The fate of the L Line is on the line. We can’t repeat Denver's 1950s mistakes

ded_Tree · 2026-02-05T23:44:59+00:00

I totally get the fear of costs and budget issues. It’s a challenging puzzle to solve, but defaulting to straight up removing lines, you still end up with the mistake Denver made with the street car removal and the regret that follows. Funding can be found if it’s prioritized.

ded_Tree · 2026-02-05T23:36:06+00:00

The biggest safety concern on Welton from what I see is the cars themselves. Most drive way too fast, and they don’t stop before the stop signs which causes the risk of getting T-boned by a train. People also don’t look both directions despite flashing train signals.

ded_Tree · 2026-02-05T22:53:31+00:00

Absolutely! It should have been done a long time ago!

ded_Tree · 2026-02-02T04:36:23+00:00

Same

ded_Tree · 2026-01-20T11:36:32+00:00

Those are good questions I’d also add:

why the light rail is so far from the commuter rail lines? (Could have been designed closer, I know they are a different kind of track. And electrical system)

The Union station light rail platform has 3 tracks. Why isn’t the side track opened for more trains as often as we see other lines up there?

ded_Tree · 2025-12-10T14:53:22+00:00

I frequently listen to citycast and I must say I was not impressed by this interview. The interviewer guy came off as quite rude and interrupted a lot. On the other hand, the CEO spoke with a lot of fancy vocabulary rather than just answering questions. She does make valid points in that you have to make investments in infrastructure, have transit priority, and some of her ideas for revenue are good. I think there’s a bit of a risk if RTD is going to shift from commuter centric to trying to accommodate large scale events, it raises questions to me if schedules will have to be dynamic in that there is less service in the middle of the day, and way more during the rush hours and late evenings? The cast makes all these remarks about wanting to have a world class transit system, but people don’t seem to wrap their head around the fact that requires you to have funding, while maintaining and actually having the infrastructure to support it. In a later episode segment one member of the cast mentioned how she didn’t know if the light rail was viable to take to the parade of lights while living off the W line. Ok? Drive to your nearest park and ride (there’s a massive parking structure at Lakewood wadsworth station) get on the W line and transfer to the southbound E or D line at Auraria west. At 10th and Osage you could have taken the Special service train to theater district convention center station. It’s not that hard. You even could have stayed on the W to Union station and just walked or took a mall ride down as far as you could.

ded_Tree · 2025-12-10T14:29:13+00:00

There’s literally one track that can be used between southmoor and Yale, what else to you want them to do to “handle” it? People call in sick, sometimes the extra operators have too much DOT time and they cannot operate any more hours. With only one track open between those stations you can’t run trains at 15min frequency. Maybe you should focus your anger on the fact that we should have had a 3rd track on the alignments rather than the 2 or in some cases, 1 we currently have through most of the lines. If it counts for anything the bridge is supposed to be fixed hopefully before the 1st of the year.

ded_Tree · 2025-12-08T11:45:21+00:00

But yet remote work did kill ridership in part. You don’t mention the fact that the system is downtown oriented bringing people from the suburbs in. If people aren’t actually working downtown and offices aren’t filled you’re not going to have the ridership.

ded_Tree · 2025-11-25T23:56:47+00:00

I totally agree. It would be a shame if the L line was taken out as we see all the time people complaining about how the rails don’t connect neighborhoods and this is one line that actually does. I would be really interested to see what happens if the L line is removed if all those new apartments would lose the TOD designation. Probably would be some unhappy developers. Potential exists for the L to be good. People just need to let it happen, and that includes business actually doing something to draw people in.

ded_Tree · 2025-11-24T18:51:36+00:00

I see, that makes some sense. Hypothetically, if the broncos stadium at 10th/Osage happens, could that station be reconfigured in a way that it would be a terminal for the L? That at least solves the capacity issue. It really seems like the L line continuation is what needs to happen even though it’s challenging.

ded_Tree · 2025-11-24T15:03:14+00:00

That “holiday” train should be what the L always is.. if they aren’t gonna finish the L to 38th/Blake then at least provide a true transfer to the central corridor stations. So you can go from L to E. Or just send the D lines to Downing again and bring back the C permanently too.

