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.

Thornton Mayor Erik Hansen, joined at a media briefing Monday by two other elected officials and a financial consultant hired by their recently formed group, the North Area Transportation Alliance, said 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 close a $2.2 billion budget gap.

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.

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 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.

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, decided in mid-October to release some of the firms that composed its team and become “inactive.”

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.

Just last week, the FTA gave similar approval, called Record of Decision, 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.

Bridge piers for the West Corridor light rail crossover of Sixth Avenue Freeway at Indiana street straddle the westbound freeway on-ramp.

Led by planned spending increases on design and construction of its FasTracks program next year, RTD’s staff is proposing a 20.6-percent increase in expenditures in its 2010 budget over projected 2009 total spending.

The proposed 2010 budget is $984.6 million in new appropriations. RTD expects the 2009 budget to end up at $816.2 million. The year began with a much higher budget total but RTD cut expenditures during the year in the face of the economic downtown.

Proposed spending on the ambitious FasTracks rapid transit expansion program is up 50 percent over the expected total for this year – $408 million compared with $270.9 this year, reflecting ramped up construction and design work. Combined with capital funding carried over from this year plus federal funds, total FasTracks spending is budgeted at $928.7 million in 2010.

The largest chunk of money is to be spent on the West Corridor light rail project, currently under heavy construction in Denver, Lakewood and Golden, and on the East Corridor between downtown Denver and Denver International Airport.

RTD Press Release

The Regional Transportation District has released the Request for Proposals for the Eagle P3 Project, the public-private partnership venture that will complete several FasTracks projects through one collective contract. As planned, the RFP was delivered to three pre-qualified teams on Wednesday.

The $2.3 billion Eagle P3 Project will design, build, finance, operate and maintain the East Corridor from Denver Union Station to Denver International Airport, the Gold Line to Arvada and Wheat Ridge, a short segment of the Northwest Rail Corridor to Westminster and the commuter rail maintenance facility.

“The release of this RFP represents two years of hard work and innovation by scores of people to craft a partnership that will help deliver a large portion of the FasTracks program,” said Phil Washington, RTD’s Interim General Manager. “This P3 project will serve as a model for public entities across the nation that are looking to partner with the private sector to build major public projects, especially at a time when cash flows are being severely impacted by the economy.”

In 2008, RTD short-listed three teams to compete for the P3 contract. The teams include:

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

Mile High Transit:
• John Laing
• HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions
• Bombardier
• Flatiron Corporation
• Archer-Western
• Aldridge Electric
• AECOM
• CH2M-HILL

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

Proposals from the bidding teams are due in spring 2010. RTD expects to select a final team in June 2010.

A growing number of public entities are pursuing public-private partnerships as a way to benefit from upfront private equity to help build major infrastructure projects. While P3 projects are more common internationally, RTD’s Eagle P3 Project represents a unique model for a major transit project in the United States.

FasTracks is RTD’s voter-approved transit program to expand rail and bus service throughout the RTD service area. FasTracks will build 122 miles of commuter rail and light rail, 18 miles of bus rapid transit service, add 21,000 new parking spaces, redevelop Denver Union Station and redirect bus service to better connect the eight-county District. The FasTracks investment initiative is projected to create more than 10,000 jobs during the height of construction, and will pump billions of dollars into the regional economy.

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UPDATE: The RTD board Tuesday night approved the issuance of the Eagle P3 request for public-private partnership proposals, along with the increased stipends to the unsuccessful bidders and the $20 million payment to the winning bidder in the event RTD later cancels the project.

The vote was 14-0, with Director Bill James absent but sending a statement of support.

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RTD board members tonight will consider increasing the $1.75 million stipends it is offering to each of the three teams of bidders on the FasTracks lines to the airport and Arvada-Wheat Ridge, to $2.5 million each, to encourage them to stay in the chase for the innovative and risky public-private partnership.

That’s in addition to a new $20 million fee RTD will take up tonight to be paid to the winning team in the event it signs a deal with RTD and the transit district later backs out.

It is all part of a vote to release a request for proposals by the end of the month to the three teams.

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.

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.

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 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. But the East Corridor is the most expensive of the 10 FasTracks rapid transit corridors, at more than $1.64 billion.

RTD is holding two public hearings in the coming weeks on the FasTracks Gold Line Final Environmental Impact Statement, and anticipates getting federal approval for the project in the fall.

The Gold Line is an 11.2-mile heavy-rail commuter corridor that connect Denver Union Station with Wheat Ridge at Ward Road, while preserving a future extension corridor from there into Golden.

The Gold Line has been packaged into a single initiative called Eagle P3, a planned Public-Private Partnership, with the East Corridor commuter rail project to Denver International Airport and construction of a rail yard and maintenance facility for all four FasTracks commuter rail corridors.

If successful, a consortium of designers, contractors, transit operators and financiers will take over the two corridors and other associated work, finance it privately, design it and build it, and then operate it for at least 40 years, under a contract with RTD.

The upside for RTD is that, by converting projects it would have to pay entirely upfront through borrowing and grants into a long-term concession contract for which it would make annual payments to the operators, it could build some financial breathing room into the beleaguered FasTracks plan of finance.