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I want to thank the City of Lakewood for the excellent job clearing the light rail bike path of the recent snowfall. Since most of the bike path is on the northern side of the tracks, the sound walls pose an additional challenge by the shadows they cast during the fall and winter months. This path will be a vital link for future students along the West Corridor who will commute from the Auraria Campus, Rocky Mountain School of Art & Design, Red Rocks Community College and the Colorado School of Mines to their multi-family dwellings adjacent to the path. View is looking east from Allison Street approaching the Lakewood-Wadsworth Bridge, Dec 12, 2012
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THE BACK FENCE NEWSLETTER
The Newsletter Featuring Livable Community Items That Readers Value and Highlights of Happenings Along the West Corridor on the RTD West Rail Line Serving Golden, Lakewood & Denver. |
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The "W" Line Opens in:
134 Days.
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Hi Everyone! This is Bill Spriggs and I have found several news articles, links and blogs that I wanted to share along THE BACK FENCE & beyond in this Weekly Edition, December 13, 2012. |
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West Corridor, Denver & Region
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Finance.YahooDotCom Urban Land Conservancy Preserves 100 Workforce Homes at Wadsworth Light Rail Station Set to Open in Lakewood, ColoradoThe Urban Land Conservancy (ULC) purchased a 100-unit rental property located at the Wadsworth Light Rail Station on the West Corridor of FasTracks to preserve workforce housing near public transportation. READ MORE...
TheDenverPost/Editorial, Dec 09 2012 Closing the Gap on RTD's FasTracks Budget Issues
We're encouraged by the transit agency's efforts to find savings that allow for the plan's most comprehensive buildout possible.
East Rail Line Progress - 40th/York Realignment and UPRR Construction
Posted by Ryan Mulligan, Dec 07 2012.
By Robert Wilson
Today's update will take us along 40th Avenue and just east of York and Josephine Streets. Construction of various infrastructure improvements that will occur along the rail corridor have begun. READ MORE...
East Rail Line Progress - 40th/Colorado Station
Posted by Ryan Mulligan, Dec 11 2012
By Robert Wilson As we continue along the East Rail Line the next stop is 40th and Colorado Boulevard. The station's actual location is closer to Smith Road and East 42nd Avenue - just a few blocks west of Colorado Boulevard. READ MORE... 
Denver Union Station: A Final Look Inside Before The Restoration
By Ken Schroeppel, Dec 07 2012
On Dec 01 2012, DenverInfill and Union Station Advocates co-hosted an informal public open house at Denver Union Station for anyone who wanted to stop by for one last look inside the historic station before its closure for a year and a half for its long-awaited restoration and conversion into a mixed-use transit center with shops, restaurants, and a boutique hotel.READ MORE...
TheDenverPost
High-Speed Rail Options for I-70 Corridor on Display Thursday in Golden
By Monte Whaley, Dec 11 2012
Anyone interested in getting a glimpse of the ideas being floated for high-speed rail between Jefferson County and the Eagle County Airport can do so Thursday, Dec 13th.
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DC.StreetsBlog
Surgeon General Announces Call to Action on Walking
By Tanya Snyder, Dec 05 2012
Walking can seem like a rather mundane thing to get organized about, until you realize that it's a direct challenge to car-oriented transportation and it's the best thing people can do for their health. Then walking is downright revolutionary.READ MORE...HuffingtonPost Ten-Minute Walks A Stretch For Most Americans By Annie Hauser, Dec 04 2012Despite all the news reports on the health benefits of walking and biking, most Americans do not walk, bike, or engage in other forms of active transportation, a new study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine finds.
READ MORE...TheNewYorkTimes
Obesity in Young Is Seen as Falling in Several Cities
By Sabrina Tavernise, Dec 10 2012
After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.
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StreetsBlog
What's Behind the Rise in Cyclist and Pedestrian Deaths?
By Angie Schmitt, Dec 11 2012
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is out with traffic fatality data for 2011, and the news is not good for cyclists, pedestrians or, for that matter, anyone who uses U.S. roadways.
Transportation.NationalJournal
Transit to Jobs Equals Economy
By Fawn Johnson, Dec 10 2012
"Trying to market a city without transit is like trying to sell a cell phone without a camera." That was one of the take-home messages from a speaker at an urban planning conference earlier this year, according to my friend who was there.READ MORE.
TransportatioNation
More Women Take Transit Than Men
By Alex Goldmark, Dec 09 2012
Women are more likely to ride public transportation to work than men. Men are more likely to drive to work alone than women.
TheNewYorkTimes/Editorial
The Cracks in the Nation's Foundation
December 08 2012
Across the coasts of New York and New Jersey, hundreds of millions of gallons of raw and partially treated sewage are spilling into waterways and the ocean. The immediate cause is equipment damage from Hurricane Sandy, but as Michael Schwirtz recently reported in the Times, aging plants like one in Nassau County on Long Island were leaking long before the storm, flooding neighborhood streets with sewage during downpours.
