FasTracks West Corridor to roll out signature bridge across 6th Avenue
Innovative construction technique saves months of traffic impacts

Lakewood, April 16, 2010 – The RTD FasTracks West Corridor team will roll out the main span of a double-track light rail bridge across 6th Avenue just east of Simms/Union the weekend of April 23rd through April 25th. All lanes of 6th Avenue between Simms/Union and Kipling Street will close at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, April 23rd to prepare the area for the roll-out, scheduled to begin early Saturday morning. 6th Avenue and the frontage road will re-open by 5:30 a.m. Monday, April 26th.

For the past several months, crews have been assembling the steel tied arch structure along the south side of the highway. Now, crews will transport the bridge into its final position over the highway via a large dolly consisting of two 35’ platforms with eight axles each. The arch will travel on guided rollers which are pushed by hydraulic rams capable of up to 270,000 pounds per square inch of force. At speeds ranging from 10 to 25 feet per hour, the actual roll-out is expected to take up to 30 hours for the bridge to connect with the north span already in place across the north 6th Avenue Frontage Road.

Had the structure been built over 6th Avenue, traveling motorists would have endured months of lane closures and traffic congestion. This approach to bridge construction enabled West Corridor crews to work in a safe environment outside of traffic and significantly minimize impacts to commuters using the 6th Avenue freeway.

“If the bridge had been constructed in place over the highway, we would have had to impact traffic on 6th Avenue many times over the course of construction instead of just one weekend as we are doing,” said Jim Starling, RTD’s West Corridor Project Manager. “This is a much more efficient process that minimizes inconvenience to the traveling public.”

The 12.1-mile West Corridor light rail project is the first rail line of RTD’s FasTracks program to start construction. The West Corridor line will operate between Denver Union Station in downtown Denver and the Jefferson County Government Center in Golden; serving Denver, Lakewood, the Denver Federal Center, Golden and Jefferson County. The corridor is scheduled to open to the public in 2013.

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.

Sidewalk plaque at 17th and Stout streets, the heart of downtown Denver. commemorates the 58-year-old all-walk phase known as the Barnes Dance. Inside Lane photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

Save the last dance for me!

Denver, the city that popularized the pedestrian-friendly all-walk diagonal-crossing Barnes Dance, is considering phasing it out of the busy downtown grid as part of a larger evaluation of signal timing within the central business district.

Another Denver institution on the ropes? Could they leave the Barnes Dance, the cheeseburger and the ice cream soda in their native town and instead eliminate the Denver Boot?

“We have preliminary data from our consultant and we’re talking to stakeholders,” said Matt Wager, director of operations for traffic engineering services at Denver Public Works. “It’s a complex discussion.”

Pedestrians would still get “Walk” signals, but not the all-red diagonal crossing.

Wager said a decision is likely six months out. The “All Pedestrian Phase Study” is being done by Jacobs Engineering, while a larger retiming study of the downtown signal system, called the Downtown Denver Traffic Signal Retiming Study, is being done by Navjoy Consulting Services.
“We are taking a look at signal timing downtown and are evaluating not only pedestrians but bicycles, autos and transit,” Wager said. “We’re always evaluating signal timing downtown.”

In part, the retiming study is a response to RTD’s anticipated introduction of four-car light rail trains along Stout and California streets. The longer train consists – RTD now operates two- and three-car consists on the Central Corridor downtown – will require more all-red clearance at cross streets.

The so-called Barnes Dance refers to the inclusion of an all-red phase within the traffic signal cycle that stops vehicles on all approaches and allows pedestrians to freely cross, including diagonally. It’s called the Barnes Dance because it was brought to Denver by the city’s visionary first traffic engineer, Henry Barnes. He did not come up with it, but was the first to apply it in an entire downtown zone when it went live in 1952.

Henry Barnes, left, in Baltimore with traffic signal inventor Charles Adler, center, installing a plaque at the 1928 location of Adler's first signal. Photo from Signalfan.com

In his autobiography, “The Man with the Red and Green Eyes,” Barnes said he came up with the notion for the all-walk phase while dropping his daughter off at school and watching her try to cross the street with her friends. People trying to cross the street during breaks in traffic were playing games of chicken. In a presentation in Los Angeles to a meeting of the Institute of Traffic Engineers, Barnes told them:

“As things stood now, a downtown shopper needed a four-leaf clover, a voodoo charm, and a St. Christopher’s medal to make it in one piece from one curbstone to the other. As far as I was concerned – a traffic engineer with Methodist leanings – I didn’t think that the Almighty should be bothered with problems which we, ourselves, were capable of solving. Therefore, I was going to aid and abet prayers and benedictions with a practical scheme: Henceforth, the pedestrian – as far as Denver was concerned – was going to be blessed with a complete interval in the traffic signal cycle all his own. First of all, there would be the usual red and green signals for vehicular traffic. Let the cars have their way, moving straight through or making right turns. Then a red light for all vehicles while the pedestrians were given their own signal. In this interim, the street crossers could move directly or diagonally to their objectives, having free access to all four corners while all cars waited for a change of lights.”

