11 ms·

I live in Centennial. Once a week I commute up to Westminster for work. I've been contemplating the light rail + train to get me to within 5.5 miles of my offic

I live in Centennial. Once a week I commute up to Westminster for work. I've been contemplating the light rail + train to get me to within 5.5 miles of my office. However, it looks like this would be about 1.5 - 2 hours vs my 45 minutes (on a bad traffic day) drive in my POV. I'm not sure it'll be worth it. Even with a free trip to the closest station, that's only going to shave about 3/4 of a mile off of my walking/biking trip. Edit: If anyone lives in the area, I wouldn't mind meeting up. My email is in my profile.

Brendinooo 10y ago
Time is often an underrated element in these discussions, as is the sunk cost of already owning a car if transit can't take you everywhere. I can get a bus to downtown Pittsburgh a block away from my house, but I'll almost always drive because I can often get downtown in almost half the time (25 minutes vs 45), I can often find free parking, and I can then set my own terms for arrival and departure. Fares are currently $7.50 for a roundtrip, which is over two gallons of gas or a gallon of gas and a cheap parking spot. Point being, if you already have a car and if you can park cheaply, public transit, as much as I personally like it, becomes a tough value proposition.
- voxic11 10y ago
  Traffic can be a real thing. For me to get most places in Boston it's actually at least as fast for to take the subway then to sit in rush hour traffic. I guess buses don't have that advantage though.
  - sliverstorm 10y ago
    Depends on the bus, my local township has a new system of a private busway corridor, which strikes somewhere between a bus (low capital investment) and a train (no traffic).
  - ghaff 10y ago
    For traveling within Boston, the T--in spite of its well-publicized issues--is a pretty decent urban transportation system for a lot of cases. But you talk about getting into the city from outside and the equation changes a lot. I'm a short drive from a commuter rail station and I tend to go in that way if I'm going in "9 to 5" for an event or meeting, especially given how bad rush hour traffic is. But, for anything else, it will take me close to twice as long and probably cost me $25 between the train, parking at the commuter rail, and possibly the T from the rail station. And trains are pretty infrequent outside of "normal" commuting hours.
  - swampthinker 10y ago
    Not sure what you're talking about. Taking the train from Alewife to Downtown always beats the car, just not a bicycle.
    - MrFoof 10y ago
      He's more referring to where Commuter Rail, not subway, is the method. Problems notwithstanding, subway lines other than the Green Line will always win over driving during peak times. A great example would be coming from Waltham via the Worcester/Framingham Line versus driving along the Mass Pike -- it'd be a coin flip as to what wins on a given day. Moreover, outside of subway service the only alternative (where available) is bus which can easily double commute times compared to driving. In some cases (Waltham and Newton for example) there's the Inner/Outer Express Buses which also competes directly with Commuter Rail in terms of timeliness (10% slower on average) but at a lower cost -- you can take non-express buses as well which are cheaper still, but tack on another 35-45 minutes each way -- we're talking 3 to 4 hours of commuting a day from northern parts of Boston to central Waltham via a combination of subway and non-express buses. However, Commuter Rail tends to be faster than driving on longer trips. Such as coming from Providence, Worcester, Fitchburg, etc.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Not in the US, generally. In France, for example, many municipalities have dedicated bus lanes which make buses competitive for timing.
    - user5994461 10y ago
      In the city center the bus is useless because it's stuck in traffic jam. Any other option is better: bike/tube/overground/underground. Outside the city center. There are only a very few bus lines, infrequent and not covering much area. I suppose it's the same in most of the European countries: 10% of people have good nearby transportation. 50% of people live in the country side, with little to no transportation in sight. Car is highly recommended (usually considered mandatory).
      - tbihl 10y ago
        In Madrid it's not like this. I've never ridden anywhere in the city where the buses couldn't make it between the stops in good time, and that includes places like Gran Via and Puerta del Sol. In the US, we really do suffer for our vast wealth. We spent 70 years doing huge horizontal growth, putting tons of the population back to work in the process, and getting huge growth as a result. The problem with this, aside from the car dependency, is that it's not financially viable. When towns first build it, they get a burst of growth. Problem is, their infrastructure costs pretty much go up as a function of area, but the horizontal growth pattern doesn't pay its way. This becomes problematic in second and third life cycles, where the road maintenance is cripplingly expensive, but brings no growth. We should be building places that converge on hubs of activity. If we did that, we'd be able to put transit to those hubs and it would work because there would be better density nearby, and the potential riders wouldn't be too far to get to stations without cars. In the US we're going to be building this way, sooner or later. Some towns/cities have taken it upon themselves to move in that direction already. Many others are planning to be too big to fail, I guess. But we can't put off reality forever.
