DIA's Jeppesen Terminal, looking west at sunset. DIA photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

Denver International Airport can become a global hub, its manager said Thursday, in great part because the people who planned it made sure it had plenty of room to grow at lower cost than its competitors.

Kim Day, Aviation Manager at DIA, marked the airport’s 15th year in operation by giving a “State of DIA” address at a luncheon sponsored by the Metro Denver Economic Development Council in the downtown Sheraton Hotel.

“I’m convinced that DIA’s future is that of a powerful global hub,” she said.

You can read the prepared text of her remarks here.

“What are the future expectations?” she asked the luncheon crowd of several hundred people. “Thanks to the regional dreamers and the committed local residents who embraced the original vision, Denver International was and is considered the future of aviation in the United States. Even after 15 years of delivering on a promise, we are an airport with its potential still unfulfilled. Charles Dickens would say we still have great expectations.”

DIA already is the 10th busiest airport in the world but its international service is lagging. Day outlined five reasons she believes Denver will emerge in its second 15 years as a global hub.

Denver International Airport Manager Kim Day tells a luncheon crowd that her vision for DIA is a global hub. Inside Lane photo.

Second, the “visionary” leaders who planned the facility put it in the middle of 53 square miles of land, where it is easier to expand with fewer of the problems faced by most big cities’ cramped airports.

“Because we sit on 53 square miles, we have the ability to expand incrementally and affordably to meet future demand,” she said. “No other airport in the U.S. can do that – none. Most of them cannot expand affordably, and some of them simply cannot expand.”

Stapleton airport, which DIA replaced, took up just over seven square miles.

Third, Day said that DIA is working toward its goal of establishing non-stop flights to Tokyo, to open up Asian air travel markets from Denver. She emphasized Tokyo over Beijing, saying that the connecting flights all over Asia from Tokyo make it a better jumping-off point for Denver travelers headed to other Asian destinations.

“Beijing only brings Beijing, but with the Star Alliance hub network out of Tokyo – Tokyo gives us all of Asia. It is our gateway to Asia and we want to become their gateway to North America.”

Fourth, the rollout of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner series of jets – highly efficient mid-sized craft to carry 210 to 330 passengers, depending on the model and configuration, on long-range routes now flown by jumbo jets – will help make Denver more attractive to airlines flying the long distance to Asia with a full plane. It is just over 5,000 nautical miles from Denver to Tokyo, well within the 787’s range of up to 8,500 nautical miles.

“This aircraft will open the world to us,” Day said. “It is 20-percent more fuel efficient than current wide-body aircraft and its range and seat capacity are ideal for the Denver market. It is the plane that will make a Tokyo flight profitable.”

Finally, Day said, DIA’s commitment to passenger safety and security as it updates its 20-year-old master plan will make it a model facility for foreign travel.

“The travel experience can be burdensome and irritating, or it can be pleasurable and stimulating,” Day said. “We can provide what passengers want and need, or we can be complacent and uninspired. By offering the best customer service and by building loyalty among passengers I believe we can stand out among our competitors.”

Day noted that Denver’s airport fared rather well in the economic downturn compared with others, with air fares coming down in the last two years and a fraction of the passenger declines that many airports have experienced in the recession.

“Considering the turbulence of this past year, DIA has done quite well. While most major airports saw double-digit passenger declines, we experienced a minor 2.1 percent decline in passengers. Even with that, we served over 50 million passengers for the second consecutive year, and this January 2010 was our biggest January ever, exceeding January 2009 by 2.9 percent.”

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:

DIA at sunset. The airport has been open 15 years now. DIA Photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

Denver International Airport turned 15 years old over the weekend. A milestone for sure for a facility that had a difficult time in development and construction, and that many critics even predicted never would open or would go belly-up financially within 18 months.

Instead, today it is one of Colorado’s primary economic engines and, locally, a driver for growth. Have you driven up U.S. 85, Tower Road, 104th Avenue or any of the other northeast metro arterials in Adams County? The airport area not only rivals but outstrips the rest of the metro area in expansion of residential and commercial development.

I remember folks in Adams County in the mid-‘80s saying they would get stuck with the noise and the traffic but few of the benefits. It didn’t turn out that way. It’s now among the hottest markets in metro Denver.

With more than $20 billion a year in impact on the economy, DIA is a “category killer” catalyst.

For me, however, there’s an impact of DIA that is more meaningful for metro fliers, and it shows how wrong the critics were about costs. Despite all the fear and loathing that the massive costs of this monster halfway out to Kansas would propel ticket prices out of reach for families and business fliers, here’s the fact: The average air fare out of Denver is lower now than when the airport opened, according to U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

In fact, of the top 85 airports in the nation, Denver had the second-largest decline in air fares over that 15-year period. DIA is the source, and the return of Southwest Airlines to the stable of carriers is the reason.

It is supremely ironic that expensive DIA would be the reason we have lower air fares than when we left inexpensive Stapleton behind. But everything is market-driven.

Southwest never would have returned to Denver without the new airport – a notion that would have seemed counterintuitive 15 years ago when all the discussion was its supposed high costs. It was going to cost airlines an average of $16 per passenger, nearly three times that of Stapleton! But in fact Southwest abandoned low-cost Stapleton in 1985 after operating out of subleased gates there for a short time. The reason?

The overcrowded airfield limited Stapleton to one jet arrival runway during bad-weather restrictions. It choked operations to the extent that Southwest couldn’t keep its schedule-driven system running effectively. The low-fare airline determined that 70 percent of its total flight delays nationwide could be traced to problems getting in and out of Stapleton. So it pulled out, despite Stapleton’s low $6 per passenger average cost.

Now it is back, and it is keeping Denver air fares low and contributing to DIA’s status as fifth busiest airport in the nation and 10th in the world. Not bad for a facility once called “Peña’s Folly” because of Mayor Federico Peña’s incessant push for it. Critics who mimicked the attacks on Mayor Ben Stapleton in 1929 for building what had been dubbed “Stapleton’s Folly” should have remembered that it really didn’t turn out so well for those earlier critics either.

To mark the 15th anniversary of DIA, it is more than appropriate to take a brief look back and a longer look ahead at some of the controversial changes that may be coming with the new master plan.

So what made the news about it? Cupcakes.

Seriously. The lead story on 9News’ 10 p.m. newscast the day after the anniversary was a 9 Wants to Know investigation into the cost of the airport marking the event by giving out cupcakes to passengers and visitors, and building a full-size mock-up of a Boeing 787 wing in the terminal. The new jumbo-craft being rolled out by Boeing plays a major role in DIA’s targeted goal of increasing overseas flights, especially to Asia.

Where is Paula Woodward when we need her?

All airports have marketing. It’s a cost of doing business. And a nice bit of refreshment for passengers like a cupcake is more in-touch with today’s marketing than speechifying at a press conference. But instead of a piece on DIA at 15, 9News told us how some of the workers who assembled the wing model had been told to charge their overtime to the snow plowing account.

Scandal, right?

No.

It turns out the next day after the report, we discover the workers actually were on call-in for snow plow duty, and while on the clock waiting for snow, were assigned to help assemble the model. That’s a good thing, not a bad one. The 9News follow-up to its own story called it “accounted for properly.”

That’s the way the cupcake, and gotcha journalism, sometimes crumbles.

Heavy-rail self-propelled electric-powered commuter rail cars are the vehicles chosen for the FasTracks East Corridor and Gold Line projects. Courtesy RTD.

Prendergast gave a comprehensive look at DIA as a teenager, what its impact has been and the controversy over changes in the master plan that will fundamentally alter the way we initially plotted the airport’s growth.

Getting DIA built was no cupcake, but it has become a huge economic pie.

When you get the time, read Prendergast’s piece here. It’s well done and the only major correction I would offer is that the FasTracks train that will be built out to DIA is not light rail, but a heavy-rail commuter train line using Electric Multiple Units. We need to introduce the Denver public to the fact that the north metro rail lines in FasTracks will not be the smaller light-rail trolley-type cars but inter-city type train cars for a more comfortable trip to the airport.

As usual with a Westword piece, it’s lengthy. Have a cupcake or two while you read it.

A pair of loaders scrapes the area north of Union Station where the design calls for excavating to build an underground bus station for FasTracks. Work began on Monday. Inside Lane photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

A group of rail transit advocates asked a federal judge on Tuesday to stop FasTracks construction at Denver Union Station until the court can rule in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the environmental approval for the work.

Colorail – the Colorado Rail Passenger Association – sued in U.S. District Court in Denver last May claiming the Federal Transit Administration should not have approved the Environmental Impact Statement that RTD produced for the $480 million project. RTD, along with its partners Denver, CDOT and the Denver Regional Council of Governments, is converting Union Station into the hub of most FasTracks rail lines.

An E Line light rail train prepares to depart for Lincoln Station from Denver Union Station, while a mall shuttle takes on passengers. Inside Lane photo.

You can read the 25-page court filing here.

You can read the original lawsuit here.

You can read the Union Station environmental impact statement here.

And you can read the FTA’s Record of Decision approving it here.

Colorail has longstanding objections to the design of the transit facilities and maintains that it wasn’t properly reviewed in light of requirements in the federal National Environmental Policy Act that requires such studies. The FTA issued its approval on Oct. 17, 2008.

This true-perspective view from the existing light rail platform at Union Station looks northwest to where it would be relocated for Fastracks, to right in front of the freight cars where the concrete pipes are lined up. Inside Lane photo.

They would be connected by the underground bus station and grade-level plaza planned to run along the 17th Street axis. That is the site where early construction began this week.

Colorail wants a new environmental study.

Backers of the Union Station design, including RTD and Denver’s newly created authority overseeing the redevelopment, Denver Union Station Project Authority, maintain that the law was properly followed. Delay at this point, RTD says, would delay completion of the station improvements necessary to stay on schedule with FasTracks corridors. The West Corridor light rail is currently under construction in Denver, Lakewood and Golden with an opening in mid-2013 that would bring its trains into the station. The East Corridor heavy-rail commuter train to Denver International Airport is supposed to be done the following year.

The case is before Judge John Kane.

Cut-away view shows the underground bus station below 17th Street with the covered access to street level. Union Station Neighborhood Co. rendering.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

A divided RTD board committee has given preliminary approval to removing a set of planned moving walkways from the design of the FasTracks transfer facility at Denver Union Station, a controversial element that has divided transit advocates and helped spawn a lawsuit.

By a 7-5 vote, members of the FasTracks Monitoring Committee – where the elected board typically gets its first look at FasTracks issues – approved a recommendation to delete the pair of moving sidewalks from the design. They had been proposed to cover 217 feet of the total distance of about 850 feet that will separate the new light rail and heavy rail passenger platforms.

The board still must consider final approval next week. With three members absent for the committee vote this week, one more member still must cast a “yes” vote to approve the change, assuming all 15 are present.

The heavy-rail commuter platform was originally planned to be adjacent to where the current light rail platform is located. Under a proposal from the developer, Union Station Neighborhood Co., in 2006, the commuter rail will stay there but the light rail will be relocated north two and a half blocks near the freight tracks and Millennium Bridge, with a new underground bus transfer facility as part of the multimodal station, replacing Market Street Station on the 16th Street Mall.

The underground bus station would double as a connector between the two rail modes, and the mall shuttle system will be extended to reach down to the new light rail platform.

The moving sidewalks were originally a concession to passengers, such as airport-bound families toting luggage, who would have to cover the distance between rail platforms.

But refined design of the 22-bay underground bus facility narrowed the width of the space so that a bus staging lane could be added underground. That made the walkways an impediment rather than a help to pedestrians, according to a report to the board by Rick Clarke, FasTracks’ acting manager for engineering.

That didn’t stop five board members from voting no, however, in a rare display of division over FasTracks among the board.

“The reason I voted for the amended master plan (several years ago) was because of the moving sidewalk,” said board member Bill Christopher. “Just fundamentally, when we moved the light rail station out, we got the moving sidewalk. But now, we have the moving sidewalk out but the light rail station is still out there.”

Rendering shows passengers headed toward commuter trains from behind Union Station. Courtesy Union Station Neighborhood Co.

Christopher voted against taking out the moving walks, along with members Matt Cohen, John Tayer, Jack O’Boyle and Wally Pulliam. Those voting in favor were Bill James, Bruce Daly, Noel Busck, Lee Kemp, Chris Martinez, Kent Bagley and Tom Tobiassen.

“One of the things I was able to tell people who were concerned about the distance between the light rail and commuter rail was that at least we were having a moving sidewalk,” Tayer said.

“We’re doing this at the expense of providing our passengers a convenient way of getting from light rail to commuter rail,” said Pulliam, who went on later in the meeting to vote against advancing $9 million from FasTracks to the developer to get construction underway in advance of receiving federal loans for the project this spring.

Pulliam wanted RTD to go with an alternative that would widen the pedestrian area within the bus station by deleting the six-bus staging lane on the west side of the underground facility. That would bring an additional 11 feet of width to the pedestrian area.

But Clarke said the staging area is essential and RTD would have difficulty finding such an area above-ground nearby in the lower downtown neighborhood, where people object to idling buses.

The move saves the $480 million project the $2 million cost of the mechanisms, known in the industry as “travelators.” It also removes $25,000 a year in anticipated operating and maintenance costs for them.

The irony is that many who advocate the moving walkways would rather not have them at all – they have been urging RTD not to relocate the light rail platform at all, but to keep it where it is and make it adjacent to the new commuter rail boarding area.

The design is part of a lawsuit filed by transit-advocate ColoRail, which says the inconvenience of the transfer will hurt ridership. RTD maintains the level of projected ridership transfers between light rail and heavy rail is small enough to minimize the problem. The transit agency also says it is too late to engage in the substantial redesign without imperiling the already tight schedule.

The transit improvements at Union Station must be completed by 2014 in time for FasTracks’ West Corridor light rail, currently under construction, to terminate there and for the imminent start of construction on the heavy-rail East Corridor line to Denver International Airport.

Other FasTracks corridors planned to terminate at Union Station are the Gold Line from Arvada-Wheat Ridge, Northwest Rail from Longmont, Boulder, Broomfield and Westminster, North Metro from Thornton and Commerce City, and the C and E light rail lines of the existing Southwest and Southeast Corridors from Littleton and Douglas County.

One of the two steel truss bridges carrying US 50 over the Gunnison River in Gunnison that is on CDOT's wish list to repair with federal funds next year. CDOT photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

The Colorado Department of Transportation has put 40 highway and airport projects totaling $136.8 million on its wish list for federal grants in 2011.

Each year, the U.S. Department of Transportation awards what it calls discretionary grants, over and above each state’s usual formula funding, in targeted areas such as bridge repair, interstate maintenance, scenic byways and others.

There are 31 highway projects on the list, totaling $90.3 million, and nine airport projects totaling $46.5 million. You can read the entire CDOT list here.

Because it focuses on specific needs, discretionary funding can quickly be put to good use – a series of such grants was used by CDOT to replace the old Interstate 25 viaduct over Broadway and the railroad mainline at the same time T-REX was under construction, allowing both new projects to open at the same time and effectively making the T-REX improvements go a little bit farther.

The federal government sets up funding in various categories and then solicits candidate projects from the states. Projects are selected based on how well they fit the criteria for each category.

This US 24 bridge over California Gulch three miles south of Leadville, built in 1934, is one of those up for replacement if CDOT wins a federal discretionary grant it is seeking for next year. CDOT photo.

Other requests include $6.6 million to replace the Sixth Avenue Freeway bridge over Sheridan Boulevard, on the Denver-Lakewood line; $5.5 million for four miles of concrete resurfacing on Interstate 70 in Glenwood Canyon; $5 million to reconstruct I-70 in concrete from Tower Road to Colfax Avenue, and $4 million to replace the CO 120 span over the Arkansas River and Union Pacific Railroad in Fremont County.

The Sixth Avenue bridge and the CO 120 bridge are two of the 124 poor-rated bridges in the state that are part of the FASTER program. Drivers are being charged an average of up to $18 a year extra on their vehicle registrations to replace poor-rated bridges under the law passed last year. The Sixth Avenue span was built in 1961 and is rated 45.1 on a scale of 100 as structurally deficient. The Fremont County bridge is a steel truss structure built in 1927 and is rated 17.9 for being functionally obsolete.

You can take a photo tour of the 124 bridges on a map of the state by clicking here.

Among the airport projects for which funds are being requested are $13 million to extend the runway at Aspen’s Sardy Field; $7 million for a wildlife fence at Walker Field in Grand Junction; $7 million for an apron extension at Denver International Airport; $5 million for taxiway rehabilitation at Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, and $4 million for runway rehabilitation at Front Range Airport.

While CDOT isn’t likely to get all it asks for, it will enlist the help of the state’s congressional delegation to push for them.

There’s reason for that.

CDOT says the projects are a priority that “address pressing needs of the state transportation system.” They are already on the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program and were selected in consultation with the Statewide Transportation Advisory Committee. The Colorado Transportation Commission approved the list at its January meeting.

Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff announces $304 million in loans to renovate Denver Union Station and $120 million in grants for three FasTracks rail corridors. Seated to the left are Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, Sen. Michael Bennet and RTD General Manager Phil Washington.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

FasTracks’ federal funding picture came into sharper focus today as the Federal Transit Administration announced it will provide the sought-after $304 million in loans toward the conversion of Denver Union Station into a regional commuter rail hub.

FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff, who traveled to Denver for the announcement, also said that by including $80 million in grants to the two commuter rail corridors to Denver International Airport and Arvada-Wheat Ridge in President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget, the feds are sending a clear signal that they intend to sign agreements with RTD, likely next year, to provide New Starts grants for the East Corridor and Gold Line commuter rail projects.

“That translates into a federal commitment to provide over a billion dollars for FasTracks,” Rogoff said to a crowd of about 200 people at the Union Station transit platform. “You put that together with the Union Station loans and they represent thousands of jobs.

“These dollars are an initial downpayment on those projects,” Rogoff said. “The most important part of Monday’s announcement is that the Obama Administration committed itself to signing a Full Funding Grant Agreement for both of these projects.

“Make no mistake about it, the discussion is over. Union Station is going to happen. It’s at the center of what President Obama is talking about when he talks about economic recovery,” Rogoff said.

Transit advocates who have been planning for the day that the historic train station would be reborn were ecstatic.

“This is a historic day in the history of Colorado,” said Dana Crawford, the developer who helped pioneer the rebirth of lower downtown. Reactivation of the station as part of FasTracks is expected to spur the growth of the Central Platte Valley.

One by one, question marks that surround RTD’s FasTracks rapid transit program are being turned into exclamation points as these key targets in the beleaguered financing plan are reached. The grants and loans Rogoff announced Friday are not new money for FasTracks – the amounts already had been plugged into the financial plan – but by committing to those amounts, Rogoff eliminates a few more of the unknowns.

The announcement provides some relief for local officials who have been concerned about RTD’s ability to nail down the remaining unsettled pieces of the budget.

“FasTracks is laying a foundation for our future,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, who addressed the audience. “It’s about jobs, it’s about people. It’s projects like this that give us hope that we are going to fulfill the legacy of our parents and grandparents – to create more, not less, opportunity for generations of Coloradans to come.”

RTD General Manager Phil Washington, left, rides the C Line light rail to the 10th and Osage station after the announcement to tour a senior housing site with FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff and Denver Housing Authority Executive Director Ismael Guerrero.

RTD still faces a $2.45 billion shortage in funds to complete the $6.5 billion project by 2017. It is going through budget-cutting proposals before finalizing project scope and deciding whether to approach voters for a second sales tax increase to get the other new corridor, serving Aurora, Adams County, Boulder and Longmont, back on track.

Rogoff said transportation investments such as FasTracks are not short-term make-work projects.

“They are investments in a better life for the people of this region,” he said. Robust transit systems help to drive business decisions to locate where reliable transportation for workers, goods and services is available.

Mayor John Hickenlooper added to that when he spoke to the crowd.

“I think this will be one of the pillars of economic development in our community for many years to come,” he said.

RTD General Manager Phil Washington said the agency is fully focused on finding a way to get the entire system built out.

“We will not miss a deadline, we will be good stewards of the public’s money,” he said. “We’re going to make this real and we’re going to build this project.

The total project cost for Union Station’s reconstruction is $479.4 million. The loans for Union Station come through two programs.

One loan is through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which provides credit assistance for surface transportation projects of national and regional significance. The TIFIA loan is for $151.6 million.

The second loan, for $152.1 million, comes through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program, which gives direct loans and guarantees for development of railroad infrastructure.

RTD is allocating $200 million in FasTracks funding to the Union Station renovation. The loans are to be repaid through the increase in taxes generated by private development on the site. The project is being carried out by the Denver Union Station Project Authority, and just last week the Denver City Council agreed to assume a “moral obligation” to be a final backstop for the loans through the city general fund – a controversial move that helped seal the feds’ deal.

The grants that Rogoff announced — $40 million to the East Corridor and $40 million to the Gold Line – help to keep those two on course. They are packaged into a privatization proposal called Eagle P3, through which RTD hopes to offload a substantial part of its upfront capital construction costs in exchange for a 40-year concession with a private consortium that will finance, design, build, operate and maintain those two lines and a maintenance facility for the heavy-rail vehicles they will use.

Two international teams of interested bidders are preparing their proposals and RTD expects to select a winning team in June. The privatization move, backed by the federal government as a demonstration of the benefits of public-private transit projects, is part of RTD’s strategy for closing its FasTracks budget gap.

