An electric-powered heavy-rail commuter train heads south along the FasTracks North Metro Corridor in this computer simulation. Courtesy RTD.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

The North Metro commuter rail corridor through the heart of Adams County will be proposed as a single-track line but with five strategically placed double-tracked segments that will allow RTD to slash costs while retaining the capability for 15-minute service on this FasTracks corridor.

The refinement to the corridor, the second-most expensive and third-longest rail line in the FasTracks rapid transit program, is contained in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, which will be voted on Tuesday night by the RTD board for public release and comment.

The 18-mile corridor serves Denver, Commerce City, Northglenn and Thornton, between Denver Union Station and 162nd Avenue, north of CO 7 and Colorado Boulevard.

The North Metro Corridor’s cost has been reduced from a high of $1.065 billion two years ago to the current working estimate of $909.8 million – a nearly 15 percent drop due in great part to RTD’s review of every corridor from the bottom up. New General Manager Phil Washington ordered the zero-based budgeting review to determine the least-cost way of getting all the corridors built while still serving all of the communities along them.

In the case of North Metro, planners found that they could build a system that mostly uses a single track for both northbound and southbound trains if they included five two-track passing segments and coordinated the schedules, allowing trains in opposing directions to pass without delays. Two of the double-track segments are at the north and south ends, and three are in the middle of the line. They are from south of 72nd Avenue to around 74th Avenue, from north of Thornton Parkway to just north of 104th Avenue, and from south of 124th Avenue to before the York Street crossing south of 136th Avenue.

The preferred alignment recommended for North Metro Corridor on the Final Environmental Impact Statement, showing location of passing tracks. Courtesy RTD.

The final study also pins down the few remaining open questions in the draft released in November – the alignment from the Denver city line into Commerce City and the location of the Denver station at the Coliseum-Stock Show area. The new map shows the station site north of Interstate 70 near the National Western Events Center. The other site had been proposed south of I-70 at the west end of the Coliseum parking lot.

The alignment question was a key to resolving cost and operational issues with the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads. Initially, the North Metro Corridor was to parallel one or the other freight lines out of Union Station until it reached the point where Union Pacific’s Boulder Branch diverges from the main line. That is just north of the Commerce City refinery area and Interstate 270 in a busy location called Sand Creek Junction. The UP and BNSF lines cross there directly under the I-270 overpass, and getting RTD’s commuter trains through the pinch point would have required a lot of expensive structures.

Instead, the final study selects a long-considered overland route of new trackage, paralleling the BNSF out of Union Station until just north of Riverside Cemetery on Brighton Boulevard. There, North Metro turns north up to the O’Brian Canal, and follows the canal to 70th Avenue, where it meets up with the UP Boulder Branch and uses that existing alignment the rest of the way.

RTD bought the UP’s Boulder Branch last year, including the segment beyond the end of the North Metro project and on into Boulder.

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.

The North Metro Corridor Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) document is now available for public review and comment. North Metro’s Build Alternative is a proposed 18-mile electric commuter rail transit corridor between Denver Union Station (DUS) and SH7/162nd Avenue in Thornton with eight stations serving Denver, Commerce City, Thornton, Northglenn and unincorporated Adams County. The North Metro Corridor is part of the overall RTD FasTracks plan to build 122 miles of new rail transit and enhanced bus service and park-n-Rides throughout the metro Denver area.

The public hearings are an opportunity for the public to provide feedback on the alternatives evaluation.

Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2009
6 p.m. to 8 p.m
Adams 12 Conference Center
1500 E. 128th Ave
Thornton, CO 80241

Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Adams City High School
7200 Quebec Parkway
Commerce City, CO 80022

The Public Hearings will include:
• An Open House format with the opportunity to speak one-on-one with project representatives.
• A brief presentation of the environmental evaluation findings that will begin at 7 p.m.
• Opportunities to submit verbal, written or electronic comments.
• DEIS document available for public review.
The Draft EIS is available for review online at www.RTD-FasTracks.com (click on North Metro) and at the following libraries listed below:

• Central Denver Public Library
10 West 14th Ave. Parkway

 Northglenn Branch Library
10530 N. Huron St.

