10 ms·

> To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen. Yep.[1] The governor is _trying_ to build comprehen

> To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen. Yep.[1] The governor is _trying_ to build comprehensive transit in Colorado[2], but between an incompetent transportation district and the difficulties of building public transit infrastructure to serve our metastatic urban sprawl makes public transit difficult to fund over cars.[3] Our state metro areas just refuse to accept that if they want growth they'll need density. They'd rather pave their farms because they value the taxes they get from McMansions more than actual food. [1] https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/17/rtd-leadership-elections-continue-despite-legislative-proposal-to-revamp/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/17/rtd-leadership-elections-cont... [2] https://www.cpr.org/2024/01/12/jared-polis-2024-state-of-the-state-interview/ https://www.cpr.org/2024/01/12/jared-polis-2024-state-of-the... [3] https://pressbooks.uwf.edu/envrioscience/chapter/14-3-the-impacts-of-urban-sprawl/ https://pressbooks.uwf.edu/envrioscience/chapter/14-3-the-im...

kjkjadksj 2y ago
All they have to do is restart the old passenger rail system they had in the 40s. It connected the entire front range with salt lake and all the major cities in utah including park city, went down to santa fe in the south, and hit just about all the towns and ski resorts that were around at the time. Even the ones that are a little more annoying to get to today like aspen or telluride. What is even more tempting is that all this infrastructure and right of ways are still there. A lot of these towns have the old station land empty still, some have the old station preserved even. A lot of the rail grades are either sustained by freight rail or have been railbanked as trails. Its practically turn key as the hard part of gathering all this land was done over a century ago. Too bad rail ambition is so paltry in comparison today.
- scsilver 2y ago
  Can you lead me to some background on this? I'd love to look at some of the routes and law behind it.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    It was called the denver and rio grande railroad
- kortilla 2y ago
  That system was slow and doesn’t solve the same problems. It’s competing with long range travel and all of those track routes were far slower than just driving. The problems that Colorado faces are transportation within urban areas. Driving to salt lake and ski resorts isn’t an issue.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    All those routes could be made faster and it also had routes running down the front range too. Either way traffic on 70 into summit county is stupid and this is the salve. Already exists. Already graded. Already set up to serve vail and many other destinations that people rent a car from DEN to reach today.
someguydave 2y ago
The tax haul from a house is almost certainly higher than food grown on a semi-arid steppe like Colorado
- troyvit 2y ago
  Totally, which is why Colorado is producing less and less food. I mean towns sprouted up where people settled and people settled to grow food, so this has been happening in Colorado since farming began here. As a result the land left for farming is getting worse and worse. The good spots have all been paved. But say we have to keep that, my next question is, what's the tax haul for a house compared to an apartment complex? Cities out here will choose the former as much as they can, increasing sprawl, because "quality of life."
  - someguydave 2y ago
    What are you talking about? King Soopers has plenty of food
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Colorado producing less food is probably from market conditions and not urbanism. Like just consider the land area here. Sure denver is sprawly suburbia but what percent is that really of the massive swath of farmland that is all of colorado east of the front range? Its got to be in the single percent range just eyeballing it on google maps. And farm yields have absolutely soared over the last 100 years so fewer farms are needed to produce the same food.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Tax haul for 10 houses are better than a 10 unit complex. The people also want houses opposed to apartments (hence the higher price). This seems to be an ideological conflict where some people are trying to force everyone else into options they dont want- why? The solution seems simple. relax zoning where it exists and let people who want to live in tiny urban apartments do so, and let people who want to live in suburban houses do so too.

kjkjadksj 2y ago

All they have to do is restart the old passenger rail system they had in the 40s. It connected the entire front range with salt lake and all the major cities in utah including park city, went down to santa fe in the south, and hit just about all the towns and ski resorts that were around at the time. Even the ones that are a little more annoying to get to today like aspen or telluride. What is even more tempting is that all this infrastructure and right of ways are still there. A lot of these towns have the old station land empty still, some have the old station preserved even. A lot of the rail grades are either sustained by freight rail or have been railbanked as trails. Its practically turn key as the hard part of gathering all this land was done over a century ago. Too bad rail ambition is so paltry in comparison today.

scsilver 2y ago
Can you lead me to some background on this? I'd love to look at some of the routes and law behind it.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  It was called the denver and rio grande railroad
kortilla 2y ago
That system was slow and doesn’t solve the same problems. It’s competing with long range travel and all of those track routes were far slower than just driving. The problems that Colorado faces are transportation within urban areas. Driving to salt lake and ski resorts isn’t an issue.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  All those routes could be made faster and it also had routes running down the front range too. Either way traffic on 70 into summit county is stupid and this is the salve. Already exists. Already graded. Already set up to serve vail and many other destinations that people rent a car from DEN to reach today.

someguydave 2y ago

The tax haul from a house is almost certainly higher than food grown on a semi-arid steppe like Colorado

troyvit 2y ago
Totally, which is why Colorado is producing less and less food. I mean towns sprouted up where people settled and people settled to grow food, so this has been happening in Colorado since farming began here. As a result the land left for farming is getting worse and worse. The good spots have all been paved. But say we have to keep that, my next question is, what's the tax haul for a house compared to an apartment complex? Cities out here will choose the former as much as they can, increasing sprawl, because "quality of life."
- someguydave 2y ago
  What are you talking about? King Soopers has plenty of food
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Colorado producing less food is probably from market conditions and not urbanism. Like just consider the land area here. Sure denver is sprawly suburbia but what percent is that really of the massive swath of farmland that is all of colorado east of the front range? Its got to be in the single percent range just eyeballing it on google maps. And farm yields have absolutely soared over the last 100 years so fewer farms are needed to produce the same food.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Tax haul for 10 houses are better than a 10 unit complex. The people also want houses opposed to apartments (hence the higher price). This seems to be an ideological conflict where some people are trying to force everyone else into options they dont want- why? The solution seems simple. relax zoning where it exists and let people who want to live in tiny urban apartments do so, and let people who want to live in suburban houses do so too.