{"id":679,"date":"2001-09-01T19:49:36","date_gmt":"2001-09-02T01:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=679"},"modified":"2014-11-10T14:26:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T21:26:00","slug":"riding_the_rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/09\/01\/riding_the_rail.html","title":{"rendered":"Riding the rails"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Denver has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rtd-denver.com\/\">light rail<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of people who pooh-pooh this.  Some of them think we should expand our bus fleet.  Others think rapid transit is a goofy idea, and that we should just expand our freeways to LA-size megaways (since that has, clearly, made LA traffic so much better).<\/p>\n<p>I, frankly, think light rail is keen.  I dearly wish it traveled somewhere along my commute, because I would ride it (as I rode the bus downtown when that was where my job was).  The critics would note that it does <i>not<\/i> do so, and so condemn light rail as a profligate waste, a boondoggle, a passle of porkbarrel.<\/p>\n<p>But there is value in symbols, and light rail, even though it does not solve all our ongoing transit problems (though the Southwest corridor has turned out to be far more successful than anyone thought, and I predict similar success for the Southeast corridor), is a symbol.  It is a sign that we can at least give lip service to solving regional problems.  It&#8217;s a sign that we are looking for alternatives to simply paving more roads to accomodate more cars and more people.<\/p>\n<p>And you know what?  People do ride the light rail.  And when petrol prices climb even higher, more will ride it.  And folks will bitch about short-sighted politicos who can&#8217;t wave their hands and make more light rail magically appear.<\/p>\n<p>Such is progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Denver has light rail. There are a lot of people who pooh-pooh this. Some of them think we should expand our bus fleet. Others think rapid transit is a goofy&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,131,20,717],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars","category-energy","category-hi-tech","category-traveling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13624,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/03\/i_like_my_company.html","url_meta":{"origin":679,"position":0},"title":"I like my company","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Nov-08 1:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A cool thing about moving to the downtown office was that I got to take the light rail into the office. That would be a cost savings in general, but...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Job Jollies&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Job Jollies","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/job-jollies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31709,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/11\/so-this-was-my-morning.html","url_meta":{"origin":679,"position":1},"title":"So this was my morning","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Dec-12 9:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"Because some yahoo decided to walk on the light rail bridge over Santa Fe, my commute ended up running 2 hours (indeed, roughly the time frame of the entire incident, 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.). \u00a0I'm glad he was not seriously injured, but\u00a0I hope he servers some trespass time in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41391,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/11\/ugh-light-rail-problems-at-br.html","url_meta":{"origin":679,"position":2},"title":"Ugh. Light rail problems at Br&#8230;","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Mar-14 3:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Ugh. Light rail problems at Broadway Stn. Bad day to be out waiting for a train. #ltr","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~Tweets&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131249,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/12\/light-rail-and-lyft.html","url_meta":{"origin":679,"position":3},"title":"Light Rail and Lyft","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-Aug-16 2:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting experiment here in the South Metro Denver area -- free Lyft rides to\/from the local light rail station, to encourage people to use that as an option rather than (a) drive, or (b) take the light rail and then (assuming one has reserved it in advance) using the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23385,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/02\/the-true-cost-of-commuting.html","url_meta":{"origin":679,"position":4},"title":"The true cost of commuting","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Nov-11 10:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"Y'know, even if my company stopped subsidizing my transit pass, it would still be worth it to take the light rail in. Especially since it gives me a 30-40 minutes of reading time to and from the office.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27517,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/23\/light-rail-still-requires-automobiles-you-know.html","url_meta":{"origin":679,"position":5},"title":"Light rail still requires automobiles, you know","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 23-Apr-12 10:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"This strikes me as very shortsighted, given that, even with a much larger distribution of parking lots on the existing LTR lines in Denver that there are consistent complaints about insufficient parking. Not only will a lack of adequate parking cause neighborhood problems, but it will, I assure you, reduce\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47725,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/47725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}