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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

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.

The transit corridors and other elements such as maintenance facilities and conversion of Denver Union Station into a transit hub all are being managed as separate projects within the overall $6.5 billion program.

And naturally, as each project has its own unique challenges that make cost swings vary widely, aside from the overarching issues such as costs of construction materials and labor that affect everything fairly equally, whether an individual corridor project went down a little, down a lot or even increased while others decreased depended on unique factors.

A look at the changes to each corridor also shows that cost decreases were not all necessarily due to recessionary drops in the cost of construction material. Many price tag drops were due to cuts to the projects, as new General Manager Phil Washington has asked the project managers of each corridor to do bottoms-up, zero-based re-budgeting of their projects to cut as much scope as can be sacrificed while still accomplishing the basic purpose of each line. One mandate was to keep each line’s originally planned end-of-line destinations instead of cutting them short.

For instance, the 11.2-mile Gold Line heavy-rail commuter line from Denver to Arvada and Wheat Ridge dropped in price by 14 percent over the past year. But RTD attributes much of that savings to reduced scope of work during construction as well as reduced level of service when it’s done. Instead of running trains every seven and a half minutes during rush hours and every 15 minutes off-peak—as outlined in the recently approved Environmental Impact Statement – RTD is proposing 15-minute frequency of trains in rush hour. While this can also lower ridership, it reduces the need for purchasing expensive rail cars from 22 to 12.

RTD is proposing other changes to the Gold Line, including building station platforms for two-car instead of three-car trains.

The short 2.3-mile extension of the Southeast Corridor light rail from the Lincoln Station to RidgeGate dropped the most in price percentage-wise at 14.6 percent, due mostly to dropping construction of one of the three planned stations. RTD will defer building the Lone Tree City Center station east of Interstate 25 until the future development that the train is planned to serve actually materializes.

The Interstate 225 light rail corridor through Aurora fell 11.3 percent due in large part to increasing the steepness of the rail grade on bridge approaches to the recommended light rail maximum climb of six percent. This allows RTD to reduce the length of retaining walls on those approaches, one of the more expensive elements in corridor construction.

Simulation shows North Metro Corridor heavy rail commuter cars going through Thornton. RTD is proposing to shave costs by making another 7.6 miles of this line single-track instead of double.

On the North Metro heavy rail corridor to Commerce City and Thornton, RTD is proposing an additional 7.6 miles of single-tracked segment. This not only reduces the cost of rail from double-track, but means less construction of overhead electrical wires.

On the East Corridor to Denver International Airport, RTD is proposing to reduce the number of train cars it purchases from 22 to 16, and to pave corridor park-n-Ride lots with asphalt rather than concrete.

You can read the changes for each corridor in RTD’s presentation here.

Below is a list of the individual FasTracks projects and their cost changes from 2009 to today.

“Other costs” includes such things as shared elements between corridors – the common tracks that will be used by the Gold Line and Northwest Rail trains from Denver Union Station to Utah Junction at Pecos Street, for example. “BRT” is Bus Rapid Transit, the corridor plan for U.S. 36 to give frequent bus trips a dedicated lane and ramps to avoid general traffic. “CRMF” is the proposed new maintenance facility for Commuter Rail train cars, planned on Fox Street north of 48th Avenue. “LRMF” is the project to expand RTD’s existing Light Rail Maintenance Facility off Santa Fe Drive in Englewood to accommodate the extra light rail trains ordered for the West Corridor, I-225 line and extensions to the Southeast, Southwest and Central corridors.

Simulation shows a typical streetcar running on Colfax Avenue at Columbine Street. Yes, the artist forgot to add the tracks -- this is just a simulation.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

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.

You can read the text of LaHood’s speech here.

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 – the North Metro heavy rail commuter line serving Commerce City and Thornton, the I-225 light rail extension from Parker Road to the Fitzsimons medical campus and Smith Road, and the Northwest Rail commuter line serving Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont. Also, FasTracks extensions to existing light rail corridors don’t get federal funding.

FasTracks’ financial crunch – it’s projected to cost $6.5 billion through 2017 but RTD is $2.45 billion short of cash to pay for it – has several corridors facing potentially lengthy delays in completion, to beyond 2035, unless new funds can be found. While RTD’s elected board is mulling over the possibility of asking voters to approve a second tax hike for it, additional federal funds would be a help.