Rogoff also formally announced that the 2011 budget includes the next $40 million annual installment on the FasTracks New Starts full-funding agreement for the West Corridor light rail already under construction in Denver, Lakewood and Golden.

The West Corridor is one of the light rail lines designed to terminate at Union Station – along with the C and E lines from the southwest and southeast corridors. RTD’s design for the transfers between the light rail and heavy-rail commuter trains remains controversial and the subject of a lawsuit by transit advocates who oppose the current design. Some of them attended the announcement, happy to see the federal government committing funds to the project but still working for a change.

RTD is planning to relocate the current light rail platform about two and a half blocks north, adjacent to the freight tracks. Connecting them will be an underground bus transfer station and a ground-level plaza. Some transit advocates say this degrades the intent of convenient transfers.

“If a train station isn’t designed for the convenience of passengers, what is it for?” said Edie Bryan, a former RTD board member and now a member of ColoRail, which is suing over the issue.

Denver International Airport recorded its second-busiest year ever in 2009, despite a predicted
2 percent decline resulting from the sagging economy and capacity reductions by the airlines.

December passenger traffic at DIA totaled 4,003,422, a 1.7 percent drop from the 4,073,246
travelers recorded in the same month of 2008. The monthly figure pushed DIA’s yearly
passenger total to 50,167,485. That was 2.1 percent below the record 51,245,334 travelers
who used DIA in 2008.

It was only the second time in DIA history that December passenger traffic topped the 4 million
mark, and the second time that the airport’s yearly total exceeded 50 million.

“This is exactly where we had expected to end the year, based on the airlines’ cuts in capacity
in response to the decline in air travel,” Denver Aviation Manager Kim Day said Thursday. “But
some airlines have already reported traffic increases for January, and given the strength of the
Denver market, we are optimistic of a turnaround in the near future.”

Another indication of the economy’s effect in 2009 was a yearly decline of 10.6 percent in cargo
handled. That came despite a 7.8 percent increase in cargo activity at DIA in December.

Flight operations in December dipped slightly, 0.6 percent, to 51,648. For the year, 2009
operations declined to 611,977, down 2.2 percent when compared with 2008.

The complete traffic report will be available on DIA’s Web site by following this link:
http://www.flydenver.com/diabiz/stats/traffic/index.asp

Rendering shows Denver Union Station after its planned conversion into the hub of seven FasTracks rail corridors. DUSPA graphic.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff is in Denver on Friday to talk about the Obama Administration’s inclusion of $80 million in initial grants to the FasTracks East Corridor and Gold Line projects and to disclose whether the feds will issue a $300 million loan to the FasTracks renovation of Union Station.

The proposed fiscal year 2011 grants of $40 million each to the East Corridor line to Denver International Airport and the Gold Line to Arvada-Wheat Ridge come under the Federal Transit Administration’s New Full Funding Grant Agreement Funding Recommendations.

FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff

Read a fact sheet on the East Corridor New Starts Grant process here.

Read a fact sheet on the Gold Line New Starts Grant process here.

Getting the grants would be a bright spot for RTD and its FasTracks financial plan, which has been beleaguered by cost increases and revenue losses.

A decision on the full grants won’t be made until after this summer, when RTD expects to select a team of private companies that would sign a 40-year concession to finance, design, build, operate and maintain the East and Gold Line corridors, as well as a commuter rail maintenance facility.

Rendering shows Union Station looking west from Wynkoop Street. DUSPA graphic.

The East and Gold Line, unlike RTD’s currently operating light rail system, are planned to be heavy rail, using self-propelled electric commuter rail cars called Electric Multiple Units.

Heavy-rail self-propelled electric-powered commuter rail cars, shown in this simulation, are the vehicles chosen for the FasTracks East Corridor and Gold Line projects. Courtesy RTD.

Neither the grants nor the loan represent new money into the program, but getting them would help RTD solidify its current plan by eliminating some of the current unknowns.

In just a year’s time — between the third quarters of 2008 and 2009 — Denver’s airfares fell 16 percent.

In comparison, the U.S. average domestic airfare dropped 9 percent between the third quarters of 2000 and 2009 and 14.4 percent between the third quarters of 2008 and 2009. Bureau records show it was the biggest year-to-year decline on record.

Go to the Denver Post to see the entire article.