The Future of Rapid Transit in Denver
Center in golden along with the light rail lines we also have an express bus service called the Flatiron flyer there is 18 miles or 29 kilometers long serving six stops in Denver Aurora and Boulder along the u.s. route 26 there are different levels of services available including express straight to Boulder as well as all stop service the route has drawn criticism for lacking a lot of BRT features such as fully dedicated lanes and off board fare payment that being said the highway right-of-way as well as the sparse stops mean that this bus route is a lot faster than many local bus lines last we have the new regional rail lines first we have the a line or the University of Colorado a line the a line is a new electrified regional rail line that opened in 2016 there’s 23 miles or 38 kilometers long and it serves eight stations connecting downtown Denver and Denver International Airport as well as many other communities along Interstate 70 fun fact despite bearing the name the a line actually doesn’t serve the University and the title is just that of a sponsorship next we have the B Line which is another regional rail line the B Line is 6.2 miles or 10 kilometers long and it connects Denver’s Union Station with Westminster currently there are only four stations two of which in addition to the Union Station the G line has shared but this is only the first phase of the project and in the future more will be added to the line which we’ll talk about later finally we have the newly opened G line or the Gold Line which opened in early 2019 it has eight stations and eleven point two miles or 18 kilometres of track it also shares tracks with the B line until Pecos Junction station and then continues west to wheat Ridge and Arvada the G line was severely delayed and it’s opening due to issues related to crossing signals and their interaction with positive train control one of the signalling technologies used on the line which is now mandated nationally in the United States now let’s talk about the future of RTD the main development plan for transit expansion is the fast tracks expansion plan as mentioned before it consists of new commuter rail light rail and Express bus services and in particular six new rail lines with a combined length of 122 miles or 196 kilometres it includes 57 new transit stops and also are now completed renovation of Denver Union Station into a multimodal transportation hub for first in 2007 fast-tracks was originally envisioned to be completed in 27 team butt was set back by budget issues the first few projects the W line the a line to be line and the R line as well as the G line aren’t already open and the rest of the expansion is coming along with the end line likely next to open as just mentioned next we have the end line another electrified regional rail line the line goes from downtown Denver to Thornton running on an existing rail right-of-way construction is split into two phases phase one will be 13 miles or 21 kilometers long as well as seven stations after phase two it will be eighteen point five miles or 30 kilometers long with nine stations in total construction started in 2014 and the first phase is currently in testing with an opening set for early 2020 we do want to take a moment to look at Denver’s now very nice regional rail network by itself while Denver’s existing light rail network did serve the city well it primarily connected youth communities to the south and west the commuter network features faster trains and spreads the network further to the east north and northwest in the future the infrastructure would also be quite easily converted into a full Metro subway system which would be a big upgrade down the line now let’s talk about some extensions that are currently coming to existing rail lines first we have the L line extension it will connect the existing downtown rail loop to the a line extending from 30th and downing station to 38th and Blake station with two stations in between next we have the Southwest rail extension the extension will extend the C and D lines into highlands ranch adding an additional 2.5 miles or 4 kilometers of track as well as one new station at C 470 loosen and finally we have the B Line extension to Longmont the first segment of the B line to Westminster was just a first segment in the full line to long rod which will be 41 miles or 66 kilometers long passing through Adams County Westminster Broomfield Louisville folder and Longmont it will have eight stations in total providing reliable rush-hour commuter service in the area the whole route is estimated to be fully built out by 2040 in the meantime the Flatiron fire is set to fill the service gap between these communities.