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:

Simulation shows the FasTracks East Corridor commuter rail station planned to adjoin the DIA terminal's south side.

Officials from Thornton and other north metro communities oppose RTD’s intention to go ahead and build the FasTracks line to Denver International Airport if other corridors that were promised rail service get short-changed by the program’s current deficit.

Mayor Erik Hansen, flanked by two other elected officials and a financial consultant hired by their recently formed group, the North Area Transportation Alliance, said during a media briefing on Monday that RTD needs to outline – right now – what it would do in a “Plan B” for FasTracks if any or all of its strategies fail to work for accomplishing the program and closing a $2.2 billion budget gap.

Thornton Mayor Erik Hansen

But Hansen and other NATA members say that’s not a fair way to treat taxpayers elsewhere who are paying right now for service they might never see.

“It’s disappointing that they’re only going to manage to build one more line,” Hansen said.

“There is an equity issue here that if there is a problem in FasTracks, we can’t just build one corridor,” the mayor said. “Everyone has to get some level of service. What needs to happen is there ought to be a plan that takes these worst case scenarios and says what do we do if they happen.

“This is about working together as a region.”

RTD says it is still focused on finding ways to deliver the entire program as promised and, while it’s well aware of the practical problems including asking voters for more money in a recession, it won’t pick a Plan B until it needs to. In the meantime, it makes sense to build the parts of the program that can be built at the time they can be built; otherwise, the program’s problems get worse.

“We have been saying all along if the federal funding does not materialize, we’re still going to be able to build the East Corridor because of the private financing that comes through the PPP,” Pauletta Tonilas, FasTracks spokeswoman, said of the public-private partnership.

“At some point we have to keep things moving forward. The East Corridor has the most regional ridership. Most of the region will utilize it because of the destination that it serves. If we can get that corridor into construction next year, why would we not want to do that?”

The RTD rapid transit system, existing and proposed, is shown on this map. RTD's budget gap threatens the scheduled completions of the Gold Line, Northwest Rail, US 36 BRT, North Metro and I-225 corridors, along with extensions to the Southwest and Southeast corridors.

Frick’s report took to task not only RTD but also the Denver Regional Council of Governments and consultants it hired to analyze RTD’s FasTracks financial projections for costs and revenues. Frick said the consultants appeared to soft-pedal criticism of RTD’s sales tax projections and construction cost methods.

You can read the full report here:
NATA FasTracks Packet 11-30-09

Coincidentally, RTD says Frick is serving on a working group it put together to advise it before the end of the year on a new methodology for forecasting sales taxes. That is part of an annual effort RTD conducts to re-evaluate all of FasTracks’ finances, from construction costs of all proposed transit corridors to how much revenue its sales tax will bring in. That re-evaluation is due for release in a month.

It’s not like the essential elements of a FasTracks Plan B aren’t already known. RTD admitted in July 2008 that it could not deliver FasTracks as promised by 2017 without new revenues, due mostly to huge cost increases and poor sales tax collections. Since then it has been working with stakeholders – including a Metro Mayors Caucus task force on which Hansen participants – in search of a consensus solution.

In the worst case, the framework for Plan B consists of variations of extending the schedule beyond 2017 and building all lines as revenues allow. Different iterations shown to the mayors and others in the past year include apportioning money to all corridors as it dribbles in. What formula to use for dividing money has been an issue – should it be divvied up in proportion to original cost estimates, current costs, projected ridership, costs of realistic segments of each corridor?

No consensus has been reached on that, largely because of complaints by Hansen and other officials from areas where FasTracks lines are threatened that the approaches so far are inequitable to their citizens.

RTD is pursuing three strategies to shore up funding for FasTracks, currently projected to cost $6.9 billion with only $4.7 billion to pay for it by 2017. All of them face uncertain chances.

Two of the strategies – the $1 billion in federal grants and the near-$1 billon in private investment – already are included in the $4.7 billion available revenue figure. The East Corridor to DIA and the Gold Line to Arvada/Wheat Ridge meet thresholds for federal grants. RTD last year successfully obtained a similar Federal Transit Administration grant, called New Starts, for the West Corridor light rail now under construction in Denver, Lakewood and Golden, in the amount of $308 million.

The other corridors do not meet the thresholds for grants.

RTD’s privatization of the East and Gold corridors includes the financing, design, construction, operation and maintenance of the lines under a 40-year concession agreement with a private consortium. The program is called Eagle P3 – East and Gold Public Private partnership. Two teams of builders, designers and financiers are in the running and RTD expects to select a team by next summer. If successful, the private partners would infuse up to $1 billion in private financing.

