Denver's Light Rail & Commuter Rail Network Evolution 

Future extensions are only shown if construction will happen. And these are temporary and once the pandemic is over they will return.

1. 2. and 3. are all CoViD Related Changes. I believe the F-Line was suspended in either September 2020 or March 2020. And all will return after the pandemic and driver shortages are sorted out.

@@jacksonskyline Ok

The R line was cut back to Lincoln due to low ridership. It’s possible when development occurs in lone tree it will be re-extended back to ridge gate. Also the R line is one of the longest routes for train operators stoping at Lincoln could give more time for a break. To many trains trying to turn around at ridge gate leaves less break times. I operated on the Fline and is a very busy line for commuters going to work and college students at Auraria campus. All lines should open back when the pandemic is over. This is a great video though.

@@GHermaine4 Ok

I live in Denver too!

Same. I miss the smooth curve on the map, but I couldn't be more pleased with the progress of RTD

Hello guys, I will be in Denver in this summer, I have never been in USA and Denver before, so can I ask some questions to you?

Our rail service only began in 1994, it was a pseudo-bus rapid transit service that opened in 1982

Or how about Milwaukee, Tucson, or Kansas City? Oh wait, they each only have one line! 😂

@@NWIndianaElevators I doubt those cities will be included as they dont have any rapid transit as far as I know.

@@damienpilon9785 Those all just have a single streetcar each that is exactly the same as when they first opened. And also Kansas City has bus rapid transit. And expansion is planned for all three.

All 3 of those are coming this fall

@@VanishingUnderground Hmm. Then what could finish up the summer? The only ones that can be cleanly divided among more than one video left are Bay Area (BART, Commuter (possible combined into one), VTA, Muni) Chicago (L(which started out as 4 systems and has a lot of defunct lines) Metra and South Shore Line), Philadelphia(Trolley/Subway, Regional Rail), and New York (Subway, LIRR, MetroNorth). For Phoenix you should probably wait for the Tempe Streetcar to open. And what about those 3 NW Indiana suggested?

The Light Rail uses the Siemens SD-100 and SD-160 Trains. The commuter rail uses Hyundai Rotem Silverliner V Train.

Yes, I know! I’m just making a suggestion as a possible part of future videos.

@@wavemaker10111 Well, Denver has used Siemens SD-100 and SD-160 (both of them are identical other than different type of motors) since 1994 with no plans to replace them with different types. So, your suggestion is nonsense.

Me too!!

If the 16th street mall ride was converted from bus to light rail then a lot more people would flock to the area because light rail produces development.

@@Mrcharles. unfortunately this would remove the every blocn stop which I find to be the best part of the MallRide

I live in Denver! Littleton to be more specifically.

Knowing this channel it would probably be lumped in with all the other light rail, commuter rail, and rapid bus/ brt lines and it would be a complete nightmare to do the whole Bay Area 😅

Coming in August

Well, we'll have to set our calendars!

I grew up with BART. Sad to see whats happened to it in recent years, used to be a nice system.

@@speedzero7478 It seems still nice today. There are some issues, but the new trains are nice and it operates effectively. I would like to see increase service and more stations in the East Bay.

Yeah, there's an ongoing extension of the current B Line to Boulder and Longmont, but it's set to open like 2040-2050.

Cherry creek will get brt along speer blv in the future. Also nearby colfax and Colorado will get brt. Pretty cool. Besides people in cherry creek are 💰💰so there isn’t that much demand.

Just a friendly note: the route letters are reversed🙂

Oh man those would be pretty intense compared to these American cities with relatively recently built lines

I believe he'll get to other cities when he's done with the US

I’m aiming to finish all the US systems first. Check out the channel MetroLiner for some international systems in the meantime though

@@VanishingUnderground wait but if you are also doing BRT networks does that mean you will be doing rural counties on Britain that have half-hourly bus service

The London Underground video would be an hour long given that underground trains there go back to the 19th century. It's one of the more complete, and complex, metro systems in the world, right up there with NYC, Paris, and Tokyo.

That’d be a whole other channel for someone interested in history of transportation. Also hundreds of cities had them but many are not well documented for research. Probably end up with similar cities as is showcased on this & other channels.

Just switched to this in LA. Only 23 possible names though, because they refuse to use F (obvious reasons) and won't use H or I because those are used on maps for Hospital and Information respectively.

Maybe Denver will one day have all 26 lines in action using every single letter.

