FasTracks commuter trains would stop under a partial canopy right behind Union Station. The existing light rail tracks are to be moved 800 feet north. Rendering courtesy of RTD.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

A federal judge in Denver has denied a request from a rail transit advocacy group to stop RTD’s construction work at Denver Union Station while the group appeals to have the design study redone.

Judge John Kane turned down the motions for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction filed by the Colorado Rail Passenger Association, or Colorail, which has sued RTD, the city-formed redevelopment entity Denver Union Station Project Authority and the Federal Transit Administration.

The renovation of Union Station is a key to the FasTracks regional rapid transit rail program, and RTD is under pressure to keep construction on schedule to hold down costs.

The FTA in fall 2008 approved the Environmental Impact Statement for the FasTracks renovations to Union Station. It included several design decisions Colorail believes are harmful to the future of transit from the station area, including the separation of existing light rail platforms from the future heavy rail commuter train platforms, and the permanent dead-ending of the potential for intercity tracks right behind the station.

You can read about Colorail’s position here.

RTD takes the position that the environmental process produced the most feasible outcome and that the final configuration of these transit elements was necessary to allow the project to go forward.

Colorail has appealed the FTA’s approval of the environmental study, and sought to stop early site work that began a few weeks ago and will intensify soon with excavation for an underground bus station north of Union Station.

Kane said what while injunctions are meant to preserve the status quo, since Colorail waited until construction started before filing to halt it, “it is by no means clear given the passage of time and Plaintiff’s failure to act until construction started whether the injunction sought actually preserves, rather than disturbs, the status quo.”

Read Judge Kane’s order here.

“Preparation and construction activities at the site have commenced, and Plaintiff has been aware for months that this was the case,” Kane wrote. “Plaintiff filed its appeal of the Federal Transit Administration’s final Record of Decision approving the plan nearly one year ago, on May 18, 2009. The Decision itself was issued and made public on October 17, 2008. Briefing on the merits of Plaintiff’s appeal is nearly complete, and would have already been completed had Plaintiff, itself, not sought three separate extensions of time to file its briefs. Under these circumstances, does calling a halt to all activities onsite preserve or disturb the status quo?”

While it lost its attempt to stop the work, Colorail’s appeal of the FTA’s approval is still active. Ira Schreiber, president of Colorail, said the effort isn’t over.

“Only a battle, not the war, but a loss nevertheless,” he told Inside Lane.