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

RTD will receive $770,000 for heating upgrades at its East Metro bus maintenance facility in Aurora. This project will replace the three existing boilers with three new 15-psi, 20-ppm NOx boilers with Advanced Hawk Integrated Control Systems. The advanced control system will operate the boilers based on load demand as opposed to outside temperature.

The 43 winning proposals were submitted by transit agencies from across the country as part of a nationwide competition for the $100 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funds. Selection criteria included a project’s ability to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and also to provide a return on the investment.

Read the entire item including the other transit agencies’ amounts and projects at Green Car Congress.com.

Officials estimated the cost of the current widening project, slated to begin next year, at around $33 million. Widening I-225 from Mississippi to Parker Road may cost around $100 million, and officials said there is no timetable for that improvement yet.

Rick Erjavec, resident engineer for CDOT, said widening I-225 is part of a larger project begun nearly 10 years ago with the improvements to the East Iliff Avenue interchange and the East 6th Avenue interchange.

Read the entire story at the Aurora Sentinel.

The project also includes restriping the upgraded but still four-lane section north of Second, where drivers have plenty of wide concrete but only two through lanes until more widening is completed.

View I-225 Widening in a larger map

The meeting is set for 5 to 7 p.m. in Wheeling Elementary School, 472 S. Wheeling St. There will be a formal presentation at 6 p.m., but the public can stop in anytime in the two-hour period and discuss the project one-on-one with staffers from the Colorado Department of Transportation.

“This is an informational meeting that will discuss the upcoming improvements, including noise mitigation,” said CDOT Resident Engineer Rick Erjavec.

CDOT hasn’t yet selected a contractor for the project, and the construction schedule isn’t yet set. But when it is completed, CDOT will open six through lanes for the entire segment between Interstate 70 on the north and Mississippi on the south.

That would leave the segment from Mississippi to Parker Road as the only stretch still at four lanes. Traffic would still face bottlenecks there, but mobility would be improved for those traveling within the segments to the north of Mississippi.

I-225 was built in segments from north to south starting in the early 1960s. The area of this new project was first built between 1966 and 1970. It reached Parker Road in 1972 and made the final connection to Interstate 25 in the Denver Tech Center in 1977. The leg from I-25 to Parker Road was widening by 2006 as part of the T-REX project.

You can read the EE documents online, except for two large exhibits available at libraries or on CD by request to the Regional Transportation District.

Map of the FasTracks I-225 Corridor light rail alignment

The estimated $442 million project avoids any residential property acquisitions but does include acquisition of 18 businesses and 250 storage units. It also requires about 46 acres of property now owned by the Colorado Department of Transportation, mostly along I-225, and 37 acres of Aurora-owned right-of-way.

The project includes eight new stations — including Peoria Street at Smith Road, which would be shared with the East Corridor serving DIA. The other stations would be at Iliff Avenue, Florida Avenue, Aurora City Center at Sable Boulevard and Centrepoint Drive, Second Avenue at Abilene Street, 13th Avenue, Colfax Avenue and Montview Avenue.

While all the stations would have bus transfer connections along with pedestrian and bicycle access, only five would have park-n-Ride lots. Three — Florida, Colfax and Montview — would be walk-up neighborhood stations similar to the Louisiana-Pearl Station on the T-REX corridor.

The public can submit comments online at RTD’s FasTracks web site, or by mail to Tina Jaquez, I-225 Corridor Public Involvement Liaison, at RTD FasTracks Team, 1560 Broadway, Suite 700, Denver CO 80202.