      - barney54 10y ago
        In DC with the Metro having problems, the bus is frequently faster--even from downtown.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Mixing exercise into your commute is time-efficient (two birds, one bicycle). Driving to work takes 20 minutes. Biking to work takes me 35 minutes plus a shower. But I have to shower anyway, and I get 35 minutes of exercise at the price of 15 minutes. I was going to propose that kind of logic for your parent, take public transit partway and bike partway. Unfortunately for him, somehow: Even with a free trip to the closest station, that's only going to shave about 3/4 of a mile off of my biking trip.
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    Even running can be time efficient. When I lived in almost-central London (Wandsworth), the office was 7 km in towards the center. Running took 40 min., while the tube or bus was 50 min. door-to-door. So running plus a shower was no slower than public transport, plus you save time on never having to go to the gym. And of course significant financial savings on cutting the gym membership and 80-90% of the public transport expenses. (Not a native Londoner, so I was too afraid of traffic to bike it.)
    - xirdstl 10y ago
      Why were you paying for a gym membership just to run?
      - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        Before going on the run-to-work gig I mainly did weight training, thus gym membership.
- selectodude 10y ago
  The idea behind expansion of public transit is that the direct subsidies of ancillary stuff that substantially improve the value proposition of cars (mandated free parking being the biggest) should go to public transit, or just not be spent at all.
- cfallin 10y ago
  > I can get a bus to downtown Pittsburgh a block away from my house, but I'll almost always drive Pittsburgh's bus system is definitely not the most timely or reliable of bus systems I've used, but I have the opposite experience here: parking is a huge pain, drivers can be insane, and I'd much rather sit on the bus reading Hacker News on my phone (or whatever). Maybe not for the occasional Costco trip but definitely anywhere in the East End. Granted, (i) I also have an unlimited bus pass via CMU (sunk costs work both ways!), and (ii) I'm close to several frequent routes (in Squirrel Hill). If I had to pay each time and buses were less frequent I'd probably be thinking like you are. In any case, OP's two-hour number seems pretty off-putting. Agreed that time is an important consideration at that scale :-)
  - Brendinooo 10y ago
    The Port Authority works well for suburbs east and south of the city. Western and northern suburbs are much more suited for driving; from the north you get an interstate without a tunnel, and the West Hills has multiple ways to get downtown, some of which have minimal traffic. What's bad about the suburbs is that they're not linked. So even if I got an unlimited pass for cheap, a 15 minute drive to Ikea becomes a trip that takes about an hour and a half (one way!) and involves a transfer. Looking forward to the new zone-free fares next year, I hope it helps to solve the chicken/egg problem of ridership and routes.
toddsiegel 10y ago
The light rail is not designed for people in your situation. It's designed to easily get people to and from Denver. Point to point in the 'burbs will remain faster by car for the foreseeable future. For those not familiar with Denver-area geography, Centennial is a southeastern suburb (as stated in the article) and Westminster a northwestern suburb. These are each serviced by different lines.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Not necessarily. In my area, they had a "Flex" service in higher density suburbs that would take you anywhere up to a 1/4 mile off the main corridor. So you could get from an express bus to an arbritary destination in an office park, shopping center, etc.
chrisseaton 10y ago
> it looks like this would be about 1.5 - 2 hours vs my 45 minutes drive But that's 1.5 hours of snoozing, reading, working, drinking coffee, having breakfast, whatever else you like, vs 45 minutes having to concentrate on driving. I used to love my two hourly (total) commute on a train because it was two hours of enforced relaxation time every day. You can return home each evening completely switched off from work.
- hueving 10y ago
  Well my commute home is driving and I still come home completely switched off from work. I drive in bay area traffic and it's still not stressful for me. It's a nice time to listen to the radio to get the news or call the parents. I will take the 15 minutes of driving over 45 minutes any time (unless I'm drinking of course) just because 30 minutes adds up very quickly over a week.
- wehadfun 10y ago
  Don't know about Denver but in Dallas, No eating or drinking on train and plenty would be too scared to fall asleep.
  - chrisseaton 10y ago
    In the UK trains will serve you a cooked breakfast and an evening meal on proper china plates at your table, like a business class airline seat. You have to pay extra for it of course and it's only the nicer routes.

