Contractor crews led by Railroad Specialties of Littleton do track welding as part of the expansion of the Elati light rail maintenance facility and train yard, a part of FasTracks. RTD Photo.

RTD has spent or committed $1.17 billion so far on FasTracks, one-sixth of the total estimated cost through 2017 of its rapid-transit expansion program.

The commitment level represents items already paid for plus current work now under contract – 17 percent of the total $6.9 billion projected cost.

Funds have been committed to all 10 rapid transit rail and bus corridors plus assorted common elements such as conversion of Denver Union Station into FasTracks’ main hub, expansion of the light rail maintenance facility in Englewood and planning for a new maintenance facility for heavy-rail commuter train cars.

A significant portion of the commitments have been made to corridors facing cutbacks if no new revenues are found to complete them. Public officials representing those corridors, mostly in Aurora, Adams County, Broomfield and Boulder County, have criticized RTD as short-changing them. The expenditures on them so far are for such things as environmental studies and preliminary engineering and design work, right-of-way acquisition and purchase of train cars to run on them.

The figures were laid out Tuesday in an update RTD gave to a task force of the Metro Mayors Caucus. Along with other stakeholders, the caucus – which unanimously backed the sales tax hike that voters approved in 2004 to pay for FasTracks – is now working with RTD toward an agreement over how to proceed now that FasTracks can’t meet its original 2017 completion date with its current projected revenues.

Hefty increases in construction costs, freight railroad requirements and added project scope, combined with the floor falling out of revenue projections during the recession, have left the program with what is currently a $2.2 billion funding gap in the 2017 plan. What was to cost $4.7 billion when voters approved FasTracks is now, with the additions, projected to cost $6.9 billion.

Sixty percent of the commitment is for the first FasTracks rail corridor to go to full construction, the West Corridor light rail through Denver, Lakewood and Golden. RTD has spent or contracted the total $707.6 million cost of the 12.1-mile line. Of that, about $510 million is for the two major construction contracts with Denver Transit Construction Group and Balfour Beatty. The rest is for the required environmental impact study, engineering, design and land acquisition.

Retaining wall along Sixth Avenue Freeway will support light rail track as it goes up and over Sixth and Indiana Street on the concrete piers in the distance. RTD Photo.

Ironically, the two corridors with the next-highest commitment levels are among the ones threatened with cuts because of the program’s funding gap. The North Metro commuter rail corridor, an 18-mile electrified heavy-rail project through Denver, Commerce City and Thornton, has $135.7 million in spending and committed funds. RTD has spent about $125 million for corridor property, including $117 million to purchase the Union Pacific freight track right-of-way it will use for the project.

The third-place corridor is the Interstate 225 light rail extension in Aurora, where 88 percent of the $70.9 million committed so far is tied up in a contract with Siemens to produce all of the light rail train cars that will be used on it. Several of the vehicles already have been delivered to RTD.

North Metro and I-225 fall into the group of projects threatened with cuts in part because they do not qualify for federal funding. The issue has created conflict between RTD and the communities that would be served by those threatened lines because the transit agency wants to complete the ones that do qualify for federal assistance – the West Corridor along with the East Corridor commuter rail to Denver International Airport and the Gold Line to Arvada and Wheat Ridge. West Corridor already has secured a $308 million grant agreement from the Federal Transit Administration. The East Corridor and Gold Line qualify for $1 billion combined in federal grants.

Cutting them back would cost the program that federal assistance. Conversely, RTD says, if it doesn’t get the federal grants at all, it will only be able to fully construct the East Corridor to DIA, along with the West Corridor, by 2017. In that case, the Gold Line would be put on hold as well as the other remaining corridors, possibly to all be built only as existing funds allow over time.

But officials in those other corridors are demanding equity since their residents are paying the four-tenths cent sales tax for FasTracks. RTD and the mayors are discussing whether to go to voters as early as next year to ask for a second sales tax increase to complete these at-risk lines.

One proposal, from Mayor Ed Tauer of Aurora, is that the second tax be earmarked for the at-risk lines. RTD is examining the ramifications of such a restriction.

RTD annually evaluates its cost and revenue projections, and plans to have new figures in January. Estimated costs could go up, but like earlier this year, they could also go down as worldwide construction materials prices back off their historic highs from 2005 onward. In 2008, RTD estimated FasTracks’ total 2017 costs at $7.9 billion; the estimate dropped by $1 billion this year. But the revenue projection fell more, resulting in the $2.2 billion shortfall.

“We are continuing to analyze the implications of this approach, and to work with our stakeholders to determine how to move forward,” said FasTracks planner Julie Skeen.

Funds committed to FasTracks program elements:

• $707.6 million: West Corridor light rail
• $135.7 million: North Metro commuter rail
• $92.5 million: Denver Union Station conversion
• $70.9 million: Interstate 225 light rail
• $40.1 million: East Corridor commuter rail
• $28.3 million: Southeast Corridor light rail extension
• $22.5 million: Southwest Corridor light rail extension
• $18.7 million: US 36 Bus Rapid Transit project
• $14.3 million: Expansion of Elati light rail maintenance facility
• $12.2 million: Northwest Rail commuter rail
• $11.5 million: Gold Line commuter rail
• $10.6 million: Central Corridor light rail extension
• $6.6 million: Commuter rail maintenance facility

• $1,171.5 million: Total committed funds