Denver

mattaudio
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Re: Denver

Postby mattaudio » April 19th, 2016, 8:30 am

$9 seems like a ridiculous fare. I can see a premium, but $9? We can get to our airport via rail for $1.75/2.25, in less time.

Anondson
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Re: Denver

Postby Anondson » April 19th, 2016, 8:42 am

Yeah, but Denver's airport is way outside of the city. Maybe I'm exaggerating but it felt like Elk River distance or more...

MNdible
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Re: Denver

Postby MNdible » April 19th, 2016, 8:46 am

Downtown Denver to DIA is almost exactly twice as far as Downtown Minneapolis to MSP. Also, in my experience, LRT fare to MSP is a screaming deal compared to what you'll find almost anywhere else in the country.

mattaudio
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Re: Denver

Postby mattaudio » April 19th, 2016, 9:04 am

Should they have kept Stapleton?

BoredAgain
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Re: Denver

Postby BoredAgain » April 19th, 2016, 9:16 am

Downtown Denver to DIA is almost exactly twice as far as Downtown Minneapolis to MSP. Also, in my experience, LRT fare to MSP is a screaming deal compared to what you'll find almost anywhere else in the country.
Yes, but it's almost impossible to change that because our airport is not the end of the line. The only way to charge more would be to put special turnstyle payment at the airports, which would be even more complicated because we use the light rail for inter terminal transit.

MNdible
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Re: Denver

Postby MNdible » April 19th, 2016, 9:17 am

If they'd kept Stapleton, there'd be nowhere for the New World Order to be headquartered.

Edit: And I'm not suggesting that we should charge more, just pointing out that it's a really good deal.

EOst
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Re: Denver

Postby EOst » April 19th, 2016, 9:49 am

RTD already has a fare-zone system, where "regional" trips (a trip that crosses more than two zones) cost twice as much as local ones. With the new Airport zone this leads to some pretty perverse results; a trip from 61st and Peña (one stop from the Airport) is twice as much as a trip all the way downtown from the same station.

twincitizen
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Re: Denver

Postby twincitizen » April 19th, 2016, 10:10 am

$9 seems like a ridiculous fare. I can see a premium, but $9?
All things considered, it is probably priced appropriately (and cheaper than a cab), but the problem is that renting a car is so damn cheap (as is gas right now). Implementing higher car rental fees/taxes in the area is probably a good measure.

For two travelers into DIA, you're going to spend $36 ($18 each way). That's getting to the point where it would pay for a decent chunk of your car rental. Like even if you don't need a car for your entire trip, but do plan on renting a car for a day or two (to get out of the city, etc.), I think a lot of people are just going to say "**** it, let's just rent the car here at the airport instead of hassling with it later".

Note: this is exactly what I did in January. We deliberated taking transit (express bus at the time, same $9 fare) to downtown and renting a car later on Day 2 or 3, but due to the $36 transit fares, just decided to rent a car at the airport, even though it sat in a parking garage for at least the first 36 hours of our trip. In retrospect, it was a terrible decision, as I had to pay to park the car an extra night, got a flat tire, etc...but financially it was close to a wash since I did not pay $36 in transit fares. It's absurd how cheap it is to rent an economy car in many cities. Most people planning on using a rental car on their first or second day in town are just going to rent a car from the airport, even if they are staying downtown. Only the transit-savvy like us are going to have the knowledge that the $9 fare also includes unlimited LRT/bus rides that same day, and formulate travel plans accordingly.

mulad
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Re: Denver

Postby mulad » April 19th, 2016, 10:16 am

Yeah, the $9 fare is a day pass, so people can get anywhere with it, though day passes are a bit weird for airport service where travelers go one direction on one day, then the other direction on a different day. Northstar may be the closest comparison we have in the Twin Cities, since Denver's A Line is classified as commuter rail (though they have 15-minute service frequency through the day, while we only have half-hourly trains during rush hour).

The distance is equivalent to going from Target Field to Ramsey on Northstar, which is a $3.50 one-way fare here, and includes the normal 2.5-hour transfer to local buses and light rail. Metro Transit has a day pass that costs $6, but excludes Northstar. Northstar does have a family day pass (for up to 2 adults and 3 kids) which runs $14. Our fares are cheaper here, though our service level isn't as good for that distance.

Denver's line is a lot cheaper than what they were initially charging for the new line to Toronto's airport (the Union Pearson Express), which was about $21.75 in US dollars ($27.50 Canadian), though they've dropped the maximum price down to about $9.50 ($12 Canadian) and also introduced a discount for people paying with fare cards or using intermediate stations. The UP Express was intended to have self-sustaining fares, but the price was too high to attract riders, at least initially. The UP Express's fare is still comparatively high considering the route is only 14.5 miles long.

go4guy
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Re: Denver

Postby go4guy » April 20th, 2016, 4:03 pm

I have only been to Denver once the past few years, and that was to go down to Colorado Springs. My buddy was going to come pick me up, but renting a fully loaded Tahoe from Friday - Sunday only cost $76. It was a no brainer to just rent that and drive down on my own.

