By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

The Regional Transportation District has put together a $122.6 million wish list of projects that are ready to go in the event Congress approves a second stimulus program for transportation infrastructure.

Half of that total consists of four FasTracks pieces totaling $60.5 million. RTD also has come up with seven projects totaling $13.1 million to upgrade the existing rail system as well as a dozen base-system projects totaling $49 million.

You can read the entire RTD list of projects by clicking here.

The largest single item on RTD’s list is $32 million to fund relocation of a range of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway facilities from the joint Gold Line-Northwest Rail FasTracks commuter rail corridors between Denver Union Station and Pecos Street, and the proposed commuter rail maintenance facility on Fox Street north of 48th Avenue.

RTD intends to route the Gold Line, a heavy-rail corridor serving Denver, Adams County, Arvada and Wheat Ridge, alongside the BNSF and Union Pacific right-of-way north out of downtown, and the funding would help move things around to make room. The corridor is shared as far as Pecos Junction with the Northwest Rail, which is a heavy-rail commuter project that would Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont.

A typical Bus Rapid Transit vehicle of the type that would be used on the US 36 FasTracks BRT corridor. Courtesy RTD.

RTD is eager to replace some of the Denver-Boulder coaches because of their age and wear. It has documented undercarriage corrosion on some vehicles, and the mileage on the current fleet of 49 coaches ranges from 900,000 miles to three million miles. They are 12 years old.

The Denver-Boulder runs have seen a huge increase in ridership. In the five years from 2003 to 2008, daily boardings on the Route B, as it is called, increased 65 percent to an average of 6,356 per day.

RTD wants to replace the fleet of over-the-road coaches that has seen some vehicles rack up to three million miles in service. It has documented undercarriage corrosion on some of them. Courtesy RTD.

RTD’s list can never be fully funded by the proposed federal jobs and stimulus package, which currently totals $8.4 billion for transit projects and $27.5 billion for highways to be spread nationwide. But transportation planners consider it essential to be prepared with a flexible list of projects from which the ones that best fit the as-yet-unknown rules can be selected.

Last year’s stimulus, for instance, required that half of the highway money allocated to states be obligated to shovel-ready projects within 90 days. Planner say the new bill, called Jobs for Main Street, may have an even tighter time frame for some funds, necessitating that a variety of projects be poised for funding.

The Colorado Department of Transportation also has its new shovel-ready list, with 90 projects adding up to $701.3 million. Click here to read that list.

As part of the process of authorizing these projects for federal funding, the Denver Regional Council of Governments has scheduled a public hearing for 6:30 p.m. March 3 at 1290 Broadway.

In addition to taking testimony from the public on the RTD list, DRCOG also invites the public to comment on the $421.4 million share of highway projects on the CDOT list that are located in whole or part within the nine-county metro Denver DRCOG territory.

You can read the break-out of CDOT highway projects in the DRCOG region by clicking here.