The future of bus rapid transit on U.S. 36: Lessons from Roaring Fork Valley

ROARING FORK VALLEY — For the past year or so, James Polowchena has been doing his best to take the bus from his home in Glenwood Springs to his job as a Transportation Security Administration agent at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport.

The express bus operated by the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority was pretty efficient but didn’t run often enough to be useful day to day. The local line ran more often, but due to all the stops and diversions added at least 30 minutes to the journey.

Polowchena would carpool when he could but found himself more often than he liked driving the 38-mile one-way commute by himself.

Then on Sept. 3, Colorado’s first bus rapid transit system — dubbed the VelociRFTA — opened between Glenwood Springs and Aspen, a 42-mile stretch of rural Colo. 82 that runs through the Roaring Fork Valley. That made all the difference, Polowchena said.

Now buses come by every 10 to 15 minutes during peak times and every half an hour during less busy times of the day. The low-floor buses, branded with a playful green dinosaur set upon curvilinear lines, barely leave the highway as they pick up and drop off customers.

Onboard wireless Internet is free and real time electronic signs tell passengers at stations when the next bus is due. Polowchena can now count on a 45-minute one-way ride, barring weather problems, and figures he saves about $250 in gas a month.

“This is efficient and it’s just a no-brainer,” said Polowchena, looking up from a book he was reading on board the VelociRFTA on a recent Thursday. “It’s so much faster. And it has that new bus smell.”

But can lessons from the bucolic Roaring Fork Valley translate to the heavily urbanized and traffic-choked U.S. 36 corridor between Boulder and Denver, where bus rapid transit is slated to launch just over two years from now?

Regional Transportation District Director Chuck Sisk says yes, without question. Planning for BRT, which aims to mimic commuter rail with high frequency service and easy on-and-off boardings, has been underway along U.S. 36 for years and the infrastructure meant to support it is going in right now.

“I’m confident that it will be not only robust but a BRT system that is unique to Colorado,” Sisk said.

Ridership up 27.6% year over year

Dan Blankenship, CEO of the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, said he has been hearing good things about the first 2 1/2 months of BRT service in the valley, though he notes it hasn’t been tested in the winter or summer high seasons yet.

There have been a few beginning bumps, like the station parking lots that are already reaching capacity and the electronic bus tracking system that for a while set off an incessant beeping sound inside the buses.

But overall, he said, BRT works well in an area where thousands of workers need to get “upvalley” to jobs in the tony city of Aspen from more affordable “downvalley” communities like Carbondale, El Jebel and Basalt.

“We need to move a lot of employees and there’s not enough housing,” Blankenship said. “There’s sort of a commuter culture up here.”

That need, coupled with rising gas prices and standing room-only buses in the high season, prompted voters to pass a 4/10th cent sales tax measure in 2008 to bring the $46.2 million BRT system to the Roaring Fork Valley.

The result is 18 40-foot-long Gillig low-floor buses traveling between Aspen and Glenwood Springs five days a week, serving nine sheltered bus stations along the way. Frequency in the high season will be 10 minutes during peak hours, 15 minutes during the middle of the day and 30 minutes during off-peak hours.

Blankenship said ridership has grown considerably compared to last year, from 153,000 riders in September 2012 to 195,000 riders this past September — a 27.6 percent increase.

“People like the frequency of the service,” he said. “You don’t need to know when the bus comes because in a few minutes there will another one. BRT service is more direct, more frequent and the trip between Glenwood Springs and Aspen is about an hour — so it’s competitive with a car.”

A ride on a VelociRFTA bus from Glenwood Springs to Aspen earlier this month showed the service operating right on time — at least within a minute or two of the time listed on the schedule — at each station. Wifi was easy to find on a mobile device and connected to the Internet smoothly.

The bus uses the two general purpose lanes from Glenwood Springs to Basalt, where a rush hour HOV/bus lane runs to Aspen’s airport. Between the airport and the city itself, the bus gets a dedicated lane that no other vehicle can use.

59 buses, six stations

A dedicated lane, known in the parlance of the U.S. 36 BRT project as a managed lane, will be the backbone of the system here.

Allowing only buses and vehicles with three or more occupants on for free — while setting a toll for two or fewer occupant vehicles — the inside lane in both directions between Federal Boulevard and Table Mesa park-n-Ride in Boulder will serve as a powerful tool discouraging people from solo driving.