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TheAtlanticCities
Outdoor Smoking Bans: Impossible to Enforce, or Inevitable?
By Henry Grabar, Dec 10 2012
For 48 percent of the U.S. population, and in 30 of the country's 50 largest cities, lighting up in restaurants, bars, and offices is not only banned, it's a fading memory, as distant as typewriters and rotary phones. READ MORE...
TheAtlanticCities
Why Denser Cities Are Smarter and More Productive
By Richard Florida, Dec 10 2012
It's clear that density plays an important role in economic growth. Density brings people and firms closer together which makes it easier to share and exchange information, invent new technologies, and launch new firms.
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DC.StreetsBlog
Seven Jiu-Jitsu Moves for Advocates to Use Map-21 to Their Advantage
...[It is] enormously important that advocates not only understand the new transportation law, MAP-21, but that they understand it in granular detail so they can find the small opportunities buried in a depressingly large mass of disappointment.
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TheAtlanticCities
The New Rise of Segregated Schools
By Sarah Garland, Dec 06 2012
After half a century, America's efforts to end segregation seem to be winding down. In the years after Brown v. Board of Education, 755 school districts were under desegregation orders. A new Stanford study reports that as of 2009, that number had dropped to as few as 268.
StreetsBlog
Want to End the Scourge of Surface Parking? Tax Land, Not Buildings
By Angie Schmitt, Dec 10 2012
Surface parking lots - they're the scourge of downtowns nearly everywhere across the United States. They're ugly, they make cities unwalkable, and once they're in place, they can be terribly hard to get rid of.
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International (when available) | Inthralld
A Roundabout Freeway For Pedestrians in China
By Rachel, Dec 07 2012
Cars are arguably the best mode of transportation for some, while others would prefer to walk. Well, in the city of Lujiazui, China- you've got the option for both. while the crazy city streets are below, a circular pathway created just for pedestrians helps those on foot to navigate safely above the traffic.
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Wednesday's Film (when available)
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NLCycling
There is a large group of people in the Netherlands who also benefit from the well-designed cycling infrastructure: people with disabilities. They can use hand-operated bicycles or tricycles or mobility scooters to get from A to B. The cycle tracks offer them good protection from motorized traffic and thus a freedom to independently move around.
 | | Who else benefits from the Dutch cycling infrastructure |
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Things you need to know along the West Corridor
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[Note to below: I'm enclosing the full text of one section from a Friday Report from the City of Lakewood because it involves an important built environment connectivity change along the West Corridor adjacent to the West Rail Line.]
Preparing for a roundabout
The City received funding, including a $1 million grant from the state, to build a roundabout at the intersection of Lamar Street and West 14th Avenue and to add a section of sidewalk and bicycle lanes. The work will improve safety at the intersection and provide better access for pedestrians and bicyclists to the upcoming Lamar Station for the West Rail Line. This intersection has an unusually high rate of accidents, and they are some of the most dangerous kind, which are collisions at a right angle. The roundabout will eliminate these kinds of accidents and slow vehicles in the intersection. Properly designing the improvements to match the surrounding area will require collecting land survey information along 14th for 400 feet east and west of Lamar and along Lamar for 400 feet north of 14th to south of West 13th Avenue. The City needs residents' help by allowing surveyors to collect information on their property. Residents with concerns can contact Ken Nyhoff, Lakewood's engineer for the project, at (303) 987-7939/kennyh@lakewood.orgAdded Information. See the short video below
How to use a roundabout Michagan DOT Aug 10 2011  | |
How to use a roundabout
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Denver Union Station
Construction Cam
Wish You Could Find an Apartment/Condo near a Light Rail Station? As part of TBF's continuing efforts to bring TOD's to the West Corridor & elsewhere, this link from Walk Score.com will now be a permanent feature. Thanks.
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Commercial Real Estate Assemblages, Land or Buildings Available on The West Corridor
Please note: TBF does not
own or sell any real property.
Prices displayed may not be correct.
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>4917 West 11th Ave Assemblage [sold]
Sold, See Press Release
>10th Avenue Light Rail Assemblage
>1010 Sheridan Blvd TOD Site
>5310 West 10th Ave TOD opportunity
>13th Ave & Newland, Ideal TOD property
>5830 West Colfax Ave
>1025 Ammons Complex
>6990 West Colfax Ave Pad Site
THE BACK FENCE supports a corridor wide, regional vision, with individual nodes of unique "places" within that corridor. We hope that the listing of commercial properties available will help to speed this vision to fruition sooner. Learn more about this vision below from the Center for Transit-Oriented Development.
West Corridor Vision
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Residential Real Estate Agents
who get the "big picture" of
transit-oriented living of
walkable, sustainable
neighborhoods.
JIM SMITH REALTOR, GOLDEN
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Things You Need to Know Around the Region
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| The opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of William A. Spriggs and no one else. |
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