While none of this is guaranteed, RTD has experience and a leg-up on the process. RTD has won every New Starts grant it has sought — $120 million for the Southwest Corridor light rail to Littleton, $525 million for the Southeast Corridor light rail built as part of T-REX, and the $308 million grant to West Corridor.

In addition, the feds have picked the Eagle P3 package as a demonstration project to highlight the effectiveness of public-private partnerships. As such, the grant requests for East and Gold get more easily attained funding thresholds and expedited processing.

And while the BBC report called the Eagle P3 project “a public-private partnership that has never been accomplished on this scale anywhere in the United States,” one of the members of the Denver Transit Partners bidding team – Fluor Corp. – is involved in the $2 billion public-private partnership building the I-495 Capital Beltway toll lanes project in northern Virginia. There, the private partners brought $935 million in financing, parameters similar to Eagle P3.

However, the BBC report points out that the New Starts program, like all federal transportation funding programs, hasn’t been reauthorized by Congress. The existing federal authorization was to have expired Sept. 30 but has been temporarily extended to the end of the year. Congress may take another 18 months to draw up a new six-year plan. That delay in funding new New Starts would negatively impact RTD’s financing plan, BBC said.

“Completion of the system relies on federal funding from a program that isn’t currently in place, from a public-private partnership that has never been accomplished on this scale anywhere in the United States; from an unlikely increase in sales tax rates to unprecedented levels, and from fare box revenue that is dependent on a fully functioning system,” Frick wrote.

“Unfortunately, if one revenue source fails to meet expectations, others are jeopardized.”

BBC says it appears that the DRCOG consultants exercised “careful avoidance of the issue, and the real possibility that at least one major revenue source will fail to materialize as hoped for, or will perform significantly under expectations, and that the remainder of the financing system may then unravel.”

It is RTD’s third strategy, aimed at bringing the $2.2 billion in capital needed by 2017 to complete the program, that may be the most problematic.

RTD is considering whether and when to seek a second FasTracks sales tax increase, likely another four-tenths of a percent, which would double the amount in the original plan approved by voters in 2004.

Preliminary RTD data runs have shown that if a new tax were approved in November 2010, it could complete the program on schedule. But it could delay the request to 2012, and that delay would in turn force a delay in the completion year.

BBC’s report slams RTD for not accounting for the cumulative impacts of all three strategies falling short.

Simulation shows the FasTracks East Corridor commuter rail station planned to adjoin the DIA terminal's south side.

Officials from Denver International Airport and RTD gathered Friday to mark the federal government’s approval this month of two environmental studies that keep crucial FasTracks corridors on the path toward $1 billion in grants.

Environmental Impact Statements for the East Corridor heavy-rail line to DIA from downtown and the companion Gold Line heavy-rail to Arvada and Wheat Ridge both were approved by the Federal Transit Administration.

This allows RTD to proceed with final design, financing and construction. The transit agency in September formally began a procurement process to select a private sector team that would do the work, with selection expected by June.

Phil Washington, RTD's interim general manager

“This milestone speaks volumes to the progress we are seeing on the FasTracks investment initiative,” said Phil Washington, RTD’s Interim General Manager. “This is a great vote of confidence by the Federal Transit Administration that keeps us on track to pursue up to $1 billion in federal funds for FasTracks.”

The Gold Line study took three years and the East Corridor study took more than six years, each absorbing delays along the way as original plans faced changes. Some were due to outside factors, such as freight railroads imposing stricter rules for transit access to their rights of way out of safety concerns. That caused the Gold Line to change from the originally proposed light rail to heavy-rail self-propelled commuter train cars. The East Corridor always had been planned for heavy rail, although light rail was considered at one point in the study before being eliminated.

There are some among the public and media who refer to all FasTracks lines as “light rail,” an incorrect shorthand. Heavy rail commuter cars – electric powered in three corridors and diesel-powered in one – are being used in rights-of-way shared with freight railroads because the passenger vehicles meet federal crash safety standards that light rail cars do not.

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.

While FasTracks faces a $2.2 billion funding gap for its 2017 completion date, the East Corridor and Gold Line can be fully funded if RTD succeeds in getting two grants totaling $1 billion. RTD has packaged the two project, along with construction of a maintenance facility near 48th Avenue and Fox Street for the larger rail cars, into a single request for proposals from private consortiums interested in financing, designing, building, operating and maintaining the two corridors.

This privatization effort, which RTD has named Eagle P3 for “East, Gold Line Public Private Partnership,” is aimed at reducing the amount of upfront capital funds RTD needs for FasTracks. By bringing in private equity from the bidders, RTD would spread its costs for the DIA and Arvada lines over the course of a 40-year concession agreement with the private operators.