Barnes acknowledged there were such intersections already using such a signal by the 1940s in Kansas City, Vancouver and a few other places. But Denver was where Barnes had them installed throughout the business district, where for the most part they remain in use today.

But downtown Denver has changed.

The 1982 debut of the 16th Street Mall into the traffic flow presented signal timing issues. To accommodate the transit shuttles, 16th was converted to two-way traffic from its former one-way function in the downtown grid. Engineers had to integrate efficient timing for RTD’s shuttle business going in both directions into a total 75-second cycle from green to green. Also, since the original Denver grid is platted on a 45-degree diagonal to north-south-east-west, the connections to East Denver and Golden Triangle streets east of Broadway and south of Colfax Avenue present timing issues.

Wager said Denver uses the mall shuttle movement as the starting point for setting all the other timings.

The diagonal crossing was dubbed the “Barnes Dance” after Denver Post city hall reporter John Buchanan wrote that, despite citizen and official apprehension in advance of its introduction, the innovative all-walk phase had pedestrians “dancing in the street.”

Barnes also oversaw the demise of the Denver Tramway’s 1950 conversion of the city’s extensive but aging streetcar lines to buses – having been quoted as saying he had no objection to streetcars except that they ran in the street.

Barnes departed Denver a year after introducing his dance and became traffic engineer in Baltimore, where he introduced computerized signal controls. He was hired to be New York City’s traffic commissioner in 1962 by Mayor Robert Wagner. Barnes used the all-walk phase in Manhattan, although only a few locations remain in use today.

He died of a heart attack on the job in New York in 1968, at the age of 61.

On a personal note, my own subconscious awareness of the Barnes Dance and downtown signal timing nearly got me whacked by a car when Denver altered signal timing with little fanfare years ago. While working at the Rocky Mountain News, I was in the habit of taking reading material with me when walking to appointments or lunch. The timing patterns had been inculcated into my brain for years: Named streets got the green light first, then the numbered streets, followed by the all-walk Barnes Dance.

One day, walking back to 400 W. Colfax from the Brown Palace, I stepped to the curb at Tremont Place and 17th Street, my nose in a book, looking to cross west toward 16th. When the last of the traffic zoomed past me on 17th, I started out into the street still reading, confident Henry Barnes had my back.

But I heard cars starting out from Tremont, including some making a left turn right into my path. I looked up to see a bumper coming at me, and jumped back.

I found out Denver traffic engineers had flipped the order of the signal phases east the mall. Numbered streets now went first, named streets second.

RTD Board decides against 2010 FasTracks tax vote

Progress continues with 47 miles of new rail under construction or under contract by end of year

Denver, April 13, 2010 – The Regional Transportation District (RTD) Board of Directors decided at a Special Board Meeting tonight, April 13, not to pursue a 2010 sales tax election for the FasTracks transit expansion program. For months, the agency has been evaluating cost, schedule and polling data, and considering public feedback on whether to seek an increase in the RTD sales tax of an additional four-tenths of a percent (four pennies on a $10 purchase) to complete the FasTracks program by 2017.

“What it really comes down to is the state of the economy,” said Lee Kemp, RTD Board Chair. “While we’re seeing some recovery, this is still a tough time for a lot of folks, and we just don’t feel it’s prudent to go to the ballot while so many people are still facing personal challenges.”

RTD has a $2.4 billion budget gap to complete the FasTracks program, and has determined that a sales tax increase is needed to complete the program sooner rather than later. The RTD Board will continue to consider a sales tax increase every year until FasTracks is fully funded. If RTD does not secure additional revenues, current estimates indicate that the entire FasTracks system will not be completed until 2042.

While RTD will not seek a tax election in 2010, the agency is committed to implementing the whole FasTracks program, and will have 47 miles of new rail lines under construction or under contract by the end of this year.

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 construction-related jobs during the height of construction, and will pump billions of dollars into the regional economy over the next 20 years.

Go to the Denver Post to see the entire article.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

With warmer weather to help it along, construction progress on the West Corridor light rail project is ramping up on all three areas into which it’s been divided.