• State Library
201 East Colfax Ave., Suite 314

 Rangeview District Admin. Offices
11658 Huron St.

• Valdez-Perry Branch Library
4690 Vine St.

 Thornton Branch Library
8992 N. Washington St.

• Commerce City Branch Library
7185 Monaco St.

 Brighton Branch Library
327 E. Bridge St.

• Perl Mack Branch Library
7611 Hilltop Circle

North Metro DEIS comments can be submitted until Jan. 15, 2010 through the following methods:
In Person: At the public hearings on Dec. 9 and 10
Online: www.RTD-FasTracks.com – click on North Metro
E-mail: comments@RTDNorthMetro.com
Mail: David Beckhouse
Federal Transit Administration, Region 8
c/o North Metro Project Team
999 18th St., Ste. 900
Denver, CO 80202

Following the public hearings, the project team will address public and agency comments received and prepare the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) document for adoption by the Federal Transit Administration. A Record of Decision is anticipated in July 2010.

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) and Union Pacific Railroad (UP) celebrated the transfer of railroad property that RTD purchased from UP for the North Metro rail project that will be built through the FasTracks program.

At a ceremony this morning in Thornton at the site of the future Eastlake Station at 124th and Claude Court, RTD and UP were joined by local stakeholders whose communities will benefit from the project. The property that RTD purchased from UP is known as the Boulder Industrial Lead, a 33-mile stretch of property from Brighton Boulevard to the Valmont Power Plant in Boulder. The property will be used to build out the North Metro commuter rail corridor up to 162nd near State Highway 7. The tracks then turn west and head up to Boulder. The $118 million investment in the North Metro Corridor also allows RTD to preserve right-of-way to Boulder for future expansion.

“The significance of this event is two-fold: It marks years of collaboration with Union Pacific culminating in this purchase of property for FasTracks, and it represents a major investment in laying the foundation for the North Metro Corridor,” said RTD Interim General Manager Phil Washington.

“We appreciate the close working relationship we’ve had over the past several years with RTD and it shows how freight rail and passenger rail can work together for everyone’s benefit,” said Dick Hartman, Union Pacific Director of Public Affairs. “We look forward to continuing to work with RTD and all local stakeholders on FasTracks projects and others of mutual interest to RTD and the railroad.”

Simulation shows North Metro Corridor heavy rail commuter cars going through Thornton.

The North Metro commuter rail corridor through Denver, Commerce City and Thornton – the second-costliest project in the RTD FasTracks program after the train to Denver International Airport – is going to public hearings next week on a Draft Environmental Impact Statement that has two major items unresolved.

One is the exact route that the double-tracked heavy-rail train cars will take through Commerce City, in light of the costly and technically challenging path through the busy Sand Creek Junction of the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads under Interstate 270.

After initially rejecting Sand Creek Junction in favor of several overland routes to the west that avoid the freight railroads’ operations, RTD has begun to evaluate sending the North Metro Corridor tracks through Sand Creek partially on an elevated track over the freights, and crossing under I-270 to the west of the freight tracks.

Looking southwest, photo shows Sand Creek Junction at left center. Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight tracks cross each other here while I-270 passes overhead. North Metro commuter trains could pass through here as well.

The alternative will be carried forward into the next level of analysis for the Final Environmental Impact Statement, along with three remaining overland routes, all of which go under I-270 at the O’Brian Canal and have three options for meeting up again with the main alignment on the Union Pacific’s former Boulder Branch track.

The second major unresolved item is the location for the Denver station on the line, planned for the Denver Coliseum area. The South station option is located at the far end of the Coliseum parking lot, where the North Metro Corridor would run next to the BNSF’s tracks. The North station option is at 48th Avenue and Brighton Boulevard, north of the National Western Events Center.

