Seismic shift.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: RUNDLES WRAP UP

There have been few seismic shifts in the way American, and Colorado, society organizes itself, and I have been fortunate to be in the midst of two very important ones, the latest of which is blossoming before our eyes at this moment. It has actually been going on for quite a while, but a very important component is exploding this year--transit--which will have a profound impact on our world for years to come, and the Denver area has emerged as a national model.

Transit is generally thought of, and commonly defined, as public transportation--and these days particularly trains--although in reality the term actually just means "passing from one place to another," according to Dictionary.com. That's an important distinction because in the broader sense "transit" was at the heart of the last great seismic shift, back in the 1970s.

Early in my career I had the marvelous opportunity and completely odd experience of interviewing George MacKenzie Wallace, the legendary founder of the Denver Technological Center (DTC). Sitting in this little chair somewhat below his massive office desk, with Wallace chain smoking Marlboros, all the while connected to two huge oxygen tanks that I was convinced would blow up at any second, I heard his tale of starting the DTC: Someone had keyed his prized Rolls Royce in the parking structure of his office in the downtown Denver Colorado National Bank building. He went looking for space--particularly ample space to park--away from the core city, and found it on the prairie just off of 1-25 south of Belleview.

The DTC was an almost immediate success, and it became the centerpiece of and model for massive amounts of suburban sprawl, in both office and residential development, that for the last 40+ years has transformed the Denver metro area from barely over 1.1 million people to nearly three times that many today. And most of it was based on 1970s transit: the decidedly un-mass transit automobile. Since that time 1-25, 1-70 and 1-76 have gone from simple four-lane highways to multi-lane giants, and we have added such highways as 1-225, E-470 and C-470 ringing the ever-widening area. If you look at these highways, the lion's share of significant development has taken place at each of the major interchanges, so this transit system became the platform for economic...