Denver Great Societies Metro

What if the money from Seattle's rejected metro proposal went to Denver instead of Atlanta? This map envisions what such a system could have looked like. The initial system, which opened in phases from 1980 to 1993 comprised the Red Line from Littleton to Northglenn Market, the Orange Line from Lake Arbor to Southmoor, the Blue Line from East Aurora to Colorado Mills, and the Green Line from East Aurora to Arvada. Shortly after the system was completed, two simultaneous blue line extensions were authorized. The first, the airport extension had originally be intended as part of the original system, as it was being constructed at the same time as DIA was being designed to replace Stapleton, however delays in the airport construction would see it left out of the original system. Initially, plans had been to break ground on the extension in 1991, which would bring the system to the airport for its proposed 1993 opening, however disputes with Adams county over aquiring land would push the start of construction until the end of 1992. The airport was similarly delayed, but the delays to metro would still lead to the airport lacking a public transit connection for its first 6 months of service. The second was the Jefferson County Extension, commonly referred to as the JeffCo extension. This had similarly been proposed as part of the initial system, but as part of the deal cut to get reluctant Jefferson County to approve the plan, the continuation of the sales tax to fund that extension would be contingent on the Blue line achieving 75% of its annual ridership target. The line was set to miss this target, but RTD was blessed, as the particularly snowy winter of 1993-94 forced several suspensions of bus service, which forced riders from the busy Colfax Ave busses onto the blue line, saving the extension. In 1996, ground was broken on the system's next extension, the Denver Tech Center extension of the orange line. This opened in 2002, bringing the orange line to its present southern terminal at County Line Road. The final completed extension was the one station Ridgeview extension of the Red line, which broke ground in 2015 and opened in 2018. In the late '90s and early 2000s, a major extension known as Metro Northeast was proposed (see map for more details) but would fail. Denver would recieve money from ARRA in 2010 to build the Capital Connector Light Rail system. Initially, this system comprised Line 1, which broke ground in 2011 and opened in phases from 2014 to 2015. The state then provided funding in 2019 for Line 2 of the system, which opened in 2023. Many extensions to the system have been proposed. The long discussed orange line extension to Boulder (postulated as far back as the original system plan) has been reconsidered many times, but has consistently failed due to a number of factors. The largest stumbling block continues to be integrating the two new counties, Boulder and Broomfield, into RTD. Boulder has been very cooperative, passing a law that would allow them to begin collecting a sales tax immediately upon approval of the project by the RTD board, however, Broomfield has been less so. Concerned by possibly being lumped into RTD in the '70s, Broomfield county voters in 1978 approved a ban on the construction of surface or elevated rail lines in the county, which they have twice failed to repeal. This forces proposals to consider passing through broomfield county in subway, which makes the project uncompetitively expensive for grants.