CDOT to Study Effects of Speed Limit Reduction on US 36

March 29, 2010 – Northeastern Colorado/CDOT Region 4 – BOULDER COUNTY- Today, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) installed new speed limit signs reducing the speed limit from 65 MPH to 60 MPH along approximately 1.5 miles of eastbound and westbound US 36 between approximately Baseline Road and Foothills Parkway.

CDOT is reducing the speed limit for a three-year period to study the effects of the speed limit reduction on driver behavior and accidents.

This stretch of US 36 currently carries 72,100 vehicles a day and has experienced a significant increase in traffic volumes over the last couple of years. In addition, there has been a nine percent increase in median barrier collisions over a ten-year period.

“Crash rates on this portion of US 36 are not any different than other portions of US 36 or even similar types of highways, but we have seen an increase in median barrier collisions, which could be speed-related,” said CDOT Traffic Engineer Ina Zisman. “By lowering the speed limit for a three-year period, we can study the stretch and determine if speed is a factor and if the new speed limit has helped reduce median barrier collisions.”

The decision to lower the speed limit followed two speed studies in 2009 conducted by CDOT and the City of Boulder. Both studies indicated an increase in median barrier collisions and as a result, both agencies decided to temporarily decrease the speed limit to study the impacts. The Boulder Police Department will be enforcing the new speed limit along this 1.5-mile stretch of US 36.

Once the three-year study period is complete, CDOT will analyze traffic and accident data to determine if the speed limit will remain at 60 MPH or if a change is needed.

Aerial view shows the Northwest Rail corridor looking southwest from Twin Peaks Mall in Longmont to Boulder. Courtesy RTD.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

The FasTracks Northwest Rail corridor could get a head start under a plan that would build its first six and a half miles, between Denver Union Station and south Westminster at 72nd and Lowell Boulevard, as part of the construction of lines to the airport and Arvada.

That will give RTD the capability of initiating rail transit service to southwest Adams County and Westminster sooner rather than later.

Northwest Rail, FasTracks’ longest and costliest-per-rider rail corridor, is one of four new rail corridors in the program that is facing the possibility of significant delay because of the economic crisis that has drained the FasTracks budget.

But RTD’s efforts at privatizing the next two corridors – East Corridor to Denver International Airport and the Gold Line to Arvada-Wheat Ridge – to help close that $2.45 billion budget gap includes a component that would extend the Northwest Rail as an electrified heavy-rail commuter corridor up into southwest Adams County.

The 'Town Center' theme for Northwest Rail stations is one of several design options outlined in the environmental study. RTD rendering.

The $665.2 million, 41-mile Northwest Rail corridor goes between downtown Denver and Longmont along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway line that passes through Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville and Boulder. Northwest of 72nd and Lowell, RTD plans to operate jointly with BNSF freight trains – although they would run at different times – along a new double track section all the way to Longmont.

RTD simulation shows the larger heavy-rail electric commuter rail cars along Grandview Avenue in Arvada. Different than light rail cars, these are proposed for use on the Gold Line and East Corridor.

Self-propelled diesel-powered passeneger cars such as this would be used on the full Northwest Rail corridor. Courtesy RTD.

This phasing, along with other details of the Northwest Rail project, are up for public meetings tonight and next week as part of the environmental study process all FasTracks corridors have gone through.

You can read through the environmental documents here.

The first public meeting on the Northwest Rail Environmental Evaluation is set for tonight in the Longmont Civic Center, 350 Kimbark St. Using an open house format in which you can go from station to station and get your questions answered individually, the public can attend any time between 6 and 8:30 p.m.

However, 6:30 to 7:30, there will be a more formal presentation by RTD’s project manager for Northwest Rail, Chris Quinn, followed by a question and answer session

The meetings next week will be at the same times on Wednesday, March 17, in the Louisville Middle School, 1341 Main St., and Thursday, March 18, in Hodgkins Elementary School, 3475 West 67th Ave., Adams County.

RTD rendering shows the site plan for the Westminster Station on Northwest Rail, which would be on the end of the first phase segment.

The Eagle P3 project is an innovative approach to delivering the transit corridors in a challenging economic environment. The East Corridor will serve Denver International Airport through northeast Denver and Aurora, and the Gold Line serves Arvada and Wheat Ridge, all from Union Station. By selecting a concessionaire to finance, develop and operate those corridors, RTD is able to spread out its payments over the 40-year life of the contract and lower the amount of capital it needs upfront to complete FasTracks.

It takes the design-build project delivery process used successfully in the T-REX project a few steps further by also including privatization of upfront financing and back-end operations and maintenance. RTD would maintain control of such things as schedule, fares, maintenance standards and such through the master concession agreement. On a smaller scale, RTD already privatizes about half of its existing bus service in the same way.

Northwest Rail is Unique in FasTracks in that it is the only corridor that would share the same tracks with operating freight trains. As such, RTD and BNSF need to come up with a formal operating agreement that would make BNSF the contractor for the improvements to its own tracks.

