Denver Tech Center Edge City

• The Denver Tech Center (DTC) is a single-developer major employment center at the Southeast corner of Denver, by the intersection of I-25 and I-225. There is significant real-estate office development adjacent to DTC. In reality, a more appropriate description is the Greater DTC (GDTC), to encompass all of the dense suburban office development. There are 70K+ people in 2 square miles in the GDTC. Informal boundaries for GDTC are: Quebec Street on the West, Quincy to the North, Yosemite to the East, and Peakview on the South.
• A portion of GDTC lies within Denver city limits, but most is in Greenwood Village, CO.
• Current commuting statistics are particularly bleak. The Denver Region Council of Governments (DRCOG) reports the following commute mode split: 80% drive alone, 6% carpool, 1% transit. This is significantly more auto-centric than Silicon Valley office parks, which have 3% transit and 18% carpool. DRCOG reports that Greenwood Village mode split is also much more auto-centric than the overall region. Average commute on-way travel time is 21 minutes.
• This is a high-rise area, much more dense than the two-story Stanford Research Park in Silicon Valley. The number of floors in the tallest buildings are: 12, 16, 13, 16, 16, 23, 12, 12, 12, 11, 14, 14, 14, 15, 12, 10, 10, 10, 20. Many of these buildings cost more than the capital cost to construct a PRT feeder/circulator system in the area. This is a great example of Le Corbusier-style development: office towers in a park-like, auto-centric setting. There already exists a free bus shuttle called The Link.
• Thanks to David Maymudes for processing USGS/Terraserver 2002 high resolution aerial photography. In this 1MB JPG 2000 x 2000 aerial, the 16, 13, and 12 story buildings are distinguished by their long shadows. Multistory parking garages are distinguished by white concrete and noticeable ramps. Strip shopping malls are distinguished by: large parking lots, small shadows (malls are typically 1 large story tall), and a long narrow building shape. Housing is distinguished by sloping roofs. I-225 is clearly visible.
• GDTC has dense housing with stacked parking in between buildings. Lots of housing, lots of malls. Access to golf. A mixed-use location; however, the urban design favors auto-mobility over walking, biking, or transit.
• See: http://www.dtcmeridian.com/ . Select: "the big picture," "maps,", then "DTC aerial." This is single developer area known as DTC, a subset of GDTC.
• Two LRT stations are coming, as part of a "spoke" providing radial server to downtown Denver: http://www.rtd-denver.org/fastracks/southeast_corridor.html . The LRT has created a huge construction boom. But there are plenty of free parcels with GDTC as we speak. There is plenty of opportunity to densify still further.
• Greenwood Village has 15K residents, and Colorado allows ballot initiatives. For demograhics, see: http://www.greenwoodvillage.com/general/demo.html. Because of the small residential population, the advocacy model proposed for Emeryville, CA is applicable for advancing advanced transit in Greenwood Villag: http://www.cities21.org/PRTinitiative_TRB_4web.pdf .
• The I25 four-lane underpasses are such that they should be able to accommodate PRT traveling underneath the freeway: