 3, and 76 stop underneath. Go up the stairs to the east and then go into the building to the south to get to the council chambers.


At the first meeting that I went to about the 40 West Arts District, a resident of the Two Creeks neighborhood asked, "Are we going to get sidewalks?" Perhaps the answer to that question is in the draft put together by the 40 West Arts District: Urban Design and Mobility Concepts (PDF).

Maybe. As you can tell from the title, this is not the clearest document in the world.  The various parts of the document do not seem to serve the same purpose. It is not clear what some of the pictures are supposed to be illustrating. One section says that there is no funding and no timeline, but there seem to be some funding sources later in the document. Planning jargon is used instead of plain English, including the deadly and undefined "improvements".

There is one example of jargon that is used well. That is "streetscape". This is not a word that I was familiar with and don't think it is one that many people use. But it is good that the planners in Lakewood are using it because it indicates that they are seeing streets from a human perspective. The section on streetscapes (p.10-14) is the most informative of the whole document. I would really like to hear what the neighbors want to have happen.

The signage described starting on p. 18 is good. Partly because the designs exist. Signs in many parts of the metro area are simply inadequate. These signs use the 40West logo well, and look like these are designed to be visible for people moving by car, by bike, and by foot.

If you live in the area, are a student at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, are interested in new arts districts, or likely to travel to the area once the new light rail station opens, you can tell the City of Lakewood what you think. Actually, this event is just an open house, but since the community process has been slightly hijacked by local persons of importance, it is always good to let the planning department know what actual citizens think.

Wednesday, October 19, 5-7 pm (come anytime)

Lakewood-West Colfax Business Improvement District

7125 W. Colfax Avenue, Lakewood

Bus: 16, 16L - among the metro areas most frequent buses

You can also attend meetings of the Lakewood Planning Commission. They usually meet  at 7 pm the first and third Wednesday of every month at the city offices at 480 S. Allison Parkway. The public meeting about streetscapes in the 40 West area is scheduled for Wedneday, November 16.

Want to Be on the FasTracks Citizen Advisory Committee?

Last month I attended a public outreach meeting of the FasTracks Citizen Advisory Committee. The committee sat together in a line at the front of the room at a cloth-covered table. After a video, members of the audience came up to a microphone and spoke. The entire meeting was recorded on video. When the video turned off at 8 pm, the meeting ended.

About half of the committee members spoke with the citizens who attended while the cameras were rolling, and a few seemed generally interested in knowing what the public thought. However, half did not ask anything while the cameras rolled and none of them interacted with the public after the cameras turned off. I am glad that I went because of the interaction that I was able to have with my neighbors and my elected officials, but I don't think that meeting achieved its stated purpose.

We have the opportunity to have a citizens advisory committee that is more "citizen". RTD is taking applications for this committee through Roger Sherman. Please send a brief statement of interest, specific qualifications, highlights of related experience and expertise, and a resume (if available) to roger.sherman @ rtd-denver or to Roger Sherman, RTD FasTracks Team, 1625 Broadway, Suite 700, Denver, CO 80202 by November 1.

More details about what the Citizen Advisory Committee does and the factors that lead to their selection are available at the FasTracks website.

Hopefully, we will see more actual citizens on the "citizen advisory committee." There are a lot of concerned citizens who want to make Denver and its surrounding communities a better place to live. And due to the bad economy, a few of them have more time that they used to.

RTD Public Meetings

The first public meeting about the proposed service changes was last Saturday with the second meeting tonight in Boulder. It is obvious from the extent of the service changes that RTD no longer has the money to run a decent system. It is obvious from the fact that it is asking multinationals instead of local citizens or businesses for advice about what to do that RTD is not going to be able to solve its financial problems on its own. We need to be calling our city council representatives and our county commissioners to make sure that our cities and counties are taking part in transit planning AND figuring out ways to get more money for transit.

