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.
RTD simulation shows a Gold Line heavy-rail commuter train along Ridge Road in Wheat Ridge. The Gold Line dropped 14 percent in price mainly through cuts in project scope and planned service.
While the overall cost of RTD’s FasTracks program dropped 6.4 percent this year in the transit agency’s annual reappraisal of the its costs and revenues, the changes in the program’s individual components – the 10 rapid transit corridors and associated elements – were all over the boards.
And they came not necessarily from the much-anticipated impact of declines in the construction materials cost, but also from RTD’s decision to trim scope from the corridors to try to hold down their costs and get more of the program built by 2017.
RTD now estimates the entire FasTracks program will cost $6.5 billion by 2017 but that it will be short $2.45 billion in financial resources to meet that price – a dilemma that means it can’t all be built without finding new revenues or reducing the price tag further.
The Boulder Daily Camera reports that city officials generally agree the planned Transit Village development should move forward, but they disagree on details including the amount of affordable housing and what the project should be called.
At a meeting with nearly two-dozen city officials Tuesday night, the city council and planning board studied the initial concepts for Transit Village – a an 11-acre site at the southeast corner of 30th Street and Valmont Road meant as a sustainable development of 1,400 to 2,400 homes, as many as 4,300 jobs and up to 1.4 million square feet of commercial space.
It would also include a rail station for the FasTracks program, which is facing serious funding shortfalls.
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