Didier
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Re: Denver

Postby Didier » May 19th, 2016, 7:25 pm

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... wth-213905

The Train That Saved Denver

(Sensational headline but good read)

Mcgizz
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Re: Denver

Postby Mcgizz » May 19th, 2016, 8:20 pm

That is a good read. Best part from the story that made me slightly sad for our own area.
The result was a great pact organized by the metropolitan chamber of commerce. All the cities and towns in the nine-county region agreed not to poach jobs and businesses from one another, but rather to work together within Clark’s economic development corporation to attract opportunities to the region or push for major collective investments like a proper transit system or a new airport to replace the aging Stapleton Airport.

KML_1981
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Re: Denver

Postby KML_1981 » May 20th, 2016, 9:54 am

But, MN pioneered that idea and implemented it with the Met Council decades ago.. Denver is ahead because of dedicated $$ put into that system. We need that, and the legislature is the one putting the brakes on it at this very moment. I should say, one party in one House..

EOst
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Re: Denver

Postby EOst » May 20th, 2016, 10:00 am

The Fastracks vote was a citizen ballot initiative, right? So Denver's main advantage is really that they have a constitutional tool that we don't.

If Minnesota counties had the authority to put laws on the ballot and tax themselves, I doubt we'd be wringing our hands much over the Legislature.

MountainDude
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Re: Denver

Postby MountainDude » May 22nd, 2016, 10:12 am

Pretty accurate article about the situation out here. Have lived in Denver for 8 years; ~20 years in Mpls. before that. Remaining challenges are to complete the Boulder line (full funding not set) and to maximize the zoning/building at each of the stations. Some stations have built out faster than others. Given the current building boom, density should start increasing at some of those stations.

talindsay
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Re: Denver

Postby talindsay » May 22nd, 2016, 12:51 pm

Nothing against Denver and good for them for constructing the system they've constructed, but it baffles me that people look at FastTracks and say Denver is "ahead* of the Twin Cities. Sure, they have more miles of track. They also have more miles of freeway. The relevant point though is usage, and for all that track Denver's daily overall ridership is very similar to ours, with our ~23 miles of track. Our system is fast, frequent, efficient, and heavily used for a light rail system. In Denver the trains run less frequently and see much less ridership per mile, which makes it a much more expensive and less efficient system. Good for them for building it, but the numbers don't lie - our proportionally smaller investment pays proportional larger dividends.

MountainDude
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Re: Denver

Postby MountainDude » May 22nd, 2016, 2:38 pm

I'd like see the numbers on highway miles cause it sure seems like there's a lot more in Mpls. And it's a bit hard to compare the systems: Denver has a hub and spoke system with lines out to the suburbs...and some of those suburban areas aren't fully developed or low-density. Mpls. system is mostly in the two cities where there's more density. Assuming you can find money to build the next lines, it will be interesting to see what your daily boardings per mile will look like when you build the 2 suburban lines. And also, Mpls. is still about 400K - 500K bigger than Denver. Still both systems are fast, frequent, efficient and move a lot of people especially when compared to similar sized or bigger cities.

talindsay
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Re: Denver

Postby talindsay » May 22nd, 2016, 3:51 pm

Right, I guess my point is that Mpls made a smarter investment to build two short urban lines rather than miles and miles of track in sparsely-populated suburbs. I'm not knocking Denver's system, I just think that it's missing context, given how much more people-miles we get per mile on our system, that people here continue to act like the Denver approach is obviously better. I think it's because Denver's map looks more impressive - the transit equivalent of skyline-envy.

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Nick
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Re: Denver

Postby Nick » May 22nd, 2016, 8:25 pm

You know everyone retweeted that Politico story and was all a-gushing but it felt a little light on...metrics? That they are building trains is clear, but I dunno. Took the A Line last month and it sure goes through a lot of fields. People are moving to Colorado for lots of reasons.
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Re: Denver

Postby Silophant » May 22nd, 2016, 10:42 pm

A coworker transferred to the Denver office about a year ago. I talked to him recently, and he mentioned that he was building a house, and it was only going to be a fifteen minute bike ride... to the train station, where it would be about an hour to get downtown.

A single anecdote isn't data, of course, but an LRT line you can build greenfield houses within a couple miles of isn't something we want to emulate, no matter how pretty it makes the system map.

(Yes, the proposed end of the Blue Line does border on farmland, but it's a little island of farmland surrounded by sprawl. Not quite the same thing.)
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