When it comes to transportation in Denver, 2018 looks to improve and evolve its services from the Regional Transportation District (RTD). In his state of the city address, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock aims to see fewer cars on the city streets. The three in-progress projects RTD is highlighting is the G Line, the 16th Street Mall Transit-Way and the L Line.
According to RTD, “[The G Line] will travel 11 miles between Union Station and Wheat Ridge, passing through northwest Denver, Adams County and Arvada.” The new light rail will also include seven new parking lots in the seven out of eight stations. The train is going to have commuter rail vehicles like those in the A Line with larger seats, overhead storage, luggage towers and bicycle racks.
The opening of the G Line has been delayed due to the wireless system, the automatic gate that block the cars when a light rail is crossing, not meeting the Public Utilities Commission’s standards. Similar to the A and B lines who have required flaggers, the wireless systems,as reported by CPR, come down early and stay up too late.
An RTD project in earlier stages is the plan for the 16th Street Mall Transit-Way. On Jan. 23, RTD staff presented to the Board of Directors plans to realign transit lanes which will give wider sidewalks down the popular Denver area. According to Andrea Burns, a spokeswoman for Denver’s Community Planning and Development office who spoke with Denver Business Journal, funding will come from sources like bond money, tax increment financing and grants from the Federal Transit Administration.Construction is expected to start near the end of 2019 and into 2020.
TheL Line is Denver’s most recent functioning addition. On Jan. 14, the L Line Downtown loop opened which replaces the D Line between the 18th and Stout station and the 39th and Downing station. According to the RTD website, plans for the L line will be to connect it to the A line from the 30th and Downing station to the 38th and Blake station.
Coloradans can visit the RTD website for updates on these three projects or other RTD announcements.
