An example of a BRT model will be on display today until Thursday in a variety locations in the north metro area.
Right now it is at the Westminster Park-n-Ride on the west bound side of US 36. It will be there until 6 pm.
Tomorrow, June 6, it will be at the Boulder Municipal Building, 1777 Broadway, from 8 am to 1:30 pm. From there it will go to the Longmont Park-n-Ride at 8th and Coffman where it will be from 3-6 pm.
On Thursday, June 7 is will be at the Broomfield Park-n-Ride at Gate B during the morning rush hour from 7-9 am. I think that Gate B is the gate for regional buses going to downtown Denver. During the evening rush hour it will be at the Louisville/Superior Park-n-Ride from 3-6 pm. I think it will be on the south bound side of the highway.
Just a note that this is the second time that RTD has displayed a possible BRT model for the Denver area. They ended up not buying the first one although it was a system that would have worked very well.
6 comments:
I might have to make it down to Longmont tomorrow to see the bus. Fort Collins is getting the same model for our Mason Corridor project.
The NABI buses that Fort Collins has are very nice, so RTD will be getting some great buses if they go with this company.
The Mason Corridor is a great project. I hope you can make it down.
You can take the FLEX at 3:44 from the Mall Transfer Point and then return at 6:40 or 7:05.
Helen, you haven't heard me rant before about the Mason Corridor and the problem with Federal Funding...
http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/bus-and-rail-mantras/#comment-5179
Very long comment shortened: Guide ways are useless for 95% of the country and the money would be better spent on more buses, but can't be diverted due to FTA policy and the Federal Government meddling in local transit.
You can't blame a bad project on the Feds. Federal money is largely distributed according to what cities and counties ask for, and what legislators ask for. And the federal government does fund operations, especially in smaller cities.
If Fort Collins is asking for federal money for a bad project, that is the responsibility of Fort Collins, not the FTA. And the Feds are not keeping Fort Collins from using their (your) money in any way that they see fit.
Is there an bus riders group in Fort Collins? Should we start one? People need to change the politics of what is possible locally before blaming what national politics.
Yes, you can blame a bad project on the environment that the Federal Government creates. Transit agencies have became nothing more than seals in a federal funding circus, doing whatever it takes, even if it is detrimental to them in the long run, just to get a little bit thrown at them. We send our gas tax up to Washington for them to waste and mismanage it, before they use it as a political tool to get other needs accomplished.
While local governments can spend their money however they want, the Federal Government still does plenty to make it harder to have decent transit. When people are already taxed for something they won't see back, it makes a tax increase for something they will see much more challenging.
FasTracks is like the funding situation. Longmont has been a member of RTD and supported FasTracks on the belief that they will get rail service, yet instead they get service cuts and a weak promise for rail in 2050. Why would a Longmont voter contribute twice without any guarantee that they will get their money back?
Part of the problem is our own corrupt government. Despite being voted down TWICE, the city has insisted on ramming the Mason Corridor down our throats. Transfort has wrecked the local bus service so they can come "save the day" with the Mason Corridor, even though they are the problem to begin with. The 6 is a reliable 20 minutes behind schedule, and the 1 takes 10 more minutes to complete the loop because they relocated the Mall transfer center 1/2 mile east.
The GM of Transfort left last year to go pursue a career in her "lifelong passion", real estate. She has used Transfort and the TIF process in order to drive development to the Mason Corridor. Now I am all for redeveloping the Mason Corridor (though I don't care for the TIF part), but the conflict of interest is too obvious to overlook.
My predictions are simple: Transfort will claim that the Mason Corridor is a massive success due to an increase in ridership, even though ridership has been steadily increasing without the Mason Corridor. The head people at Transfort will be given cushy FTA or State jobs, and new people unfamiliar to Fort Collins will have to be brought in. In an attempt to keep the Mason route alive, service on the other routes will have to be cut.
Do I want these predictions to occur? Absolutely not! Will the occur if nothing changes? Absolutely! Unless and until the city administration decides to service customers instead serving their own egos, transit in Fort Collins will continue to spiral down the hole of despair.
Realistically, I don't believe that a Bus Riders Union would be a good thing, and may end up hurting our efforts. I would rather have the city see "individual people seriously agitated" than "the BRU group seriously agitated". While I am all for communication (perhaps I may start my own local blog covering the North Front Range), having a group may actually hurt our efforts in the long run.
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