In both the stadium and arena cases in Denver there were funding contributions made by the developers toward construction costs that require RTD to keep up with their vanity namings. Internal wits have proposed the use of electronic signage for the frequent name changes. Orginally the single line was numbered 101, a homage to the first LRT line in Edmonton, Alberta. It used Federal Green as its Pantone color. When other lines were in the works a consultant who had previously worked in other cities was hired to tell RTD that colors should only be used as background to letters, due to the color blindness issue and difficulties in reproducing them in print -- especially clunky in black & white! The consultant also labeled all of the lines then planned. Lines A, B, C, D, E, F, H follow the consultant's recommendation. Lines G, N, R, W are municipal vanity replacements for the consultant's recommendation. Line L was a designation needed when it was split off of Line D for technical and community reasons, although some refer to it as standing for "weLton street". The letters I, M and Q were not to be used due to common mistakes in reading digital signs. There are enough unused letters to cover the planned additional construction, as all are extensions.

@@rwrynerson thx for the info!

Ball Arena (FKA Pepsi Center) has several professional teams playing there so it’d be difficult to name it after a single team. For Mile High Stadium, many of us would like it to just be that but politics plays a big role in the agency. Naming stops after neighborhoods instead of street names would be a big game changer as most things are based on cars even for rail.

Auraria=Ah-rare-re-ah, Osage=Oh-sage

I call Osage Aah-sijj Like Goose Gossage Auraria is Awe-rare-e-uhh

I mean… It fits with the video seeing as that was Colorado’s thing back then.

Yes, Seattle’s expansion plans are pretty impressive

He has already done that.

@@SpaceboyYT if you would double-check when I left this comment and when he uploaded the Seattle video.

@@uriahlevi8640 Oh. Right.

Seattle light rail is a disgrace.

Cool! I live in Littleton.

Until I rode the light rail in July, 2021, I didn’t know any stations South of Lincoln existed.

@@sleepythespian1455 there was nothing at Ridgegate until the station opened-still not occupied but lots of corporate development. Lone Tree is just now starting to move dirt. SkyRidge had the hospital & several projects nearby completed by opening.

@@ttopero Still nothing at Lone Tree City Center.

@@sleepythespian1455 just dirt being moved. That’s a long process before anything gets put on top. Check back in a few years to see it popping out of the ground!

There’s actually no publicly announced expansion of rail in RTDs future at the moment. BRT down E Colfax is our next major expansion for “rapid transit”. The L & D line extensions are on the books but not active. B line is a dream they were sold for their taxes but get FF (Flatiron Flier) coaches instead.

NYC is coming at the end of the year.

Most likely the Transit Authority as in RTD’s case, the stations belong to them. I can’t imagine the cost of replacing information to be very high though so the agency isn’t too worried about changing the name

We don't have a good transportation system

@@DonMarzzoni By the standards some US cities, Denver has a pretty damn good transit system

Phoenix Arizona started in 2008 and won't be finished till 2035 on their light rail

Coming this fall

Memphis doesn't have light rail.

@@dvferyance The Commuter rail I mean, for Memphis.

@@2002ChevyFan I think you mean Nashville.

Yes.

He has already done Phoenix.

That’s what I said too

Coming this fall

You identified a key failure of what looks impressive on paper: these are for commuters, & major event attendees who drive to the station to park in very expensive structured parking for free. They were never about what people think of today as TOD. Even the newest stations on the SE are single sided & waste a lot of opportunity for full land use benefits. A major shortcoming for sure!

The Olde Town Arvada Station on the G Line is one of the most ideal station locations, especially now that several streets in Olde Town Arvada, have been closed to cars and only allow pedestrians. There are many businesses, restaurants, and bars within easy walking distance from the station. But a major failure in planning for the Olde Town Arvada Station is the access to the station from the parking garage on the south side of the rail line. There is a steep hill just south of the rail line so that the top floor of the four-story garage is level with the station. (This was done partially to preserve the "grand view" of Grandview Avenue which parallels the rail line. On a clear day you can see Pikes Peak about 80 miles to the south.) The failure is that there is no way to access the station on the north side of the tracks from the garage on the south side of the tracks without exiting the garage onto side streets on either the east or west sides of the garage, crossing the tracks on the sidewalk at the street level crossing, then walking east or west about half a block down the sidewalk just north of the station. It's a very "long way around" to get from the garage to the rail station. This is especially problematic since the first floor of the garage serves as a bus transfer hub (which in and of itself was very good planning). A major reason for the lack of access between the garage and the station is the fact that the commuter rail shares right of way with a freight rail line, which runs on the south side of the commuter rail line. The most logical solution would have been to build a tunnel under the tracks with an elevator on the north side to access the station. The issue was raised while the garage was being built, but it was already too late. There were also excuses given that the weight of the freight trains made a tunnel prohibitively expensive. There was a brief discussion about building a bridge over the tracks, but that idea was shot down quickly since the bridge would block the "grand view" of Grandview Avenue (see note above). In the end nothing was done so the only access from the garage to the station is the "long way around" described above. The ironic thing is that there IS a tunnel under the tracks at the next station to the west, the Arvada Ridge Station. There is a surface parking lot on the south side of the tracks, which is about 20 feet lower than the station level. A tunnel connects this parking lot with the station on the north side of the tracks. They did it with the Arvada Ridge Station so I don't understand why they couldn't do the same thing at the Olde Town Arvada Station.