In addition, the new rules could open up the possibility of federal funding for Denver’s proposed Colfax Streetcar project. The city has been looking at a fixed-track streetcar system along the region’s busiest transit corridor from Interstate 25 to Syracuse Street. You can read about the city’s feasibility study here.

LaHood’s announcement is actually not a radical change, but a return to the broader language in the federal statute that already laid out many factors to be considered in funding projects in addition to cost effectiveness. As LaHood noted in a letter last week to transit stakeholders, those considerations were taken off the table by the Bush Administration in 2005 in favor of focusing solely on cost-effectiveness.

U.S.C. 49 Section 5309(d) had allowed the Federal Transit Administration to approve grants to new projects that are “justified based on a comprehensive review of its mobility improvements, environmental benefits, cost effectiveness, operating efficiencies, economic development effects, and public transportation supportive land use policies and future patterns.”

That changed in 2005 with the administrative restriction that LaHood lifted.

“Everywhere I go, the message is loud and clear: People want more and better transportation infrastructure in their communities – from highways and bridges to light rail, multi-modal transit stations, bike paths, and walkways,” LaHood told attendees at a Transportation Research Board luncheon last week.

“We’re going to free our flagship transit capital program from long-standing requirements that have allowed us only to green-light projects that meet very narrow cost and performance criteria,” LaHood continued. “Instead, as we evaluate major transit projects going forward, we’ll consider all the factors that help communities reduce their carbon footprint, spur economic activity, and relieve congestion.

“To put it simply: We will take livability into account. This new approach will help us do a much better job aligning our priorities and values with our investments in transit projects that truly strengthen communities. We’ll finally be able to make the case for investing in popular streetcar projects and other transit systems that people want – and that our old ways of doing business didn’t value enough.”

Streetcar service in Portland, Ore.

Of 10 FasTracks corridors – nine rail and one Bus Rapid transit – only three qualify for federal New Starts grants under the 2005 restriction. One, the West Corridor light rail serving Denver, Lakewood and Golden, is in full construction and did receive a $308 million Federal Transit Administration New Starts grant. The grants are paid out over a multi-year timetable laid out in a formal agreement. The FasTracks East Corridor to Denver International Airport and the Gold Line to Arvada-Wheat Ridge – which are heavy-rail commuter trains rather than light rail – also qualify for a combined $1 billion in grants.

Two of RTD’s existing light rail corridors received New Starts grants — the Southeast Corridor, built as part of the T-REX project, and the Southwest Corridor to Littleton.

But FasTracks corridors with lower projected ridership compared with their costs didn’t meet the more restrictive Bush threshold. Whether they will meet the new threshold based on the full statutory range of considerations can’t be known right now.

In fact, removing the restriction opens up the competition for limited funds to a broader range of projects in other cities that are anxious to get funding as well, so there are no guarantees that eligibility will result in funding.

Using a cost-effectiveness index as the sole basis for making grant decisions meant that corridors facing stiff cost challenges due to site factors such as terrain or right-of-way issues – constructability issues having nothing to do with actual ridership or travel time calculations – could have been disqualified for reasons unrelated to the level of ridership and the travel time calculations.

For example, the FasTracks North Metro Corridor sustained cost escalations from several constructability problems, primarily the need to get around the complicated freight railroad crossing area called Sand Creek Junction in Commerce City, where the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railroads cross each other and the creek under Interstate 270. That has RTD looking at virgin alignment with more right-of-way acquisition. There are also more retaining walls and noise walls required in the project than originally thought.

In order to keep projects that were close to the threshold on the fundable side of the line, project sponsors would trim elements that helped the line perform better. LaHood’s action could put them back in the mix.

For instance, on the West Corridor, RTD cut back the west segment of the line from the Denver Federal Center to the Jefferson County Government center to a single-track section. That restricts potential growth in service because a single track will permit trains to run with headway frequencies no shorter than 15 minutes. While that is sufficient for opening day projected ridership, it restricts the ability to add rush-hour frequencies at seven and a half or five minutes.

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.

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 Photo.

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. Public officials representing those corridors, mostly in Aurora, Adams County, Broomfield and Boulder County, have criticized RTD as short-changing them. The expenditures on them so far are for such things as environmental studies and preliminary engineering and design work, right-of-way acquisition and purchase of train cars to run on them.