The two projects also have a leg up because they were among only a few chosen two years ago nationwide by the FTA to participate in a federal pilot project to demonstrate the potential savings of privatization, called Penta P. As such, the grant request will get expedited screening and more favorable thresholds for qualifying.

Without the federal grants, RTD says it would only be able to build the DIA line. Until the FTA makes decisions on the grants, RTD has broken the Eagle P3 project into two phases, proceeding with the DIA line first and putting the Gold Line into Phase 2 dependent on the federal grants coming through.

“We are excited to celebrate today’s event with RTD and with representatives from our surrounding communities,” said Kim Day, Manager of Aviation for Denver International Airport. “Having a direct rail link between downtown Denver and the airport is crucial for our passengers and our employees and the addition of FasTracks at DIA will help us stand out as a truly world-class facility.”

Click here to see an RTD fact sheet on the East Corridor.

Click here to see an RTD fact sheet on the Gold Line.

Rendering shows the commuter rail boarding platforms planned for behind Denver Union Station' the light rail platforms are proposed to be being relocated north of here, near the existing freight tracks.

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.

One of the three teams preparing a public-private partnership proposal to design, build and operate RTD’s FasTracks commuter train corridors to Denver International Airport and Arvada/Wheat Ridge has decided to sit it out unless RTD makes “major changes” to extend its schedule.

Mile High Transit is the partnership that, according to a report from RTD Acting General Manager Phil Washington to the RTD board (see Page 7), decided in mid-October to release some of the firms that composed its team and become “inactive.”

Washington told the board that Mile High’s decision was “pending major changes to RTD’s schedule.” But RTD isn’t currently contemplating any extensions that call for the teams to submit their proposals by March 31. The project at issue is called Eagle P3, which stands for East Corridor and Gold Line Public-Private Partnership. In addition to financing, designing, building, operating and maintaining those two commuter rail lines for 40 years, the winning concessionaire will also build a commuter rail maintenance facility for them and two other RTD commuter rail FasTracks lines, as well as a small portion of the Northwest Rail corridor to south Westminster.

It is valued at a combined total of $2.3 billion in cost.

Mile High Transit included UK-based John Laing Company, which invests in privately financed infrastructure projects, transportation contractors Flatiron Corp. of Longmont and Archer-Western of Atlanta, German transportation concessionaire HOCHTIEFF, Canadian rail car builder Bombardier, and engineering consultants CH2M Hill and AECOM, among others.

Two teams remaining in the hunt are:

Denver Transit Partners:
• Fluor Enterprises, Inc.
• Macquarie Capital Group Ltd.
• Ames Construction
• Balfour Beatty Rail, Inc.
• Alternate Concepts, Inc.
• HDR Global Design Consultants

Mountain-Air Transit Partners:
• HSBC
• Siemens
• Veolia
• Kiewit
• Herzog
• Stacy and Witbeck
• HNTB Corporation
• Mass. Electric Construction Co.

Already, RTD has responded to a series of questions from the teams about its Request for Proposals, and it is also reviewing a number of suggestions from the bidders for alternative concepts designed to save money or make the projects more efficient. That is by design, as the completive proposal process allows RTD to retain the rights to these suggestions even if made by the unsuccessful bidder. A stipend of up to $2.5 million will be paid to the unsuccessful team, depending on its expenses.

“Various procurement meetings have been held and are planned over the coming weeks with the proposing teams to discuss some of the questions, alternative technical concepts and to provide an opportunity for the teams to meet third parties including the railroads, utility companies and DIA,” Washington reported to the RTD board.

Aerial view of DIA's terminal shows the proposed location for the FasTracks East Corridor station.

RTD wants to select a winning team by June 15. A 40-year concession contract would be negotiated by July 6, with early construction work starting in August. RTD is looking at splitting the project into two phases, with work on the airport line first, and then Gold Line work starting in a second phase contingent on how things go in the beginning of the project. Full notice to proceed would take place by the end of 2011, with opening of both lines by the end of 2016.

The public-private partnership idea is part of RTD’s strategy for bringing down the upfront costs of FasTracks, now $2.2 billion underwater with expenses over finances if it wants to finish on the original schedule of 2017.

The winning private team would enter into a concession contract with RTD to provide significant private financing – up to $1 billion – plus a design-build project delivery approach similar to that used by RTD and CDOT on the successful T-REX highway-transit project, and then capped off with a 40-year operating and maintenance agreement with the private partner. Under the concession, the private team would receive annual payments from RTD in exchange for providing the system and operating it to RTD schedules and standards.