Coming later this month

@@VanishingUnderground cant wait. Subscribed

The whole network is honestly kindof junk...

So many lines it looks more difficult to operate than Boston's Green Line!

Not when you look at it in true scale, the system uses this format to maximize it's reach and frequency of operations.

RTD is in crisis as of right now.

Denver RTD was designed by planners to only serve suburban 9-5 commuters as they thought that only they mattered in terms of transit. Because of their terrible planning, RTD is currently in a major crisis, with skyrocketing fares, low ridership and severe criticism from the public for not being a good enough system.

A transit-only street. It could be open to pedestrians and bikes however

And usually a street which formerly didn't have any transit on it, was closed to automobile traffic.

Flatiron Flyer is a Bus Rapid Transit system that goes from Denver Union Station to Boulder (FF1). The B Line will be extended to Boulder and Downtown Longmont, but won’t be built until around the 2040s due to the funding requiring 2 Billion Dollars.

It's coming as an extension of the B line, but the freight rail company that owns the right-of-way between Westminster and Boulder has quoted Denver's transit agency an exorbitantly large price, leading to a several-decades delay.

It’s coming in the future.

🙏 🤞 it has to be completely reconceived from downtown loop for any expansion. At this point, millions will be spent replacing the aged track exactly as it is!

The trade off is that the additional time on the train is available for things not requiring attention as driving does. You wouldn’t want the train to move faster than it does as the conditions are already uncomfortable at top speed. Our station & alignment is for downtown commuters & event goers who drive to the park and rides so access to the station from nearby neighborhoods isn’t considered. It’s got major shortcomings but for those it’s built for, it’s high on American standards (meaning bottom for peer cities in Asia & Europe).

I don’t know why. But in a fantasy map of RTD Network created by a Reddit user, it shows a underground section.

Voters turned down a light rail plan that included a subway segment of the Edmonton downtown type. Past official RTD plans included a subway under California Street. Without consulting RTD the City's 1986 Downtown Plan included a subway under 15th Street. When civic leaders visited Portland and San Jose they decided that it was better to put money into extensions than into underground construction. Learning from those systems the decision was also made to run contra-flow in downtown streets.

One reason is that the initial route was built with all local funds. Denver saw itself as a cowtown that didn’t need east coast expensive stuff. It would be a major disruption downtown for years & have to go down into the convention center tunnel that curves & is undergoing another expansion. It’s not as terrible as it may seem but it would be nice.

I have a link that will show the future expansions for the network: www.rtd-denver.com/fastracks

There’s actually no publicly announced expansion of rail in RTDs future at the moment. BRT down E Colfax is our next major expansion for “rapid transit”. The L & D line extensions are on the books but not active. B line is a dream they were sold for their taxes but get FF (Flatiron Flier) coaches instead.

Coming near the end of this year. Check out the channel MetroLiner for a good overview of the system in the meantime though

@@VanishingUnderground alright 👍 :)

@@VanishingUnderground Overall a nicely done video I’m sharing with fellow LRT operators. I was hoping you would have included a bit on the relocation of the Auraria West station to accommodate the the new W line connection. It’s now only a block away from the Mile High station & gets closed for ticket control during Broncos games. Not a big deal but something most new Denverites don’t know. Maybe consider adding the D, L, B line extensions on the books but postponed & the active E Colfax BRT for an easy revision video?

It just has one line. I wouldn’t consider it to be a network.

I watch most videos at 1.75x speed and can understand him perfectly. Maybe use the closed captions?

I find it a little confusing, but not too much. I live in Littleton Colorado. I wish they could add a branch to the C or D Lines to serve more of the Littleton area.

@Enmity the Kindhearted Yeah. I agree too. A tram line running along Colorado Blvd would be great to have!

Just the steep stairs, recently having a left knee replacement surgery and severe arthritis you have to climb instead of say Houston light rail that has entry level to platform. Had to adjust to the Transit Police in Hou with German Shepherd's Patroling, I know It's Houston and larger then DENVER BUT that's crazy looked like something from Birmingham.

It’s less confusing than it might seem. It was more so with the C & F lines having different destinations from same origination point as D & E lines, respectively until the former were eliminated due to pandemic ridership & internal views of transit purpose. You can get used to it quite easily. The biggest issue is how to get anywhere from the stations except downtown & Union Station stops because it’s all for commuters that drive to structured parking at the stations.