The figures were laid out Tuesday in an update RTD gave to a task force of the Metro Mayors Caucus. Along with other stakeholders, the caucus – which unanimously backed the sales tax hike that voters approved in 2004 to pay for FasTracks – is now working with RTD toward an agreement over how to proceed now that FasTracks can’t meet its original 2017 completion date with its current projected revenues.

Hefty increases in construction costs, freight railroad requirements and added project scope, combined with the floor falling out of revenue projections during the recession, have left the program with what is currently a $2.2 billion funding gap in the 2017 plan. What was to cost $4.7 billion when voters approved FasTracks is now, with the additions, projected to cost $6.9 billion.

Sixty percent of the commitment is for the first FasTracks rail corridor to go to full construction, the West Corridor light rail through Denver, Lakewood and Golden. RTD has spent or contracted the total $707.6 million cost of the 12.1-mile line. Of that, about $510 million is for the two major construction contracts with Denver Transit Construction Group and Balfour Beatty. The rest is for the required environmental impact study, engineering, design and land acquisition.

Retaining wall along Sixth Avenue Freeway will support light rail track as it goes up and over Sixth and Indiana Street on the concrete piers in the distance. RTD Photo.

Ironically, the two corridors with the next-highest commitment levels are among the ones threatened with cuts because of the program’s funding gap. The North Metro commuter rail corridor, an 18-mile electrified heavy-rail project through Denver, Commerce City and Thornton, has $135.7 million in spending and committed funds. RTD has spent about $125 million for corridor property, including $117 million to purchase the Union Pacific freight track right-of-way it will use for the project.

The third-place corridor is the Interstate 225 light rail extension in Aurora, where 88 percent of the $70.9 million committed so far is tied up in a contract with Siemens to produce all of the light rail train cars that will be used on it. Several of the vehicles already have been delivered to RTD.

North Metro and I-225 fall into the group of projects threatened with cuts in part because they do not qualify for federal funding. The issue has created conflict between RTD and the communities that would be served by those threatened lines because the transit agency wants to complete the ones that do qualify for federal assistance – the West Corridor along with the East Corridor commuter rail to Denver International Airport and the Gold Line to Arvada and Wheat Ridge. West Corridor already has secured a $308 million grant agreement from the Federal Transit Administration. The East Corridor and Gold Line qualify for $1 billion combined in federal grants.

Cutting them back would cost the program that federal assistance. Conversely, RTD says, if it doesn’t get the federal grants at all, it will only be able to fully construct the East Corridor to DIA, along with the West Corridor, by 2017. In that case, the Gold Line would be put on hold as well as the other remaining corridors, possibly to all be built only as existing funds allow over time.

But officials in those other corridors are demanding equity since their residents are paying the four-tenths cent sales tax for FasTracks. RTD and the mayors are discussing whether to go to voters as early as next year to ask for a second sales tax increase to complete these at-risk lines.

One proposal, from Mayor Ed Tauer of Aurora, is that the second tax be earmarked for the at-risk lines. RTD is examining the ramifications of such a restriction.

RTD annually evaluates its cost and revenue projections, and plans to have new figures in January. Estimated costs could go up, but like earlier this year, they could also go down as worldwide construction materials prices back off their historic highs from 2005 onward. In 2008, RTD estimated FasTracks’ total 2017 costs at $7.9 billion; the estimate dropped by $1 billion this year. But the revenue projection fell more, resulting in the $2.2 billion shortfall.

“We are continuing to analyze the implications of this approach, and to work with our stakeholders to determine how to move forward,” said FasTracks planner Julie Skeen.

Funds committed to FasTracks program elements:

• $707.6 million: West Corridor light rail
• $135.7 million: North Metro commuter rail
• $92.5 million: Denver Union Station conversion
• $70.9 million: Interstate 225 light rail
• $40.1 million: East Corridor commuter rail
• $28.3 million: Southeast Corridor light rail extension
• $22.5 million: Southwest Corridor light rail extension
• $18.7 million: US 36 Bus Rapid Transit project
• $14.3 million: Expansion of Elati light rail maintenance facility
• $12.2 million: Northwest Rail commuter rail
• $11.5 million: Gold Line commuter rail
• $10.6 million: Central Corridor light rail extension
• $6.6 million: Commuter rail maintenance facility

• $1,171.5 million: Total committed funds