The work may be most visible along the Sixth Avenue Freeway, where a dramatic steel arch bridge will be rolled out over the roadway during a full weekend closure in two weeks and a long curving bridge is winding its way over the Indiana Street interchange. Denver Transit Construction Group and its major subcontractors have almost all of the bridge structures underway.

RTD’s West Corridor is the first new FasTracks rail corridor to go to full construction.

Reprinted below is a report on construction progress given to the RTD board by General Manager Phil Washington on April 2:

CONSTRUCTION UPDATE – AREA 1 (Jeffco Government Center to Federal Center)
• Work on walls and drainage continues near I-70.
• Light rail bridge construction (pouring piers, footing work, and deck pours) is taking place on both sides of Indiana Street at 6th Avenue. Crews have stripped the wood forms from the north side of the bridge to expose the concrete setting of the bridge and begin the post-tensioning process between two spans of the bridge. The wood forms have been placed on the south side to begin pouring there.
• Crews continue working on the bridge over Colfax, they anticipate pouring the deck of the bridge within the next two weeks.
• Ulysses Street in Golden is closed from 6th Avenue north to Mt. Vernon Road to raise the street and install retaining walls. Improvements to the Lena Gulch on Ulysses at 6th Avenue will be winding down soon. Retaining wall construction could begin within the next few weeks.
• Work at the Jefferson County Government Center including excavation and retaining wall construction has begun. The current bike path has been detoured down Johnson Road to Jefferson County Parkway.
• Wall construction on the south side of 6th Avenue west of Simms/Union is near completion. Excavation and wall construction on the north side of 6th Avenue from Indiana to Colfax is on-going.
• Crews will begin removing trees and vegetation from the northwest corner of the Cold Springs park-n-Ride in preparation for the Simms/Union light rail tunnel.

CONSTRUCTION UPDATE – AREA 2 (East of the Federal Center to Sheridan)
• Work continues on the Wadsworth Bridge, crews are working on the formwork for the deck of the bridge.
• The post-tensioning of the cables on the arch of the 6th Avenue Bridge has been completed. Crews are currently stripping the formwork on the south side of the bridge, with the rollout of the bridge scheduled for April 23-25.
• Work on a drainage culvert on Collins Avenue north of 6th Avenue and east of Simms is near completion.
• Work continues on a drainage system on 13th Avenue from Zephyr to Carr Street. Crews are paving 13th Avenue between Wadsworth and Allison this week, local access is allowed. Weather pending, Allison is scheduled to be open next week.
• The encasement of the Rocky Mountain Ditch on 13th Avenue between Carr and Cody is ongoing. During this work, 13th Avenue will be closed from Carr – Dudley, local access will be allowed. Upon completion, crews will begin working on additional drainage improvements from Cody – Holland. 13th Avenue will remain closed to through traffic for this operation.
• Construction of the approach walls to the Wadsworth Bridge on the east side of Wadsworth is on-going and 13th Avenue between Wadsworth and Teller is now closed. Local access is allowed.
• Tree removal will begin on Monday, April 5 on the south side of 13th Avenue in the RTD right-of-way between Garrison and Dudley Street in preparation for the extension of the drainage system along 13th Avenue.

CONSTRUCTION UPDATE – AREA 3 (East of Sheridan to the Auraria Campus)
• Crews continue working on drainage improvements and drop structures in the Denver Parks Dry Gulch area.
• Relocation of utilities continues during the first phase of construction of the Federal Blvd. Bridge. Federal Boulevard has been phased down to two lanes in each direction, eliminating the left turn lane to Holden Place and left turns from Holden Place to Federal Boulevard. Traffic control is in place on Federal Boulevard between 10th Avenue- Howard Place. The pedestrian bridge over the gulch at Hazel Court is now open and the west side sidewalks of Federal have been closed down. Permanent fencing will be installed next week.
• Demolition of the properties west of Sheridan and south of the gulch are near completion.
• Work continues on the Sheridan Bridge.
• Crews have begun to weld rail for the trackway just west of I-25.
• Crews are grading the area and pouring sidewalks and bus bays in preparation of paving Knox Court. Knox Court should re-open by the third week of April.

General
• Environmental inspections and abatement of acquired properties continue.
• Right-of-way acquisition for the project continues.

The steel arch light rail bridge over Sixth Avenue Freeway will be rolled over the roadway in two weeks. Inside Lane photo.