Buses, especially those doing the local runs, will be allowed to use the outside shoulder to keep moving if traffic in the two regular lanes bogs down to less than 35 mph.

Fifty-nine branded BRT buses will run the corridor 21 hours a day, with frequencies during peak periods at four to 12 minutes on opening day, and picking up to every two to four minutes during peak hours as the system matures.

A trip from downtown Denver to Boulder should take 26 minutes, according to RTD estimates.

There will be six stations along the 18-mile corridor with more than 5,000 parking spaces. Each station will boast an electronic display system informing commuters of the arrival times of the next buses. The stations at Church Ranch and Flatiron will get a10-foot by 30-foot canopy for shelter while the stations at Westminster, Broomfield, McCaslin and Table Mesa will get a larger 10-foot by 60-foot cover.

The $425 million U.S. 36 Managed Lanes project, of which RTD is contributing $135 million, broke ground in July 2012 and is being built out in two phases. The first BRT buses are expected to start rolling in the corridor in early 2016.

Audrey DeBarros, executive director of 36 Commuting Solutions, said the idea behind BRT is to give people as much of a train-like experience as possible, especially given the uncertain future of the commuter rail line that was approved for the corridor by voters as part of the 2004 FasTracks ballot measure.

“We want to provide a very reliable, predictable and schedule-free service for commuters,” she said.

U.S. 36 BRT Project Manager Nadine Lee said special attention is being paid to the unique travel patterns in the corridor, where traffic volume in each direction is not dramatically different. U.S. 36 sees an average of 72,000 vehicles a day at its west end and 124,000 vehicles a day at the east end.

“The biggest difference people will see is that we will put more service on the reverse peak,” Lee said, meaning the westbound morning flow and the eastbound evening flow won’t get shortchanged when it comes to crafting a service plan. “What we know about this corridor is that there is a very strong bi-directional travel component.”

Balancing comfort, reliability, efficiency

But exactly what type of bus to put on U.S. 36 is still undecided, as is the name or the logo for the new service.

Lee said “Flatiron Flyer” is getting the most traction among the names that have been submitted for consideration, though the RTD Board of Directors has not made a decision on a moniker yet. She said the BRT buses must have a strong brand identity so that they are distinct in the mind of the traveling public.

But bigger challenges than name and design lurk for RTD, as the agency takes on the difficult task of properly balancing several elements — namely comfort, reliability and efficiency of the bus fleet — needed for any successful BRT system.

Sisk said a BRT bus he rode in Los Angeles a few years ago severely lacked comfort while the Roaring Fork’s own VelociRFTA bus, he said, had trouble climbing with any speed the hill on U.S. 36 from Boulder to Davidson Mesa during a summertime test run.

At the same time, said Louisville Mayor Bob Muckle, placing too much of an emphasis on horsepower runs the risk of sacrificing the nimbleness that is needed from a BRT vehicle.

“You can’t take five minutes to load a bunch of people when you’re riding buses every six minutes,” he said.

RTD’s Lee said the market for buses that can provide easy on-and-off boarding, as is the case with the low-floor fleet in the Roaring Fork Valley, yet be burly enough to scale the grades on U.S. 36 at a reasonable speed is thin. With each BRT bus estimated to cost RTD about $560,000, ordering a custom made vehicle that incorporates every aspect of the ideal BRT experience could break the bank.

“We’re trying to right size the vehicle to the service we’re offering,” Lee said.

That has led to a discussion of using a mixed fleet — more traditional regional coaches to handle the express routes and a more classic low-floor BRT design for the buses stopping at every station.

“What we do know is that the two different types of service — all-stop and non-stop — may have different operating characteristics that influence the vehicle selection for each type of service,” Lee said.

Bike capacity critical

Yet another consideration for RTD in building a BRT system on U.S. 36 is how to accommodate all the cyclists who combine their bike riding with their bus riding. They are part of the vexing “first and last mile” quagmire that transportation officials have been wrestling with for years and which will be the topic of a symposium scheduled for Wednesday in Denver.

Getting people from their homes, or their jobs, to the nearest transit station — “the last mile” — remains one of the biggest obstacles to universal use of public transit. According to the 2012 U.S. 36 Mobility Study, solo drivers represented nearly 69 percent of trips on the highway while carpooling comprised 8.7 percent and transit riders 6.2 percent.

