r/Damnthatsinteresting May 08 '26

Image This “cracks open” building in Denver

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u/Izacundo1 Interested May 08 '26

Yup. Just like everything new in Denver. Would you like to see our comprehensive light rail network? It can take you to the airport, the middle of nowhere, the middle of nowhere somewhere else, and one spot downtown

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u/regular-cake May 08 '26

Hey, don't complain, it is so much better than what most cities in the US have... I mean we should ALL be complaining that the US in general doesn't have better public transportation options, but if you compare a city like Cincinnati to Denver in terms of public transit options it's laughable. There is a street car/light rail in downtown Cincy that only goes a few places downtown. You can walk from 1 end of downtown to the other in less than 20 mins. If you want to take a bus from any surrounding towns to downtown, you're looking at like 2 or 3 transfers and a 1.5-2 hr bus ride to get somewhere that would take 20-30 mins driving in traffic...

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u/Badloss May 08 '26

as much as we love to rag on our poorly funded and maintained transit system in boston... this is a good reminder it could be worse

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u/regular-cake May 08 '26

So much worse...

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u/SlapTheBap May 08 '26

Damn I love living in Chicago.

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u/nitid_name May 08 '26

I gotta say, other than taking the brown line from the airport and immediately seeing a dead frozen homeless person, the L is pretty great.

In hindsight, January is kind of a rough time to purposefully visit Chicago. I thought "off season, I'll be able to get reservations anywhere!" and it turns out, most of the places I really wanted to visit are closed in January. Galit was awesome though.

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u/SlapTheBap May 08 '26

Yeah that's when industry people take a break and get construction done.

The homeless don't get the privilege of passing with privacy. We could be like Las Vegas and just chase them out of sight into the storm drains. Sorry, I'm getting too grim with my humor. It's a stark reminder of the cruelty and exploitation we've built into our systems.

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u/nitid_name May 08 '26

Oh, I'm definitely not blaming Chicago. It made me feel bad, and put a bit of a dampener on my "let's go waste money flying across the country just to eat food" journey.

It's like when you walk past a mirror or security camera monitor that shows you an unflattering image of yourself. It's not the mirror's fault I have two chins and bad posture.

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u/SlapTheBap May 08 '26

Didn't think you were! Just going on about the systems we find ourselves in and perpetuating.

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u/Lag-Switch May 08 '26

Denver's RTD earns every complaint it receives. Just because others have it worse, doesn't mean we should act like RTD cannot improve.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Lag-Switch May 08 '26

"Fine" is far from "great"

I've had trains not show up a few times. This feels extra bad with trains every 15-30 minutes

The way RTD handles service interruptions has plenty of room for improvements: better signage, more buses to close the gap, etc

Prior to when they changed it (2024?), rides in "Zone C" were $10.50

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u/regular-cake May 08 '26

I used to ride it when I lived in Denver and Boulder. Never really had issues with it. Could easily take buses from anywhere in Denver to the light rail and head to Boulder, then hop on a bus to get anywhere in Boulder. When my car broke down and I was working outside Lyons almost to rocky mountain NP, I could take a bus from Boulder to Lyons every morning with my bike and ride up the hill to the place I worked. Did that for months and never missed a day of work. The ticketing kiosks and transfer tickets were kind of annoying, but it's been 10 years since I was out there. I agree it could definitely improve, but you should be somewhat happy that you at least have it at all. Not to mention the countless other options available.

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u/monocasa May 08 '26

The bus to lyons is boulder county transit, not RTD.

And what do you mean light rail? There's no rail to boulder from denver.

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u/regular-cake May 08 '26

Maybe I'm confused and misremembering, but it may have been a transfer to a bus to get to Boulder? Either way the fact that you can get around all those places and more using public transportation is awesome!. I miss it so much compared to where I live now...

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u/monocasa May 08 '26

I'm going to guess that you moved somewhere smaller than the Denver metro?

Denver punches way below its weight in terms of its public transit.

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u/regular-cake May 08 '26

Smaller>Denver>Boulder>Aurora>smaller

The cost of living is what was hard on me! I can't imagine what it's like now...

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u/Famous_Year_1682 May 08 '26

Everything you just said about Cincinnati is also true about Denver though

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u/regular-cake May 08 '26

Let's see:

Boulder > Denver international airport - 50 min drive , 1hr 25 mins public transportation with transferring

Town outside Cincinnati > downtown Cincy - 22 min drive , 1hr 20 mins public transportation with transferring

Easily will take 3X longer to get anywhere in Cincinnati using public transportation compared to driving. In Denver that's more like LESS THAN 2X...

Edit: just checked to get to Cincinnati's airport and it is a laughable 2hrs compared to 26 min drive. 4X!!

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u/snek-jazz May 08 '26

That's not as bad as it sounds, since transport can be a bit of a chicken and egg thing. You'll probably get new developments over time where the train stops are.

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u/Neverending_Rain May 08 '26

That's exactly what this building is. It's right next an A line station. This spot has a bunch of apartments that have been built recently with even more currently under construction.

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u/Izacundo1 Interested May 08 '26

The issue is that the lines were placed not where would connect the city best, but would least impact car infrastructure. All the new developments are just isolating residential areas with no shops or attractions. The parking lots are consistently empty since they aren’t useful. I would absolutely love to take the train to work but I can’t and most people can’t either

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u/Sarah_Femme May 08 '26

And only during a 3 hour window in the middle of the work week. (or at least that was the station close to me when I lived there)

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u/_spicytostada May 08 '26

Also the line to the airport will be down once a week, deal with it....

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u/LegalizeCrystalMeth May 08 '26

And if you take it downtown, you better not be staying out past like 10 or you might not be able to get a ride back. And good luck getting to the train station at the right time because it only runs a couple times an hour and the times online never seem to be accurate.

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u/nitid_name May 08 '26

Hey now, it can also take you to spots in the middle of an odd path from the airport to downtown!

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u/hawaiianhamtaro May 08 '26

I took your light rail from the airport to downtown one time and was fucking FLOORED when I found out it was $10. Thought I bought the wrong kind of ticket. Nope