Light Rail available for all games

Denver – The Regional Transportation District (RTD) offers RockiesRide to all weekend games and the following weekday games: Friday, April 9 (Opening Day); Tuesday, June 22, Wednesday, June 23 and Thursday, June 24 (Red Sox Games); Friday, July 2, (fireworks), Friday, July 30, (Cubs Game) and Friday, September 24, (fireworks). RockiesRide express bus service will get fans to Coors Field 30-60 minutes before the first pitch.

RockiesRide is RTD’s direct bus service to Coors Field from 14 metro area locations, including 13 park-n-Ride lots and Boulder High School. RockiesRide one-way fares range from $3.50 to $4.50, depending on trip origination. Passengers pay cash as they board; transfers, tickets and passes are not accepted.

Every RockiesRide bus is designated with the letter R after a route number, e.g. Route 120R. Buses depart 60 to 115 minutes before game time and arrive 30 to 60 minutes before the first pitch at the Coors Field parking lot on 22nd/Blake, placing riders at the ballpark 30-60 minutes before the first pitch.

Upon arrival at the stadium, the bus driver will announce the route’s row, making it easy to locate the bus for the return trip home. After the game, go to the parking lot at 22nd/Blake, locate the assigned row number for your RockiesRide route and hop on board. RockiesRide buses depart as they fill up, with the last bus leaving 45 minutes after the game ends. Excluding rain delays, buses will not leave Coors Field before the seventh inning.

Light rail

Passengers can take the C or E lines to Union Station and walk to Coors Field. The D, F or H lines go to the 16th/California and 16th/Stout light rail stations, where riders can take the 16th Street FREE MallRide to Market Street Station and walk four blocks to Coors Field.

Although the C and F lines do not operate on weekends or holidays, a special C Line service will operate for Rockies games during the same hours as RockiesRide buses. Regular light rail fares apply.

For specific RockiesRide route and schedule information, visit RTD-Denver.com or call RTD at 303-299-6000. Patrons with hearing or speech impairments should call the TDD information service at 303-299-6089.

US 36 Corridor - The final span of the pedestrian bridge was set in January 2010 over U.S. 36 requiring an overnight closure of Westbound U.S. 36.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com
(Note: Inside Lane is back with live transportation news this week after the entire staff — one — returned from a vacation)

A new poll shows that metro Denver voters are almost evenly split on whether to approve a second sales tax hike for RTD’s FasTracks program, but that some of the counties with the most to gain from it are the most strongly opposed.

The poll done by The Kenney Group for the Coalition for Smart Transit – a non-profit partnership of business, civic, labor and environmental groups that is testing the waters for public support of FasTracks – found 50 percent of voters support and 48 percent oppose a second four-tenths of a cent tax sales tax increase to enable RTD to complete FasTracks on the original 2017 schedule. Three percent were undecided.

The results of the poll run counter to concerns expressed by some politicians in the north metro area that counties already served by RTD’s rail system would be reluctant to support a second four-tenths of a cent sales tax – double the existing tax voters approved in 2004.

It is in the north metro area, where the extra tax is needed to complete the FasTracks rapid transit corridors on the original schedule, that the poll shows the most opposition – specifically in Adams and Broomfield counties.

The poll showed only 30 percent of Broomfield voters support a tax increase, while 50 percent oppose it. In Adams County, 40 percent supported the increase while 60 percent opposed it.

But conversely, support was strong in areas already served by light rail. That seems to challenge the concerns expressed by north metro officials, including those in the North Area Transportation Alliance, that voters in parts of the metro area that already have rail transit would be reluctant to pay more tax to expand it elsewhere.

Actually, some political consultants believe that voters in areas already served by rail transit are more likely to support expansion because more of them use it, and expanding it gives them more options, including eventual rail transit to Denver International Airport, Boulder and the Fitzsimons Medical Campus in Aurora.

Even so, the poll doesn’t portend well for RTD. At a nearly even split metrowide, and with conventional wisdom holding that support generally slips in a contested campaign, RTD’s elected board of directors expects to decide next week whether to go to voters this fall with a tax increase question.

The Coalition for Smart Transit last week briefed board members on the poll. It was based on a phone survey between March 23 and 27 of 400 likely voters. It asked numerous questions on other TRTD and FasTracks issues and compared those results with similar polls in November 2007, January 2009 and April 2009.

The poll sample was distributed proportionately by population among the eight counties in the RTD area and was balanced to reflect gender and political party registration in each county. The poll has a margin of error of 4.9 percent plus or minus at a 95-percent confidence level.

Among those other issues, one of the biggest shifts was in the voters’ perception of the major concerns facing metro Denver. In the latest poll, unemployment is the biggest concern, by a substantial margin over any other. Thirty-two percent of respondents cited lack of jobs as the major issue facing the metro area. Economic conditions – a related concern – was a distant second at nine percent. Public transportation was third at six percent.