A list of meetings by place and a list of changes by route number is on the RTD website. For some reason, the list of changes is no longer organized by service cuts, additions, and adjustments. You have to actually look up the bus routes that you take individually to find out if you should be concerned.

Here is a list of meetings by date with public transit information added.

Monday, October 3

7 pm

East Boulder Senior Center

5660 Sioux Drive, Boulder

Bus: 203 (Bus gets there about ten minutes late, runs hourly until 11. This route is being combined with the 225 in such a way that there may be cuts in service.

Tuesday October 4

9 am

Heather Gardens Community Center

2888 S. Heather Gardens Way, Aurora

Bus and Light Rail: The 130 is an eleven minute walk away and Nine Mile Station (H line) is a twenty minute walk according to Google Maps. Neither walk is easy to explain and neither may be safe. However, the 130 does run at least every half hour, and it is proposed that this road will get service if the changes go through. The H line currently runs every fifteen minutes although again this is a route that may be cut.

noon and 7 pm

RTD Administrative Offices

1600 Blake Street, downtown Denver

Bus: 0, 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 15L, 20, 28, 32, 44, Free Mall Shuttle, AF, BV, BX, L

RTD's offices are right next to Market Street Station so a lot of buses serve this area. The Free Mall Shuttle connects the area to all light rail lines and to buses that run to Civic Center Station and the southern end of downtown. The 2 is being eliminated. The 0, 3, 3L, 6, 28, 32,  and BX are going to have service reductions. Service along the 44 is being reduced, but the route is being extended. I am not sure what is happening with the Longmont buses.

7pm

American Legion #193

5110 Morrison Road, Denver

Bus: 11, 51 The 4, which being discontinued, does not run at this time. Service is going to be reduced for the 51.

7 pm

Adams City High School

7200 Quebec Parkway, Commerce City

Bus: 48, every half hour until around 8, then hourly until after 10:30.

Wednesday, October 5

7 pm

Arvada City Hall

8101 Ralston Road, Arvada

Bus: 52, 72, 5 minute walk from the 76. The route of the 76 is being shortened.

7pm

Parker Recreation Center

17301 E. Lincoln Avenue, Parker

Bus: none, both the P and 410 stop running before the meeting ends. Maybe you can take the Parker Call-n-Ride which is slated to be eliminated.

Thursday, October 6

6 pm

Green Valley Ranch Recreation Center

4890 Argonne Way, Denver

Bus: None. The 169L might run late enough to get people home, but the last two buses run by here at 7:25 and 10:25.

7 pm

North High School

2960 North Speer Boulevard (Speer and Federal), Denver

Bus: 31, 28. Service reductions and additions are being proposed for the 31. The 28 route is going to be drastically shortened after 7 pm and service made extremely infrequent.

7 pm

Louisville Recreation Center

900 W. Via Appia Way

Bus: 228 which is going to be rerouted. The DASH is twelve minute walk away on good sidewalks.

Tuesday, October 11

7 pm

Brighton Recreation Center

555 N. 11th Avenue, Brighton

Bus: None? I cannot find any bus route information on Google Maps or the RTD website. What happened to RTD's system map?

Wednesday, October 12

1 pm

Castlewood Public Library

6739 S. Uinta Street, Centennial

Bus: 66. Both this line and the light rail lines that it serves may see service reductions.

4 pm (RTD once again schedules the Longmont meeting when no one can come.)

Longmont Senior Center

910 Longs Peak Avenue, Longmont

Bus: 326 and 327, within walking distance of the 8th & Coffman Park-n-Ride where the BOLT and the L stop. RTD proposes to make both these routes  a little bit shorter.

5 pm

Denver City Park Golf Course

2500 York Street, Denver

Bus: 32 which will no longer serve this area if the proposed changes go through. If I am mistaken about where the club house is, the 24 is a better route.