Eagle P3 already gives Northwest Rail a leg up because the concessionaire would build the Gold Line tracks and shared stations on the Gold Line out of Union Station to Pecos Junction at 61st and Pecos. From there, it is only another two and a quarter miles to where the electrified portion of Northwest Rail would end, around Bradburn Boulevard and 72nd Avenue.

The corridor is planned to have 11 stations along its own exclusive alignment. In addition, it shares two stations – at 41st Avenue and Fox Street in north Denver and at 61st Avenue and Pecos Street in southwest Adams County – with the Gold Line.

FasTracks-funded stations include the south Westminster station at 72nd and Lowell, Walnut Creek in Westminster, Flatiron in Broomfield, Downtown Louisville, Boulder Transit Village, Gunbarrel and Downtown Longmont.

Four other proposed stations are not funded under FasTracks, but would need to be funded by third parties. They are Westminster/88th Avenue, Broomfield/116th Avenue, East Boulder and Twin Peaks in Longmont.

Here is a map showing the entire Northwest Rail Corridor:

The Regional Transportation District is in the midst of two major projects along the congested highway that will complete the first phase of “bus rapid transit” improvements.

A pedestrian bridge that’s halfway installed over U.S. 36 at the Odeum Colorado, formerly the Broomfield Event Center, is scheduled to have its counterpart welded into place Monday night.

In Boulder, the last project among the first-phase improvements — which is expected to take an additional three or four minutes off the bus commute to Denver — is the planned construction of a pedestrian bridge over U.S. 36 between Table Mesa Drive and Foothills Parkway.

Go to the Boulder Daily Camera to see the entire article.

Boulder Mayor Susan Osborne said the city received a request to send a delegation of City Council members to the meeting, sparking “an enormous flurry of excitement” that LaHood might have been sent to announce that the U.S. 36 improvement project had received a much-sought-after federal grant.

Go to the Boulder Daily Camera to see the entire article.

At a meeting with nearly two-dozen city officials Tuesday night, the city council and planning board studied the initial concepts for Transit Village – a an 11-acre site at the southeast corner of 30th Street and Valmont Road meant as a sustainable development of 1,400 to 2,400 homes, as many as 4,300 jobs and up to 1.4 million square feet of commercial space.

It would also include a rail station for the FasTracks program, which is facing serious funding shortfalls.

Go to the Boulder Daily Camera to see the entire article.

The City Council on Tuesday will be asked at its study session to consider some creative ways to fund up to $14.5 million in annual maintenance costs. Officials said the costs of raw materials, such as concrete and pavement, have skyrocketed in recent years, while the national recession has led to a decline in local sales-tax collections.

Go to the Boulder Daily Camera to see the entire article.

The Regional Transportation District’s board of directors last month voted to reinstate the neighborhood component of the Eco Pass program — which allows residential areas to purchase bulk annual bus passes at a substantial discount. RTD had placed a moratorium on the program last fall amid concerns the passes weren’t paying for themselves.

While officials are overjoyed that the ban is being lifted Jan. 1, they say the immediate challenge is to keep funding the 45 or so neighborhoods already in the program.

Go to the Boulder Daily Camera to see the entire article.

RTD bought the 33-mile Boulder Industrial Lead freight line from the Union Pacific Railroad for the FasTracks North Metro Corridor commuter train that is to run between Union Station through and Commerce City/Thornton.

The right of goes beyond the project limits past and turns west, crossing Interstate 25 and into Boulder County. RTD is proposing to license the portion that runs west of I-25 to US 287 to the Boulder railway historical society for 10 years at no cost.

“The proposed operation would consist of a dinner train two nights per week year-round and seasonal heritage trains running five days per week for the summer months of June through September,” RTD said in a lease proposal that RTD directors will vote on next week.

Go to the Denver Post to see the entire article.

RTD’s plan — part of a regional set of reductions also aimed at Westminster, Conifer, downtown Denver and Golden — would impact four routes in Boulder. RTD officials said the routes were chosen because of ridership declines. In total, the cuts would save RTD an estimated $376,400, or 57 percent of its total cost savings of $662,400 from reductions systemwide.

Martha Roskowski, program manager for Go Boulder, the city’s alternative-transportation program, said Boulder is unfairly bearing the brunt of the current round of cuts. “It’s really important to our community to keep a good transit system,” she said. “We rely on local bus service. That’s our workhorse.”

RTD spokesman Scott Reed said since August 2007, RTD has cut $12.9 million. Of that, Boulder County’s reduction is $873,860, or about 7 percent of the total, Reed said.

Read the entire article at the Daily Camera.

CU sophomore Zack Shapiro has created an app that pulls up easy-to-use route information for Regional Transportation District trips to the airport and Denver. Next, he said he wants to develop an application that will deliver information for local routes, including the Hop and Skip shuttles that are popular among CU students.

The journalism student submitted the application to Apple on Monday, and he expects it to be approved within the next two weeks. He worked with a freelance iPhone developer on the project.

Shapiro said that once approved, the “RTD Mobile Bus Times” application will sell for $1.99.

Read the entire story at the Daily Camera.