Blog du Wren

Cheers and Jeers for Denver Area Public Transit

Coverage: RTD, Denver's public transportation system, along with connecting systems in outlying communities, do a great job of covering the greater Denver area. When I was through last year, I couldn't get up to Ft. Collins, a large population center only 60 miles north of Denver. Now, connecting service has been put in place to allow for easy movement. I've also popped back and forth to Boulder, all within the RTD system. Public transit extends as far south as Colorado Springs via the FREX.

Frequency: I will be riding a bus from Boulder back to Denver at 11:00 on a Sunday evening, and that's not even the last bus. That is just downright impressive and quite representative of the system's wonderful frequency.

Light Rail: While only connecting the south bits of the city to downtown, the lightrail is clean, convenient, and fully integrated payment-wise with the rest of the system.

Airport Surcharge:* It costs $11.00 to get from Denver International Airport to downtown on the public bus, a distance of only 25 miles. Downtown Denver to Boulder is 30 miles but costs $5.00.
Wouldn't it make sense to make the airport accessible to a city's residents and vice versa? Once people learn that they have to tack on $20 to a round trip plane ticket (5-10% of many tickets' cost) to visit Denver, it seems like that that might turn one or two away*.
When the cost of public transit is so much higher than the alternative (driving or getting a friend to drive you), it is effectively discouraging people from using this technology that they really need to be embracing*.

Pueblo: It sure would be nice if there was a public option for getting from Colorado Spring to Pueblo. These are pretty big cities separated by only 45 miles. This would also extend the publicly traversable area from Ft. Collins in the north to Pueblo in the south, the better part of an emerging megaregion.

For more on alternative transportation in the area, check out the interview I did for Alternative Commute Pueblo.

Sunday January 9 2011

File under: transportation

Toggle Comments (2)

comment?

on Sun 09th Jan, 2011 05:48 pm PST The Mom said:
Question...were you holding the camera with your teeth when you took that picture?
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on Mon 10th Jan, 2011 07:39 am PST Ryan said:
No bus routes at all to the Colorado Springs airport. A $30 taxi ride is your only option.I'm in love with Map Scroll!
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