INC Transportation Committee Meeting Notes – July 9, 2015
by Joel Noble

At our meeting on July 9th from 6 to 8 p.m. at 1201 Williams Street, we had one presentation from RTD and then dove into a detailed review of the proposed INC Transportation Platform, which we voted unanimously to recommend to the INC Delegation.

A big thank you to Michael Henry for providing the room for our committee!

Bus Service Change Planning for Rail Openings — Jeff Dunning, RTD Service Planning Manager.
Continuing our run of bringing topics to the INC Transportation Committee early, before the major public outreach, Jeff Dunning, Service Planning Manager with RTD joined us to discuss how RTD looks at changing RTD bus service to connect well with rail lines. How can the service be made more efficient and attractive in the process, and what goals and philosophies guide RTD’s decisions?

Mr. Dunning oversees RTD service planning on the east side of the bus network, where the East Corridor “A” line commuter rail between Union Station and Denver International Airport and the “R” line light rail on I-225 connecting to I-70 will be opening in 2016.

RTD views their rail lines as high speed, high frequency, all-day “trunk” service. Complementing this, a network of arterial bus routes with high frequency (every 15-30 minutes) and a wide span of service (from 5 a.m. to midnight or longer, 7 days a week) completes the core network. Frequent service results in less need for riders to coordinate schedules, fast service means that the total end-to-end trip time is attractive, and all-day service enables people to choose transit for various types of trips throughout the day (not just “9-to-5” commuter trips). These are the key elements of high-quality service that works for everyone.

When looking to ensure that people can connect to a new rail station, it’s important to remember that a majority of users of rail do not drive to the stations. They take buses, bike or walk. For instance, at the Southmoor station, only 400 to 500 cars park there, but over 3,000 rail boardings occur, fed by the continuous stream of bus connections.  So, when looking at opening new rail lines, making sure the bus network optimally supports connections is one of the most important things RTD can do.

Bus frequency and service span have tradeoffs with route spacing. The closer together different routes run, the more resources are being used to serve the same area. Instead, using those same resources to increase service on fewer routes (higher frequency and running frequently over more hours) results in a service that works better for more people in the area, for a greater variety of trips at all times of day.

Similarly, a grid of simple, fast and direct bus routes provide the most understandable and most functional service for riders as a whole. Routes that zigzag all over the map are yield slow, convoluted service, and while they may help a few people, they slow down all other riders. RTD has a fairly good route grid system, and they’re looking to take this opportunity to improve.

In looking at making service changes, RTD considers population and employment density, the proportion of the population in poverty, minority population density, senior citizen density, and the density of households owning no vehicles. We briefly reviewed these maps for the east side of the city.

Turning to changes on the east side of the metro area with the “A” and “R” rail line openings next year, we saw how these principles, goals and inputs are translating to proposed changes to 37 routes, with a total of about 80 individual changes. Although these specific changes are most likely of interest only to neighborhoods in this part of town, the discussion helped us gain insight into RTD’s approach and goals as discussed earlier, particularly evident given the magnitude of the bus route and service changes corresponding to the new rail service.

A few highlights of the proposed changes include:

• Discontinuing the SkyRide bus service, the need for which will be met with rail instead, which will run far more frequently and reliably. The service hours freed up will be reallocated in to improved service on other routes.
• The route 28, which has low ridership and is spaced very close to route 43 on MLK, is proposed to be discontinued while the 43 service frequency and span (hours) are significantly increased.
• Some north/south bus service will be starting as early at 3 a.m. to connect with the “A” line to the airport, as demand for early trips for those working at the airport is significant.
• In Montbello and Green Valley Ranch, four routes will be combined into three, with much better service frequency (increasing from half-hour service to every 15 minutes at peak times, which meshes well with the 15-minute rail service).

Other discussions during Q&A included RTD’s productivity measurements (riders per hour) and how this relates to service type, how ridership is counted automatically with 99% accuracy with infrared passenger boarding and alighting counts on most buses, the upcoming smart card service, the final fare structure changes for 2016 including day passes, neighborhood EcoPasses, and the highly-useful but largely-unknown “MyStop” numbers for quickly checking schedules.

Jeff’s presentation slides include the planning and proposal maps described above. Much more detail is available in the preliminary service plan change document published a few days after our meeting. For more information about the opening of the A, B, G, and R rail lines, along with the Flatiron Flyer bus rapid transit service between Denver and Boulder, all opening next year, see www.RTD-Denver.com/2016

INC Transportation Platform – Draft Review and Vote to Recommend to INC Delegation

Our committee’s six-month project to propose an INC Transportation Platform reached a milestone at this meeting with a 90-minute detailed review of the draft platform, and a vote to recommend it to the INC Delegation.

The platform covers the wide range of topics discussed in the first three years of the current structure of the INC Transportation Committee, and the many discussions in the committee and in neighborhoods that have resulted. Covering areas including planning, funding, road quality, walking, biking, and more, the platform and the process to develop it was modeled very closely after the INC Zoning and Planning committee’s highly successful example. As with the Zoning and Planning Platform, we hope that the platform is carefully considered by Denver city staff, RTD, CDOT, DRCOG, and other transportation-related departments and agencies.

This platform follows INC’s mission and goals closely, calling for meaningful neighborhood involvement and transparency in transportation decisions and investment at every level and for every mode, and proceeding from high-level principles to specific topics important to Denver residents. It incorporates earlier INC positions on transportation topics, such as pedestrian and car share topics, into one structured document.

Our committee acknowledged the hard and thoughtful work of volunteers who met throughout the year to to develop and refine the platform: Shayne Brady (Cherry Creek), Drew Dutcher (Elyria), John Hayden (Five Points), Michael Henry (Cheesman Park/Capitol Hill), Jill Locantore (Uptown/West Wash Park), John Riecke (Clayton), Reyna Rosenbaum (Baker), Rosemary Stoffel (University Park), Brooks Waldman (Cherry Creek), organized by co-chairs Geneva Hooten (Capitol Hill) & Joel Noble (Curtis Park).

The attendees reviewed the draft carefully, page-by-page, and made improvements in clarity and emphasis. At the end of the meeting, the committee voted unanimously to recommend the platform to the INC Delegation for adoption, which is currently expected to occur at the Delegation’s September 2015 meeting.

Call for Interest — Reading Group for Transit Book

The INC Transportation Committee is considering putting together a reading group forJarrett Walker’s Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich our Communities and Our Lives — a highly-regarded and very readable book about the key choices in designing a quality mass transit network.

The reading group would likely meet twice this fall to discuss the first and second half of the book, and share thoughts about how what we’ve read can inform our participation in Denver’s new Transit Plan, being co-developed with the Blueprint Denver update, starting in the winter.

If you would be interested in joining a reading group for Human Transit, please send us an e-mail so we can get a sense of how many people might be interested, and we’ll start looking for dates and venues.

Upcoming Meeting Schedule
The INC Transportation Committee’s upcoming meetings for 2015 will all be at 1201 Williams St., 19th Floor:

• Thu. Sep. 10th 2015, 6-8 p.m.
• Thu. Nov. 12th 2015, 6-8 p.m.

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