Brendinooo 10y ago

Time is often an underrated element in these discussions, as is the sunk cost of already owning a car if transit can't take you everywhere. I can get a bus to downtown Pittsburgh a block away from my house, but I'll almost always drive because I can often get downtown in almost half the time (25 minutes vs 45), I can often find free parking, and I can then set my own terms for arrival and departure. Fares are currently $7.50 for a roundtrip, which is over two gallons of gas or a gallon of gas and a cheap parking spot. Point being, if you already have a car and if you can park cheaply, public transit, as much as I personally like it, becomes a tough value proposition.

voxic11 10y ago
Traffic can be a real thing. For me to get most places in Boston it's actually at least as fast for to take the subway then to sit in rush hour traffic. I guess buses don't have that advantage though.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Depends on the bus, my local township has a new system of a private busway corridor, which strikes somewhere between a bus (low capital investment) and a train (no traffic).
- ghaff 10y ago
  For traveling within Boston, the T--in spite of its well-publicized issues--is a pretty decent urban transportation system for a lot of cases. But you talk about getting into the city from outside and the equation changes a lot. I'm a short drive from a commuter rail station and I tend to go in that way if I'm going in "9 to 5" for an event or meeting, especially given how bad rush hour traffic is. But, for anything else, it will take me close to twice as long and probably cost me $25 between the train, parking at the commuter rail, and possibly the T from the rail station. And trains are pretty infrequent outside of "normal" commuting hours.
- swampthinker 10y ago
  Not sure what you're talking about. Taking the train from Alewife to Downtown always beats the car, just not a bicycle.
  - MrFoof 10y ago
    He's more referring to where Commuter Rail, not subway, is the method. Problems notwithstanding, subway lines other than the Green Line will always win over driving during peak times. A great example would be coming from Waltham via the Worcester/Framingham Line versus driving along the Mass Pike -- it'd be a coin flip as to what wins on a given day. Moreover, outside of subway service the only alternative (where available) is bus which can easily double commute times compared to driving. In some cases (Waltham and Newton for example) there's the Inner/Outer Express Buses which also competes directly with Commuter Rail in terms of timeliness (10% slower on average) but at a lower cost -- you can take non-express buses as well which are cheaper still, but tack on another 35-45 minutes each way -- we're talking 3 to 4 hours of commuting a day from northern parts of Boston to central Waltham via a combination of subway and non-express buses. However, Commuter Rail tends to be faster than driving on longer trips. Such as coming from Providence, Worcester, Fitchburg, etc.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Not in the US, generally. In France, for example, many municipalities have dedicated bus lanes which make buses competitive for timing.
  - user5994461 10y ago
    In the city center the bus is useless because it's stuck in traffic jam. Any other option is better: bike/tube/overground/underground. Outside the city center. There are only a very few bus lines, infrequent and not covering much area. I suppose it's the same in most of the European countries: 10% of people have good nearby transportation. 50% of people live in the country side, with little to no transportation in sight. Car is highly recommended (usually considered mandatory).
    - tbihl 10y ago
      In Madrid it's not like this. I've never ridden anywhere in the city where the buses couldn't make it between the stops in good time, and that includes places like Gran Via and Puerta del Sol. In the US, we really do suffer for our vast wealth. We spent 70 years doing huge horizontal growth, putting tons of the population back to work in the process, and getting huge growth as a result. The problem with this, aside from the car dependency, is that it's not financially viable. When towns first build it, they get a burst of growth. Problem is, their infrastructure costs pretty much go up as a function of area, but the horizontal growth pattern doesn't pay its way. This becomes problematic in second and third life cycles, where the road maintenance is cripplingly expensive, but brings no growth. We should be building places that converge on hubs of activity. If we did that, we'd be able to put transit to those hubs and it would work because there would be better density nearby, and the potential riders wouldn't be too far to get to stations without cars. In the US we're going to be building this way, sooner or later. Some towns/cities have taken it upon themselves to move in that direction already. Many others are planning to be too big to fail, I guess. But we can't put off reality forever.
    - barney54 10y ago
      In DC with the Metro having problems, the bus is frequently faster--even from downtown.
sliverstorm 10y ago
Mixing exercise into your commute is time-efficient (two birds, one bicycle). Driving to work takes 20 minutes. Biking to work takes me 35 minutes plus a shower. But I have to shower anyway, and I get 35 minutes of exercise at the price of 15 minutes. I was going to propose that kind of logic for your parent, take public transit partway and bike partway. Unfortunately for him, somehow: Even with a free trip to the closest station, that's only going to shave about 3/4 of a mile off of my biking trip.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Even running can be time efficient. When I lived in almost-central London (Wandsworth), the office was 7 km in towards the center. Running took 40 min., while the tube or bus was 50 min. door-to-door. So running plus a shower was no slower than public transport, plus you save time on never having to go to the gym. And of course significant financial savings on cutting the gym membership and 80-90% of the public transport expenses. (Not a native Londoner, so I was too afraid of traffic to bike it.)
  - xirdstl 10y ago
    Why were you paying for a gym membership just to run?
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      Before going on the run-to-work gig I mainly did weight training, thus gym membership.
selectodude 10y ago
The idea behind expansion of public transit is that the direct subsidies of ancillary stuff that substantially improve the value proposition of cars (mandated free parking being the biggest) should go to public transit, or just not be spent at all.
cfallin 10y ago
> I can get a bus to downtown Pittsburgh a block away from my house, but I'll almost always drive Pittsburgh's bus system is definitely not the most timely or reliable of bus systems I've used, but I have the opposite experience here: parking is a huge pain, drivers can be insane, and I'd much rather sit on the bus reading Hacker News on my phone (or whatever). Maybe not for the occasional Costco trip but definitely anywhere in the East End. Granted, (i) I also have an unlimited bus pass via CMU (sunk costs work both ways!), and (ii) I'm close to several frequent routes (in Squirrel Hill). If I had to pay each time and buses were less frequent I'd probably be thinking like you are. In any case, OP's two-hour number seems pretty off-putting. Agreed that time is an important consideration at that scale :-)
- Brendinooo 10y ago
  The Port Authority works well for suburbs east and south of the city. Western and northern suburbs are much more suited for driving; from the north you get an interstate without a tunnel, and the West Hills has multiple ways to get downtown, some of which have minimal traffic. What's bad about the suburbs is that they're not linked. So even if I got an unlimited pass for cheap, a 15 minute drive to Ikea becomes a trip that takes about an hour and a half (one way!) and involves a transfer. Looking forward to the new zone-free fares next year, I hope it helps to solve the chicken/egg problem of ridership and routes.