7 pm

Cook Park Recreation Center

7100 Cherry Creek South Drive, Denver

Bus: 65 and 79. The 79 is scheduled to be eliminated while the route of the 65 is being extended.

7 pm

Bemis Public Library

6014 S. Datura Street, Littleton

Bus: Seven minute walk from the 66 which is facing service reductions.

7 pm

Wheat Ridge City Hall

7500 W. 29th Avenue, Wheat Ridge

Bus: 32, 76. The 32 onlyserves the stop on 29th a few times in the evening. Both of these routes are looking at making shorter runs.

Thursday, October 13

9 am

Windsor Gardens Community Center

595 S. Clinton Street, Denver

Bus: 3. The closest stop is scheduled to be eliminated and the 3 is looking at schedule reductions.

5:30 pm

College Hill Library

3705 W. 112th Avenue, Westminster

Bus: 31, 112. The 31 is facing small service reductions.

7 pm

Ken Caryl Middle School

6509 W. Ken Caryl Avenue, Littleton

Bus: 67. The 67 route is being shortened.

Note: Many service reductions are not listed here. I am only referring to service reductions that effect the routes that people may use to get to these meetings. For a full list, please see the RTD Website.

ColoRail Meets this Saturday

The Colorado Rail Passenger Association is having its fall meeting this Saturday at 9:30 am at the Longmont Public Library, 409 4th Avenue. The main focus will be presentations on a possible rail line north along the Front Range. Speakers include Mark Imhoff, Director, CDOT's Transit and Rail Division, Brandon Shaffer, candidate to represent District 4 in the US House of Representatives, and Joan Shaffer, Loveland City Council member. The meeting will conclude with a short member meeting.

Buses: The local buses 323 and 324 both run near the library, although only the 323 coming from Twin Peaks Mall gets you there just before the meeting. Both run hourly. The BOLT will bring you from Boulder and Niwot, arriving a little early. This bus also runs every hour.

CDOT is looking for comments on its plans for North I-25

CDOT is planning for the future of North I-25. Unfortunately, they are not planning for the future of transportation in northern Colorado. This means that all the alternatives in the Final North I-25 EIS are very similar. They are all construction heavy. Because a lot people in northern Colorado want more bus service, these options exist in all three action alternatives. A rail option exists in Alternatives A and B, the preferred. Unfortunately, there is no consideration of how these systems would interact with each other. The EIS lists then dismisses some good ideas to move transportation away from the I-25. This includes plans for both rail and new road construction.

Fortunately, Front Range on Track has gotten CDOT to pay attention to rail, even rail that serves the downtowns of communities. They organized their members to attend public meetings, and to send their comments to CDOT.

Please let CDOT what you think. The link to the links of the various chapters of the plan is at http://www.coloradodot.info/projects/north-i-25-eis/Final-EIS. The PDF of the three alternatives and their evaluation along with each chapter of all the factors that CDOT was supposed to consider need to be downloaded separately. You can use CDOT's online form to submit comments until October 3.

I am going to tell them to think about the people of the Front Range before the asphalt. I am going to tell them that maybe we already have resources that we can use to move people more efficiently within Colorado, that I want more buses and trains within Colorado, that many people tell me that they want more buses and trains, that the preferred alternative is too expensive, and that buses and trains actually cost less to maintain than roads.

I would like to hear what you think of these plans.

Development of Boulder County's Transportation Master Plan Continues

On Wednesday, the Transportation Planning Team will be presenting a summary of their summer's work to the Boulder County Planning Commission.

Wednesday, September 21 at 3:30
Boulder County Courthouse, 3rd Floor
Buses: The courthouse is two blocks north of the Boulder Transit Center, so it is too blocks east of all the buses that go downtown, which is almost all of them. It is also two blocks east of Broadway so it is convenient to the SKIP also.

This is the first opportunity that I have heard for the public to comment since the public meetings last winter and the public survey last spring. Apparently, there is going to be another round of public meetings with more convenient times in a few months.