There is also an alternate location for the Commerce City station, but RTD is recommending a site at 72nd Avenue that works with any of the four alternative alignments over Sand Creek. It had also looked a site a short distance south, at 68th Avenue, that could only be used by two of the four potential alignments.

The alternatives for placing the North Metro Corridor tracks through Commerce City are shown on this map.

In addition, RTD agreed to evaluate options presented by Thornton for transit-oriented development to be incorporated into the plan for the 124th Avenue station.

RTD will hold two public hearings on the draft next week – on Wednesday, Dec. 9, in the Adams 12 Conference Center in Thornton at 1500 E. 128th Ave., and Thursday Dec. 10 in Commerce City at Adams City High School, 7200 Quebec Parkway. Both hearings will run from 6 to 8 p.m.

You can view the entire Draft Environmental Impact Statement at the RTD FasTracks site. You can also make a comment using the online form.

View RTD’s video announcement of the release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and next week’s public hearings:

The North Metro Corridor has an estimated capital cost of $1.1 billion, making it the second-most expensive rail corridor in all of FasTracks. It is an 18-mile heavy-rail project that runs between Denver Union Station and 162nd Avenue – just north of CO 7 and beyond the E-470 beltway. It would exit Denver on the BNSF Brush Division tracks that go east of the Coliseum and National Western complex and along Riverside Cemetery. Restrictions on use of freight railroad right of way would put the tracks partially into Brighton Boulevard there, requiring the road to be moved up to 30 feet to the east.

North of Sand Creek, the North Metro Corridor meets up with the Union Pacific’s Boulder Branch, a little-used freight corridor that snakes northward generally between York Street and Colorado Boulevard. RTD recently purchased the right-of-way all the way into Boulder.

It would be double-track up to 128th Avenue, and then single-track up to the end of the line.

This corridor had long been planned for heavy-rail commuter trains, but in the study RTD included an option for light rail in all the proposed alignments including along Interstate 25, similar to the T-REX light rail. But they were eliminated principally due to the high cost of land acquisition they required.

The North Metro Corridor would include eight stations in addition to the hub at Union Station – the Coliseum area, Commerce City, 88th Avenue, 104th Avenue, 112th Avenue, 124th Avenue/Eastlake, 144th Avenue and CO 7/162nd Avenue.

Depending on the final alignment chosen through Commerce City, RTD would have to acquire between 85 and 100 acres. The team is working to minimize the amount of land needed. But as it stands now, up to three residential properties would be affected, among a total of 77 to 87 properties. Between 13 and 17 businesses, with 230 total employees, would face relocation.

RTD proposes to operate weekday trains every 15 minutes during rush hours and every half hour outside of that, starting at 4 a.m. and ending at 1:30 a.m.

Map shows the North Metro Corridor alignment.

RTD bought the 33-mile Boulder Industrial Lead freight line from the Union Pacific Railroad for the FasTracks North Metro Corridor commuter train that is to run between Union Station through and Commerce City/Thornton.

The right of goes beyond the project limits past and turns west, crossing Interstate 25 and into Boulder County. RTD is proposing to license the portion that runs west of I-25 to US 287 to the Boulder railway historical society for 10 years at no cost.

“The proposed operation would consist of a dinner train two nights per week year-round and seasonal heritage trains running five days per week for the summer months of June through September,” RTD said in a lease proposal that RTD directors will vote on next week.

Go to the Denver Post to see the entire article.

The North Area Transportation Alliance will hire BBC Research & Consulting, based in Denver, to look at assumptions about FasTracks costs and revenues made by the Regional Transportation District in its annual project review submitted earlier this year to the Denver Regional Council of Governments.

“The dramatic shortfall of funds to complete FasTracks has put communities and businesses in the North Metro area in jeopardy of not getting the transit benefits they were promised in 2004,” Thornton Mayor and NATA Chairman Erik Hansen said in a statement. “Shockingly, it now appears that the refined and updated projections are also flawed. It will be impossible for us to find agreeable solutions for completing FasTracks until the financial plan is based on realistic assumptions and projections.”

Read the entire article at the Denver Business Journal.