DenverInfill Blog

Unfortunately, I think Saturday was a PR disaster for RTD. Trains would inexplicably sit for several minutes at stations after the doors had closed. Trains would also stop at signals and just sit. Many people were mumbling about never riding light rail again because of the aggravating delays. Most people probably do not know that the service is usually smoother than that, hopefully RTD took note.
 

No-one I was in close proximity to was saying anything of the sort, anonymous... We all knew that the system would be overloaded because of the swarm of passengers, we all expected some minor problems and issues, and everyone seemed to have a damn good time regardless of some delays.

Aggravating delays? For god's sake, it was a SATURDAY! I'll venture that 90%+ of the riders weren't even going purposely from one place to another, and were simply just soaking in the experience!

Aaron
 

Sorry, wrong day... :( meant for previous day.
 

The only thing that I think was aggravating to people on the ride from what I got was that there was no direct access to Park Meadows. I saw so many people taking the long trek by way of County Line road, and I know people will never do this regularly. Hopefully this will get corrected sooner rather than later, since PM is probably the single biggest "amenity" along the whole Southeast line (at least for now)

From the ridership that I saw I would have to say it was overall pretty successful. And people would have to be ignorant to not expect a few issues along the way that obviously will be corrected.
 

Woo hoo!
 

I read in one of our papers over the weekend that PM has committed to building direct access to the mall. I think within a year.
 

As far as PM is concerned, the mall has nobody to blame but itself. RTD wanted to build access to the so-called "retail resort" from the beginning, but mall wasn't part of district and prior ownership didn't want to take the chance that public transit riders would taint the place.
 

Rumor has it that the PM folks resisted the access-way for that exact reason. They were concerned that it would be too easy for kids/teenagers from poor neighborhoods to access the mall and subsequently shoplift.

Maybe just an outlandish 'suburban legend', but I wouldn't put it past them.
 

That is happening out here where I live also. They don't want the inner city people coming out to the resort areas on the coast. Thus no light rail lines. Even though the traffic is a nightmare.
 

Wouldn't it be great if, once the stairway is built to connect PM to the light rail, that the surface parking lots get redeveloped along more urban lines, integrating housing and service retail? It won't happen, but it's fun to imagine "The Streets of Park Meadows."
 

Thank you for metioning what is likely to be the greatest contribution to the development of all of Denver, especially downtown. Perhaps the reason for the dreath of development in Downtown Denver has been its limited accessablity - which is now substatially improved. Thank you.

Oh, for the record, in the picture on the left, i am the person just right of the camera with the red and black jacket
 

The PM bridge will be complete in 2008. A shuttle is in place from County Line stop to PM for the Christmas 2006 season, at least.