Tuesday's Wall Street Journal reports about the Denver Regional Transportation District. Surprising for The Journal when reporting on a government agency, the article to me is "favorable".
DENVER—Maintenance backlogs, budget shortfalls and breakdowns plague many of the U.S.’s aging transit systems. But here, where the plains meet the Rockies, Denver’s system is a rare success.
Created in 1969, the Regional Transportation District operated for years as a modest bus service, and in the 1990s it added a few rail lines. But in 2004, voters in the eight-county region approved an additional 0.4% sales tax to expand the train network, called FasTracks. That new funding dramatically boosted a stream of local tax money already going to transit.
Of course, there are "barbs" within; such as implying that the Denver area is "wed" to wide open spaces not conducive to mass transit, but they do note that some families are buying houses near existing routes with the intent of using the System.
Their "rivals" on the other side of the mountains - Salt Lake City - had "one upped" Denver with their extensive "from the ground up" mass transit system. Seems like Denver either has closed the gap or has caught up.