While the planners and politicians debate how to proceed with the RTD FasTracks program’s many projects, heavy construction is well underway on the West Corridor light rail, the first FasTracks rail line to reach construction. Inside Lane went out on the 12-mile construction zone with the engineers in charge and is producing three video updates, one on each of the three construction areas laid out by the contractor.

Denver Transit Construction Group, a partnership of Herzog Contracting of St. Joseph, Mo., and Stacy and Witbeck Inc. of Alameda, Calif., is the contractor.

Going from east to west, the first update presented here starts at the Auraria campus in downtown Denver, goes through the industrial area along Colfax Avenue, crosses the South Platte River and then goes up Lakewood Gulch and Dry Gulch to Sheridan Boulevard. DTCG calls this Area 3.

Your guide for this segment is Ryan Espoy, DTCG’s area engineer for Area 3. He outlines some of the progress made to date, plans for construction in the upcoming fourth quarter, and some of the innovations and value-engineering choices that have led to some savings on the project. We’ll get a look at some of the major structures underway and the schedule for the immediate future.

The next installment will be Area 2, from Sheridan to the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood, followed by Area 1, from the Federal Center to the Jefferson County Government Complex in Golden.

You can watch the video right here at Inside Lane or click on the little box with four arrows at the bottom right of the screen to expand to full-screen mode at Vimeo.

FasTracks West Corridor Construction Update Oct 2009 Area 3 from K J Flynn on Vimeo.