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.