If you are unable to attend the meeting, but would like to comment, please send a message to Julie McKay at jmckay@bouldercounty.org. You can see the materials that will be presented Wednesday at the Transportation Master Plan website under the Planning Commission website. For a PowerPoint, the plan seems to be decent. It is more human than the original plan.

ProRail Nebraska Membership Meeting

****You are invited to attend the ProRail Nebraska Membership Meeting****

When: Saturday, September 24, 2011, 9:00am to Noon   (Coffee and rolls 8:30am)

Where: Fremont, NE - Nebraska Railroad Museum, 1835 North Somers Ave.

Tentative Agenda: 

      *  Opening and introductions - David Purdy, President
      *  Welcome to the Museum and FEVR - Dr. Rudy Daniels, President
      *  Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission - Laura Kliewer, Director
      *  What's New at N.A.R.P.? - Bob Stewart, Chairman, NARP
      *  Railroads and the Growth of the United States - Dr. Rudy Daniels, President FEVR
      *  Current Issues and Nebraska Rail News - Matt Roque, PRN Board Member
      *  Adjourn (about Noon) 

Registration: Free!  Advance registration appreciated so we will have enough refreshments.

To register or for more information call Clyde Anderson (402) 932-7225 (Omaha) email ClydeLAnderson at cox.net or Bob Kuzelka (402) 475-0221 (Lincoln) email rkuzelka at unlnotes.unl.edu.

Attendees are invited to ride the Fremont & Elkhorn Valley Railroad (FEVR) excursion train to Nickerson and return. The train departs from the Museum and Depot at 1:30 p.m. Adult fares are $12 Open-Window Coach and $16 First Class (air conditioned). Tickets go on sale at Noon at the Depot. For more information go to the FEVR web site http://www.fremontrailroad.com.

Another option is to ride the Fremont Dinner Train (http://www.dinnertrain.net/) which features excellent food and entertainment. Call 1-800-942-7245 for details and reservations.

Lunch is not available at the Museum, but a large selection of restaurants is available on US 30 (23rd St.). See http://www.fremontrailroad.com/visitorguide.htm for a long list to choose from. Or you can bring a picnic lunch and eat at Ronin Park next to the Museum.

(This announcement was submitted by Clyde Anderson. There is no bus service to Fremont on Saturday, but you can contact Clyde (402-932-7225 clydelanderso at cox.net to arrange a carpool. Please let him know where you are coming from and if you are staying for the train ride.)

The California Zpehyr is back (maybe)

Earlier this week, I got information that the entire California Zephyr route, including a stop in Omaha, would be running by the end of this week. According to an Amtrak official, train number 6 that leaves Emeryville, CA the morning of Thursday, September 15 will run the entire route. That train arrives in Salt Lake City and Denver on the 16th, in Omaha and Chicago on the 17th. The train 5 that leaves Chicago on Friday, September 16 will be the first train to run the entire route. That train arrives in Omaha the same day, in Denver and Salt Lake City on the 17th (if it is on time), and Emeryville on the 18th.

So all trains should be running the full route by Sunday, September 18. However, Amtrak is not guaranteeing that all stops will be served until Friday, September 30. Prices are very good right now, so it might be worth the risk.

Help Set Omaha's Transportation Priorities

Right now the City of Omaha is working on a Transportation Master Plan. City planners would like transportation in the city to cost less and be more environmentally friendly, and they are seeking public input on how to do this. Since rail (and buses) are cheaper and more environmentally friendly than cars, this a great opportunity for people who use both to get their voices heard.

Thursday, September 15
6:30pm
Scott Conference Center
6450 Pine Street
Omaha

Not only can you get there (and back) on the 11 evening bus, there is going to be a special express bus running from Westroads Mall. The express bus will leave from in front of Dick's at 5:55 and from Crossroads NW parking garage at 6:05 and costs $1.00. The 11 costs the usual fare of $1.25.