DeBarros said it’s critical that RTD ensure that cyclists don’t get denied a seat on a bus just because their bikes can’t come along for the ride. Whether that’s through flex seating, undercarriage capacity or bike mounting on the outside of the vehicle, DeBarros said the agency has to be ready for what will likely be a high percentage of commuters using bicycles, especially once the corridor-long bikeway is completed.

Secure bike parking must also be a prominent feature of every station, she said.

“Either the stations need to store these bikes safely or there needs to be greater capacity for bikes on board the buses, or a combination of both,” DeBarros said. “It’s absolutely critical it’s the right fit to meet the anticipated multi-modal use of our corridor.”

Since the type of bus has not yet been selected for the corridor, Lee said she doesn’t know how many bikes will fit in or on a BRT bus traveling U.S. 36. But she said it’s possible that RTD can provide more capacity overall by simply running more trips each hour. Either way, there will be trade-offs, she said.

“As we consider the bike-carrying capacity of each vehicle type under consideration, we have to contemplate the number of seats we are willing to give up to accommodate bikes,” Lee said.

‘It’s just very convenient’

Those sorts of questions strike right at the issue of ride quality. Sisk said comfort and convenience on the BRT buses is important to attracting a regular and loyal ridership, whether it’s in the form of Internet connectivity or reading lights for the more traditional set.

“Wifi is imperative,” he said, while noting that no decision has yet been made about what kind of wireless Internet service might be offered and whether it will be free.

But, Sisk said, all of those amenities come secondary to guaranteeing that BRT service is frequent and reliable.

“We can give them all the bells and whistles, but if their travel times increase, people will say it’s not worth it,” he said.

Lena Davis, taking a smoke break at the Rubey Park Transit Center in downtown Aspen earlier this month after taking a BRT bus from Glenwood Springs, said she has noticed an increased efficiency in her commute to her job at the St. Regis Aspen Resort since the BRT system launched in September.

“It was taking an hour and a half to two hours and now it takes just under an hour,” she said. “They’re usually right on time. It’s just very convenient.”

Dudley Comer, a driver for the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, said he’s noticed that with the frequency of BRT, passengers are no longer as concerned about checking a schedule and timing their morning or evening routines around catching the bus.

“I’m seeing passenger loads a little lighter at peak periods because we have more buses running,” Comer said. “And passengers can move their schedules around a little bit depending on what bus they want to take.”

‘Right ingredients’ for transit-oriented development

Enhancing that life/work flexibility is central to RTD’s efforts to make BRT the transportation mode of choice for the tens of thousands of commuters in the U.S. 36 corridor. Unlike the rural stretch of highway between Aspen and Glenwood Springs, the thoroughfare between Denver and Boulder is lined with densely populated urban centers, high-rise hotels and gleaming office parks.

While rail may eventually be built in the corridor, it will fall to bus rapid transit in the short term to provide the opportunities for transit-oriented developments to take root around stations.

It’s already happening, with projects like Superior Town Center, the overhaul of Broomfield’s FlatIron Marketplace and the redevelopment of Westminster Mall all taking place near planned BRT stops along U.S. 36.

Broomfield transportation manager Debra Baskett said transit-oriented development is sprouting up all over her city’s portion of U.S. 36. She calls the Flatiron station a “sleeping giant” in terms of melding residential, retail and office elements into a livable whole.

There’s the 343-unti AMLI apartment complex going up, the Terracina apartments not far away and FlatIron Marketplace, a 35-acre retail center that has recently fallen on hard times, now with a new owner and on the cusp of getting a new lease on life, she said.

“We’re developing and redeveloping now and we’re looking at transit-oriented development and BRT has the right ingredients for that,” Baskett said. “We’re diversifying what was just a business park to a place where people live and work.”

She’s confident that with creativity and collaboration, the U.S. 36 corridor can harness the opportunities provided by a newly constructed highway, crowned with one of the most technologically advanced transit systems in the nation, to make land use decisions that will pay benefits for decades into the future.

“I think it will be a national model for BRT in an urban area,” Baskett said.

Contact Camera Staff Writer John Aguilar at 303-473-1389, aguilarj@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/abuvthefold.