At the end, all of the assets would revert to RTD.

In addition, RTD is seeking a combined $1 billion in federal transit grants for the East Corridor and Gold Line.

You can view a presentation RTD staff made to the board in August here.

A public-private partnership is aimed at helping RTD upfront by lowering the initial capital costs, exchanging that with the private partner for the annual concession payments. It’s similar to a homeowner paying a monthly mortgage over time for a house instead of paying cash to build it. It requires less money now, although more over time. It helps ease RTD’s need for more money now if it hopes to build the entire FasTracks system.

RTD simulation shows what the East Corridor electric powered commuter train would look like near DIA.

The Federal Transit Administration on Friday gave its approval to the environmental impact statement for the FasTracks East Corridor project between Denver Union Station and Denver International Airport.

The single most expensive project within the overall $6.9 billion FasTracks program at $1.3 billion, East Corridor is a heavy-rail commuter train project covering 22.8 miles, partly alongside the Union Pacific Railroad tracks – the original railroad line into Denver from the east – and partly along Peña Boulevard. There are five planned stations between downtown and the airport.

You can read the FTA’s approval, called the Record of Decision, here.

Just last week, the FTA gave similar approval for the Gold Line commuter rail between Denver and Arvada/Wheat Ridge. Gold Line is a companion project to the East Corridor in a package being put out for privatization, called Eagle P3. It is an attempt by RTD to reduce its upfront costs for FasTracks by contracting with a private consortium for financing, design, construction, operations and maintenance under a 40-year concession.

Eagle P3 takes its name from East-Gold Line Public-Private Partnership.

“We are pleased that, after so many years of partnership with the community, reliable commuter rail service between Denver Union Station and Denver International Airport is much closer to becoming a reality,” said Carol Duecker, RTD’s project manager for the East Corridor. “The benefits to metro Denver and the neighborhoods this line will serve will be significant.”

Together with construction of a joint-use Commuter Rail Maintenance Facility, planned for 48th Avenue and Fox Street, and a leg of the Northwest Rail project to Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont that is shared with the Gold Line, Eagle P3 is valued at $2.3 billion worth of work within FasTracks.

The preferred alternative alignment for the East Corridor, with station locations and optional elements noted.

Proposals from three teams of bidders, which include design firms, contractors, financiers, rail car builders and others, are due in the spring, with RTD planning to select a winning team in June.

East and Gold Line, as a package, are also part of a new federal initiative called “Penta P,” five “Ps” that stand for Public Private Partnership Pilot Program. RTD’s proposal is one of only a few chosen for the special treatment under with FTA wants to determine how well privatization works in developing and operating public transit. It promises expedited decision-making and more generous thresholds for determining federal funding.

RTD has long planned on obtaining at least $1 billion combined in federal grants for the East and Gold Line projects.

While many who are only slightly familiar with RTD’s program use “light rail” as shorthand for all of the projects, the East Corridor is not a light rail project. It and the other three corridors serving the northern metro area will use self-propelled heavy rail commuter cars. Three – East, Gold and the North Metro Corridor to Commerce City/Thornton – will use electric cars and the other, Northwest Rail, is planned for diesel-powered cars.

RTD simulation shows what the East Corridor electric powered commuter train would look like near DIA.

The Final Environmental Impact Statement for RTD’s FasTracks East Corridor commuter train to Denver International Airport is available for public viewing and comment prior to public hearings scheduled for later this month.

The deadline for comments is Oct. 7. If the Federal Transit Administration approves the findings afterward, RTD would be able to move the 22.8-mile heavy-rail electrified train corridor into final design and toward construction. But don’t expect it to happen right away, because the East Corridor is one of the two FasTracks train commuter train projects that RTD is packaging into one in an attempt to solicit private investors and save money. That process is underway, and the request for proposals is expected to go out at the end of September.

The study was released last week. Online visitors can submit their comments on it here.

The East Corridor isn’t the longest in FasTracks – that distinction belongs to the Northwest Rail Corridor to Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont at 41 miles.

The preferred alternative alignment for the East Corridor, with station locations and optional elements noted.

But the East Corridor is the most expensive of the 10 FasTracks rapid transit corridors, at more than $1.64 billion. It connects Denver Union Station with DIA’s planned expansion of the Jeppesen Terminal. DIA is planning a system that would allow airline passengers to check bags downtown and transfer at the airport to the people-mover that goes to the concourses.