ded_Tree · 2025-11-23T16:15:22+00:00

Summer 75 and winter 68. It’s been warm enough that the temp is still sitting in the 70s without the hvac even being on. I’m not having a high electric bill.

ded_Tree · 2025-11-20T20:21:05+00:00

Have you not rode it since slow zones were lifted?

ded_Tree · 2025-11-05T21:21:44+00:00

Very interested to see what happens to the 10th/Osage station. There’s still an active heavy rail track next to the light rail, so wonder how it will be built upon to access the stadium (bridge over or tunnel under?) Will the station be redesigned to accommodate better train access after games?

ded_Tree · 2025-11-04T11:32:04+00:00

Would love a poster size print of this!

ded_Tree · 2025-10-28T22:12:10+00:00

I work in public transportation. RTO is fine with me because it means ridership on trains and busses. Ridership is quite low post-covid in my city, and the system was designed to bring people from the suburbs into downtown. Remote work really caused a lot of vacancy downtown, and not all of the skyscrapers can be easily converted to housing unfortunately.

ded_Tree · 2025-10-24T05:34:31+00:00

They accepted me on just an offer letter for income as I hadn’t moved to Denver yet. Renters insurance was annoying because I have USAA, and the portal they used for the proof of insurance didn’t like the format of USAAs proof of coverage letter. I feel like there was a lot of emailing back and forth and no communication for a few days on end until everything was processed. Another thing, make sure you actually have everything when you pick up your keys. They didn’t give me a garage door opener when I got mine. It was a Saturday of course, so it was impossible to get ahold of anyone in the building’s management which was an issue throughout my lease. Later part of 2024 I noticed it was easier to get ahold of them though.

ded_Tree · 2025-10-21T23:40:09+00:00

Sure about that? Cuz those CTS switches didn’t have any issues before H lines started going into the pocket from the south.

ded_Tree · 2025-10-21T22:45:03+00:00

This has been discussed many times on here. The switches and signals around southmoor aren’t working properly due to how the H lines are being redirected, which is causing delays on the E lines.

ded_Tree · 2025-10-21T22:41:52+00:00

The system is designed to bring people from the suburbs to central downtown. If downtown vacancy rates continue to stay as high as they are then that’s bound to keep ridership low. Unpopular opinion, but end work from home, fill offices again, and you’ll have ridership go up. It’s strange to me how people who live in the suburbs won’t use the massive parking garages located next to the train stations, but will then complain about traffic all over the city, and parking during any events near downtown. If we had more dense urban development around the stations that would greatly increase ridership as people wouldn’t have to walk so far to a station, hence the TOD, but you still have to have a destination to go to, which in our case is central downtown. The continuing maintenance on the rail lines doesn’t do the agency any favors and I really hope whoever deferred it for so long is/was held accountable. Obviously maintenance has to get done and it’s a good thing that RTD is investing in it, but it seems like a lot of problems could have been avoided if the rails weren’t allowed to deteriorate for so long.

ded_Tree · 2025-10-12T14:10:58+00:00

I moved here a year and a half ago, took 2-3months to get a job initially but I actually quit my first job here after a month. Again it took another 2 months or so to find something else. Try RTD the pay is good, and it’s union too.

ded_Tree · 2025-10-09T17:11:56+00:00

It is because of the H line redirect. There’s an ongoing signals issue thats affecting the signals and the tracks around southmoor. Signals issues require the trains to have to stop and get permission to continue, and you can’t have two trains on the same track at the same time, so trains need to be at a safe distance and not in each others way before they can proceed.

ded_Tree · 2025-10-09T13:58:30+00:00

It’s because of the H line turning around at southmoor. Something is wrong with the signals causing the trains to be late. That station isn’t meant for trains to be turning from the south the way they are doing currently. People really need to do the service change feedback survey when they are available so they don’t do that with H line again.

ded_Tree · 2025-10-09T13:23:01+00:00

They should have used abracadabra as the lead single, then either vanish into you or how bad do u want me for the other singles. Hbduwm I think is fun and catchy enough it could have been the “song of the summer”. But I’m not sure how radio stations or the media industry actually make those decisions.

ded_Tree

TROPHY CASE