The Highlander

Down to the 16th Street Mall:

Reporters Gus Maxwell and Matt Fisher take a trip downtown

Gus Maxwell, Staff Writer

Issue date: 10/17/07 Section: Feature

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Media Credit: Photo source: www.denvergov.org

With an RTD bus pass, the possibilities downtown are endless. Seize the many fine dining options, shopping venues, shows, or art shops. Or, for sports fans, head down to Coors Field, the Pepsi Center or Invesco Stadium.

Between handing Donna your ID in the cafeteria and putting it back in your wallet, you may have noticed at some point there is a little yellow sticker on the back. A closer examination of this sticker reveals that is says Fall 2007, RTD PASS, Regis University.

If you have used public transportation in Denver before, you understand the possibilities this sticker provides. If not, read on my friend. These passes can get us almost anywhere in the Denver metro area including D.I.A., Boulder, and yes, Mile High Stadium.

To show you how easy it is to use a bus pass, I'm going to tell you about a trip I took downtown one Friday evening.

I'm not from Denver, so I didn't know where to start. What bus do I take to get downtown? Where do I wait for it and at what time? The RTD website (www.rtd-denver.com) had answers.

I typed '50th and Federal' into the online RTD trip planner as my starting point and '16th and Larimer' in as my destination. The website then gave me all the information I needed- directions, times, bus numbers…

So on Saturday afternoon, my roommate (and fellow Highlander staffer) Matt Fisher and I set out toward 50th and Federal. We crossed to the east side of the street and waited for bus 31.

We stepped onto the bus, showed the driver our passes, and took our seats. The bus was clean, air conditioned, and comfortable. And as Matt and I slowly came to realize, it was also heading away from downtown rather than toward it.

For all of you who, like me, grew up in small towns, allow me to pass on a piece of wisdom I gained: buses, like trains, run both directions, and before you board one, it is prudent to make sure it is going the same way you are.

So, much to the amusement of the woman sitting across from us, at 80th and Federal, we got off our first bus and crossed the street to wait for the bus that would actually take us downtown.

Continued...

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