After coming from the DC area where mass transit sucks (and that's putting it nicely) how reliable is the RTD light rail?  I'll be taking it from DTC downtown.

I live by the Orchard station and have taken it into Denver a few times.  It was right on schedule each time.  When it snows it is your best bet for getting in and out of Denver.    I-25 turns into a parking lot after a 1/2 inch of the white stuff.

Very reliable, one of my sons uses it daily going to and from work.  My other son used it all the time when he was single and living in downtown Littleton to go to downtown Denver.  I use it whenever I go to a Rockies game (less this year than in the past ) and on the rare times I do something in downtown (live in Centennial). I take it from either Arap/I-25 or downtown Littleton.

The one time I took it downtown for my first day at work, it was spot on.  As it was said earlier, with snow, your best bet is RTD.

It's heavily subsidized. So is every other passenger rail system in the US. I don't think there's a single one that comes even close to breaking even, anywhere.

That being said, it's clean and safe. Which makes it completely unlike the Chicago Transit Authority that I grew up riding.

I've never known it to be off of it's schedule in years of daily riding, unless a track is blocked or something like that.

I may have worked at RTD at one point in my life, if you have any other questions.

The light rail I've found to be pretty reliable. In the 5 years I've been going downtown for school and work (W-line from Golden to Union), I've had only one major issue and a handful of minor issues. Major issue when they had a power outage. I waited 30 minutes (train comes every 15 minutes) and decided to catch the bus downtown instead. No biggie for me since my stop has access to three busses that head downtown). Minor issues mostly encountering some rift raft (mostly drunk people) that were causing problems. Not me personally. But not as bad as the bus stops. My girlfriend takes the same light rail (w-line) everyday to work and she loves it and she hasn't had any issues. One suggestion is to use the following links on your mobile phone to check for times. I found the train comes exactly on the money. So be there a few minutes early!!

m.rtd-denver.com/mobi/index.do  

I find it helpful to plan on when I should be leaving campus.

I also use Google Transit as well:

maps.google.com/transit

It shows you nearby stations and what comes to the station you are near and thier respective times. Of course google maps on your phone works as well. I mostly use the RTD link for times, and maps for how to get somewhere via RTD.

A fun little thing too, is right at the front of the station (right where the train comes to a stop) is a stop light looking thing. It will usually be off. But when a train is inbound and about 5 minutes out (approx), the stop light will turn on and it'll be red. So that's a sign that your train is near! Good luck! I find the light rail to be a roller coaster ride.

What the hell is up with parking?  I did a drive by today and found the sign there confusing.  I live "in district" so I assume I don't have to pay to park less than 24 hours, but how does one denote that their car is in district vs out of district (I understand it's based on where your car is registered).  I saw a pay machine to enter your license plate number...do you have to do that shit every day?  Do they come by with license plate readers and scan cars in the parking lot, and then if they find a out of district one do they then check for a receipt on the dash???

Do you mean reliable as in function and timing?  If so, they function almost 100% and run pretty close to the schedule.  Have no worries.  Just be careful...there's some interesting folks that will be riding with you.

Edit:  Because it is above ground for all stations, they stay relatively clean, which is a definite plus.  I used to take it downtown to Market Street for work all of the time.

Ooks like you pretty much nailed it.  If you live out of district, you need to pay.  They use a device to read plates.  If you are out of district and haven't paid that day, they eill know and either give you a notice or a ticket.

I used it almost daily for 4yrs when I worked in the DTC. The Light Rail is probably one of the most reliable modes of transport in the city (from my experience).

Parking is a cluster. RTD contracted that out to the Central Parking jackwads who've made it such a pain in the ass.

Here's how it works:

If your car is registered within the district (all of Denver, Jefferson, Boulder, and Broomfield counties, and most if not all of Adams and Arapahoe, and the northern edge of Douglas) and you're going to be there less than 24 hours, you just park and get on the train.

If your car is out of district, you park. Then you go to the vending machine, put in your plate number, and pay for however long you're going to be there.

If you're in-district and you're going to park for more than 24 hours, same deal.

After you pay, you're good to go. Your plate number and how long you paid for is stored in the machine. The piece of paper is just a receipt, and doesn't need to be left on your dash.

And then, every now and then, someone from CPS drives around the lot with an automagic plate scanner which reads the plate and compares it to whatever's stored in the machine. If the machine doesn't have a record of you paying, then it automatically decides whether you get a warning or a parking ticket, and prints it out. (They had to do the automatic decision thing, because the CPS people really are that stupid.)