An electric-powered heavy-rail commuter train heads south along the FasTracks North Metro Corridor in this computer simulation. Courtesy RTD.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

The North Metro commuter rail corridor through the heart of Adams County will be proposed as a single-track line but with five strategically placed double-tracked segments that will allow RTD to slash costs while retaining the capability for 15-minute service on this FasTracks corridor.

The refinement to the corridor, the second-most expensive and third-longest rail line in the FasTracks rapid transit program, is contained in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, which will be voted on Tuesday night by the RTD board for public release and comment.

The 18-mile corridor serves Denver, Commerce City, Northglenn and Thornton, between Denver Union Station and 162nd Avenue, north of CO 7 and Colorado Boulevard.

The North Metro Corridor’s cost has been reduced from a high of $1.065 billion two years ago to the current working estimate of $909.8 million – a nearly 15 percent drop due in great part to RTD’s review of every corridor from the bottom up. New General Manager Phil Washington ordered the zero-based budgeting review to determine the least-cost way of getting all the corridors built while still serving all of the communities along them.

In the case of North Metro, planners found that they could build a system that mostly uses a single track for both northbound and southbound trains if they included five two-track passing segments and coordinated the schedules, allowing trains in opposing directions to pass without delays. Two of the double-track segments are at the north and south ends, and three are in the middle of the line. They are from south of 72nd Avenue to around 74th Avenue, from north of Thornton Parkway to just north of 104th Avenue, and from south of 124th Avenue to before the York Street crossing south of 136th Avenue.

The preferred alignment recommended for North Metro Corridor on the Final Environmental Impact Statement, showing location of passing tracks. Courtesy RTD.

The final study also pins down the few remaining open questions in the draft released in November – the alignment from the Denver city line into Commerce City and the location of the Denver station at the Coliseum-Stock Show area. The new map shows the station site north of Interstate 70 near the National Western Events Center. The other site had been proposed south of I-70 at the west end of the Coliseum parking lot.

The alignment question was a key to resolving cost and operational issues with the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads. Initially, the North Metro Corridor was to parallel one or the other freight lines out of Union Station until it reached the point where Union Pacific’s Boulder Branch diverges from the main line. That is just north of the Commerce City refinery area and Interstate 270 in a busy location called Sand Creek Junction. The UP and BNSF lines cross there directly under the I-270 overpass, and getting RTD’s commuter trains through the pinch point would have required a lot of expensive structures.

Instead, the final study selects a long-considered overland route of new trackage, paralleling the BNSF out of Union Station until just north of Riverside Cemetery on Brighton Boulevard. There, North Metro turns north up to the O’Brian Canal, and follows the canal to 70th Avenue, where it meets up with the UP Boulder Branch and uses that existing alignment the rest of the way.

RTD bought the UP’s Boulder Branch last year, including the segment beyond the end of the North Metro project and on into Boulder.