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.

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.

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.

An RTD board committee gave preliminary approval Tuesday evening to a financial plan for FasTracks that keeps the option open of asking metro Denver voters for a second sales tax increase in November. But several members were clear they think that option is not realistic.

FasTracks’ federal funding picture came into sharper focus on Friday as the Federal Transit Administration announced it will provide the sought-after $304 million in loans toward the conversion of Denver Union Station and $120 million in grants to three rail corridors.

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

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.

It is a good sign that the agency intends to follow up with full grant agreements for the two lines. The $1.233 billion East Corridor financing plan anticipates $850.44 million New Starts grant, while the $517 million Gold Line plan includes a $180 million New Starts grant.

The Denver Business Journal reports that President Obama’s $3.83 trillion proposed budget includes $80 million for two of RTD FasTracks’ major routes: the East Corridor between downtown and Denver International Airport and the Gold Line from downtown to Arvada/Wheat Ridge.

Each line was recommended to receive $40 million as part of the proposed fiscal 2011 budget’s “New Full Funding Grant Agreement Funding Recommendations.” FasTracks’ West corridor, from downtown to Golden, also received a recommendation for $40 million, as part of an existing grant agreement with RTD.

RTD has said it hopes to get up to $1 billion in federal money, through a full funding grant agreement, to help pay for the East and Gold Line corridors.

Peter Rogoff, head of the Federal Transit Administration, said Tuesday during a conference call with reporters to discuss Obama’s budget that those two projects are on a list “that we’re including in the budget, and we’re signaling our intention to sign a full funding grant agreement on these projects before Sept. 30, 2011,”

Go to the Denver Business Journal to see the entire article.

RTD simulation shows a Gold Line heavy-rail commuter train along Ridge Road in Wheat Ridge. The Gold Line dropped 14 percent in price mainly through cuts in project scope and planned service.

While the overall cost of RTD’s FasTracks program dropped 6.4 percent this year in the transit agency’s annual reappraisal of the its costs and revenues, the changes in the program’s individual components – the 10 rapid transit corridors and associated elements – were all over the boards.

And they came not necessarily from the much-anticipated impact of declines in the construction materials cost, but also from RTD’s decision to trim scope from the corridors to try to hold down their costs and get more of the program built by 2017.

RTD now estimates the entire FasTracks program will cost $6.5 billion by 2017 but that it will be short $2.45 billion in financial resources to meet that price – a dilemma that means it can’t all be built without finding new revenues or reducing the price tag further.

Simulation shows a typical streetcar running on Colfax Avenue at Columbine Street.

RTD and other agencies that are planning transit projects will have to wait for new rules to be drafted to see if the Obama Administration’s decision last week removing Bush Administration restrictions on funding transit will bring more money into FasTracks corridors or projects like the proposed Colfax Streetcar.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last week that making transit grant funding decisions based solely on bottom-line mathematical calculations of, essentially, cost over travel-time savings failed to take into account whether projects improved a community’s livability.

As a result, the DOT will draft new regulations for its New Starts and Small Starts grant programs for transit corridors to allow consideration of such things as lowering carbon emissions, promoting economic development and relieve congestion.

RTD says it’s way too early to know the impact any changes might have on FasTracks corridors that didn’t meet the old threshold for funding.

Simulation shows a single light-rail car operating on Downing Street within the traffic lanes as part of the proposed Central Corridor Extension.

The smallest FasTracks corridor is less than a mile long, but it makes the connection between the RTD’s original RTD light rail line and the proposed commuter rail corridor to Denver International Airport.

The Central Corridor Extension would run for nine-tenths of a mile up Downing Street from the original station at 30th Avenue to a new joint station with the East Corridor trains along Blake Street at 38th Street, where transfers could be made to the airport train.

The details are in an environmental evaluation on the estimated $67.3 million project that RTD released last month. The transit agency is accepting public comments on it until Monday.