toddsiegel 10y ago

The light rail is not designed for people in your situation. It's designed to easily get people to and from Denver. Point to point in the 'burbs will remain faster by car for the foreseeable future. For those not familiar with Denver-area geography, Centennial is a southeastern suburb (as stated in the article) and Westminster a northwestern suburb. These are each serviced by different lines.

Spooky23 10y ago
Not necessarily. In my area, they had a "Flex" service in higher density suburbs that would take you anywhere up to a 1/4 mile off the main corridor. So you could get from an express bus to an arbritary destination in an office park, shopping center, etc.

chrisseaton 10y ago

> it looks like this would be about 1.5 - 2 hours vs my 45 minutes drive But that's 1.5 hours of snoozing, reading, working, drinking coffee, having breakfast, whatever else you like, vs 45 minutes having to concentrate on driving. I used to love my two hourly (total) commute on a train because it was two hours of enforced relaxation time every day. You can return home each evening completely switched off from work.

hueving 10y ago
Well my commute home is driving and I still come home completely switched off from work. I drive in bay area traffic and it's still not stressful for me. It's a nice time to listen to the radio to get the news or call the parents. I will take the 15 minutes of driving over 45 minutes any time (unless I'm drinking of course) just because 30 minutes adds up very quickly over a week.
wehadfun 10y ago
Don't know about Denver but in Dallas, No eating or drinking on train and plenty would be too scared to fall asleep.
- chrisseaton 10y ago
  In the UK trains will serve you a cooked breakfast and an evening meal on proper china plates at your table, like a business class airline seat. You have to pay extra for it of course and it's only the nicer routes.