I don't really enjoy going to LoDo. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy myself once I'm there, but I just don't like getting there. There is metered parking available, but it is extremely difficult to find a spot. You can park in one of the public parking garages, and you'll spend a fortune in the process. Trying to remember which one-way streets go which way is a nightmare. Moreover, when I'm trying to get to Point A, I'm usually at the opposite end of the 16 th Street Mall than I want to be.

One of the great things about Light Rail is the fact that I don't have to go through the hassle of getting to LoDo. I pay my fare, I hop on a train, I get off where I need to be and the stops and schedule are very convenient.

Unfortunately, I also hate Light Rail. You see, when I want to go to LoDo, I always attempt to take Light Rail. But, apparently, if you're not ready to board the before 8am, it is almost impossible to find a place to park at any of the Santa Fe park-and-ride lots.

I have, during the week, occasional appointments that take me to LoDo. And, while I live about halfway between the I-25 corridor and the Santa Fe corridor, I prefer the Santa Fe trains as the ride into LoDo is about half as long as the I-25 corridor. Moreover, the fare from Mineral Station is less than the fare from County Line Station.

The normal means that I find my way into LoDo is rather crazy. I drive to Mineral Station. I circle both the main and auxiliary parking lots, and there's not a single space to be found. Well, that's not exactly true, there's about 20 handicapped parking spots that are empty, but I'm able-bodied, and I'm adverse to getting parking tickets. I then drive my car to the Downtown Littleton Station, circle the lots, and discover that, yet again, there are no spaces to be had.

I then make my way to the old Cinderella City parking lot, and find no spaces. Oh, there's plenty of 4-hour spaces, of which my trip to and from LoDo would take far less than four hours, but there's also signs posted all over suggesting that anyone parking for Light Rail in these 4-hour spaces will have their vehicles booted. I don't want to take any chances.

I then travel to Evans Station, which has a totally inadequate parking lot. If you could park 100 cars in the lot, it would be a generous number.

At this point, I am so close to LoDo that it doesn't even pay to keep on going north. On top of that, I've wasted so much gas at $3.00 per gallon, any savings I would have taking Light Rail versus parking in LoDo has been erased. So, I plug away to finding a spot in a LoDo parking garage.

I could, of course, simply go up the I-25 corridor and find ample parking in the southern lots. But, as I stated, the trip to LoDo is terribly long this route, and I lose any time savings I would have had simply commuting to and from LoDo by car. So, I don't.

It seems to me, however, that if RTD was serious about a desire to get vehicles off the road and people onto mass transit, RTD would arrange to increase its parking capacity. Moreover, I can't help but wonder how much lost revenues RTD experiences because people simply can't find a place to park.

I'd like to be green and help out, but like many methods of trying to do good for the environment, it winds up being more expensive than it is worth.