“We are moving closer to providing safe, reliable rapid-transit to an estimated average of 37,900 weekday riders, beginning in 2015,” said Carol Duecker, project manager for the East Corridor EIS. “The FEIS culminates six years of screening, analysis and unprecedented public involvement and I encourage residents, businesses and stakeholders to provide their input over the next 30 days.”

Public hearings are scheduled from 5:30 to 8 p.m. each night, on Sept. 23 in North Middle School, 12095 Montview Blvd., Aurora, and Sept. 24 in the EXDO Event Center, 1399 35th St., Denver. The format will be open house for the first hour, then a formal presentation and question period afterward. The same information will be available at both meetings. Spanish translation, child care and light refreshments will also be available at both meetings. People with special accommodation needs can make requests for them by calling 303-299-2000 and following the prompts for East Corridor.

RTD is packaging the East Corridor with the Gold Line commuter rail corridor to Arvada and Wheat Ridge, along with construction of the FasTracks commuter rail maintenance facility, into a single project called Eagle P3, through which it hopes to attract private investors to provide financing, design, construction, operations and maintenance under a 40-year operating agreement.

This is one of RTD’s strategies aimed at a $2.2 billion funding gap in the FasTracks program, which has current estimated capital costs of $6.9 billion through 2017 but only $4.7 billion in identifiable financial resources for it. Through privatization, RTD can conserve upfront capital, although it would pay out more over time.

The East Corridor EIS examined more than 100 alternative configurations, including light rail and bus rapid transit, using I-70, the Union Pacific Railroad right of way, Bruce Randolph Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard. The project that voters say in the 2004 FasTracks vote was for heavy rail in the Union Pacific corridor, but it remained subject to the findings in the Final EIS.

The East Corridor EIS got underway in June 2003 as part of a joint effort with the Colorado Department of Transportation for both highway and transit improvements in the entire Interstate 70 East Corridor. But three years later, after voters approved the sales tax that helps fund FasTracks, the two modes were separated into their own studies. The highway improvements study is available online at www.I-70east.com.

Due to growth in the Stapleton area and the existence of two major travel trip generators at either end of the study area – downtown Denver and the airport, the 2030 travel demand forecast estimates 10 million trips per day in and through the corridor.

The FasTracks system map shows the East Corridor in relation to the other corridors.

The East Corridor uses the Union Pacific alignment out of Union Station to 40th Avenue and along Smith Road until it gets near Peña Boulevard. There, the tracks will curve north and then east to the airport.

But because of the inability of Union Pacific and RTD to agree on an acceptable price for some of the Union Pacific corridor rights, the East Corridor trains will run outside the railroad right of way in some locations, mostly along 40th Avenue in the Cole and Clayton neighborhoods.

The Final EIS contains these elements, among others:

• Double-track electric multiple unit (EMU) commuter rail; this is heavy rail, string enough to meet federal railroad safety standards for operations within joint-use freight railroad corridors.
• 6 new stations
• 3,529 parking spaces on opening day, in 2015 or 2016, with 7,900 spaces ultimately
• 20 grade-separated crossings
• 17 at-grade crossings
• Average weekday ridership projected to be 37,900
• 29-minute travel time from Union Station to DIA
• Service between 3:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m., 365 days a year
• 15-minute frequency from 4:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
• Annual estimated operating cost of $17.6 million, in 2008 dollars

The grade separations include Broadway, 38th Street, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Market Lead track, Quebec Street, Union Pacific mainline, Airport Boulevard, I-70, 56th Avenue, E-470, Peña Boulevard, New Castle Street, Sand Creek, First Creek and Second Creek.

The station locations, in addition to the airport and Union Station ends-of-line, are:

• 38th/Blake streets
• Colorado Boulevard
• Central Park at Stapleton
• Peoria Street
• 40th Avenue/Airport Boulevard

Three design options are also included for the Smith Road realignment (40th Avenue at Colorado Boulevard in Denver; 40th Avenue/Airport Blvd. in Aurora and New Castle Street near DIA. The document also contains details of the commuter rail maintenance facility, including its anticipated impacts and proposed mitigation measures.

After the 30-day public comment period, RTD will submit the final document to the Federal Transit Administration for review and a decision expected later in the fall. If this happens, construction can begin by 2011, with the line open to the public in 2015.

The meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. at RTD’s offices at 1600 Blake St. RTD plans to issue the RFP on Sept. 30, a spokeswoman said.

RTD is seeking a team of private partners to design, build, finance, operate and maintain three rail lines: the East Corridor from downtown to Denver International Airport, the Gold LIne to Arvada and Wheat Ridge, and a small segment of the Northwest Rail line from downtown to south Westminster, plus a commuter rail maintenance facility.

Read the entire story at the Denver Business Journal.