Transportation for a new Downtown Denver

Yesterday, I attended an event at the Museum of Contemporary Art called Top 10 and WITY Cocktails.  The even featured Ken Schroeppel, an urban planner, Denver enthusiast and the creator of the Web site DenverInfill.com, which examines Central Denver development and how to improve the general environment of Central Denver.

Ken's site is great and his discussion was even better. Ken presented his top 10 ways to improve downtown Denver. His list featured everything from planting more street trees to putting a Target store downtown. One of his ideas was to create a downtown streetcar system that could take people around the central core for low or no cost, something which is already a part of the plan for the redevelopment of Union Station as part of FastTracks. 

Our conversation definitely delved into the need for more and better public transportation not just downtown but all over the city. Unfortunately, I and others at this talk felt that RTD is somewhat of an impediment to really making solid transportation happen in this city. We discussed such topics as extended streetcars, a fare-free downtown zone and the possibility of a smart card system like many other cities use.

Key to this entire discussion on improving downtown, was the importance of the public process. Ken gave a great quote on if the public demands, the politicians will follow, which I think is exactly the kind of thinking we need as Denver transit riders. We need to push RTD to be more accountable to us. We need to attend meetings, write letters to the editor, talk to friends and family and be vocal in what we want from a transit agency.

This is our city, so we need to fight for what we want.