In the November 2007 survey, transportation was the top concern at 14 percent. The economy didn’t even rate a mention at that time.

The new poll also showed that despite RTD’s problems with FasTracks’ costs and the declining sales tax revenues that have ripped a $2.45 billion hole in the transit agency’s ability to build it by 2017, voters still have a strongly favorable impression of FasTracks. In fact, those holding a negative impression declined. In April of 2009, 73 percent had a favorable impression of FasTracks and 25 percent held a negative view.

Now, after a year of being buffeted by negative news about the program, FasTracks fared better with 77 percent having a favorable impression and 21 percent holding a negative one.

Confidence in RTD’s ability to complete FasTracks also has grown over the last year, as the agency has taken on more reviews and alternative approaches to completing it. Voter confidence in RTD completing the program grew from 59 percent to 62 percent, while those expressing no confidence declined from 38 percent to 33 percent.

The new light rail bridge that will span Sixth Avenue is being assembled on the Denver Federal Center grounds. Lakewood Edge photo.

When FasTracks rolls out the bridge that will span West 6th Avenue on the west side of the Federal Center, it will do so literally, closing down a stretch of the heavily traveled highway for two days.

And the Regional Transportation District plans to make the snail’s pace placement of the bridge a spectator event.

The huge span will be wheeled from its fabrication site south of the highway about 9 a.m. Saturday, April 24, and grandstands will be in place so the public can watch the slow-motion haul first-hand. The plans for the rollout are contained in a memo to RTD’s Board of Directors obtained by the Edge.

The transportation agency plans to make a major production of the move and will set up a public viewing area at the Office Liquidators lot on the north side of the 6th Avenue Frontage Road at Quail Street. The plans call for bleacher seating and the agency will distribute maps to the public about a week before the bridge starts its move.

The bridge will move somewhat faster, about 25 feet per hour, a journey that will take an estimated 30 hours to reach its destination, according to RTD. It will be moved via two eight-axle, 35-foot transport platforms.

But the traffic impacts of the roll-out are no joking matter: All lanes of West 6th Avenue will shut down between Kipling Street and the Simms/Union exits for the entire weekend, from Friday evening until Monday morning, according to the memo. Major congestion can be expected along the detours – Kipling north to West Colfax Avenue then west to Simms and south back to West 6th for westbound traffic; and Union Boulevard south to West Alameda Avenue, then Kipling north to the highway for eastbound traffic.

Folks headed to or from the mountains and foothills can take Interstate 70 westbound to avoid the detours.

The bridge “launch”, as the memo calls it, might be a slow haul, but the sight should be impressive. The bridge is 286 feet long, 43 feet wide and is 65 feet tall from crown to base. Its structural steel components weigh a total of 1.2 million pounds. The high-strength steel is “weathered”, turning brown as a “protective oxide coating” forms, eliminating the need for painting according to a fact sheet distributed with the FastTracks memo.

The bridge is a “clear span” design with no center pier in the freeway median to hold up the span. Instead 44 cables strung from the arch to the base provide support with an estimated breaking strength of 688,000 pounds. There are 1,950 feet of 23/8-inch cable criss-crossing the bridge.

The clear-span design will be wide enough from side pier to side pier to allow future widening of the freeway, the Simms-Union interchange ramps that pass beneath the bridge and the frontage road on the north side of West 6th Avenue.

Read more Lakewood news at Lakewood Edge.

New York's MTA operates DesignLine buses. MTA photo.

You’re going to be seeing a new style of shuttle bus on the 16th Street Mall come next spring.

Faced with the need to replace the current fleet of mall shuttles as well as having to add to their numbers because of the FasTracks program’s extension of the mall for three more blocks, RTD has approved a contract with a Charlotte, N.C., bus manufacturer for two prototypes and an option for up to 57 more if they work out.

The $1.3 million contract is with DesignLine USA. It produces several types of buses including all-electric, hybrid electric with diesel or compressed natural gas, and tradition diesel or natural gas-powered buses.

The pictures in this article are representative of DesignLine’s off-the shelf vehicles and do not show what RTD’s vehicles will end up looking like after they are customized for the unique needs of free shuttle service on the mile-long mall. But the mall vehicles will be 45 feet in length and have right-hand drive, similar to the current shuttles. The new buses will have the same low-floor entry of the current ones, and have at least three doors for quick boarding and exit.

DesignLine manufactures several types of buses off-the-shelf, but RTD's design must be customized for the particular needs of the mall.

The mall run is brutal on the buses, which need to accelerate and stop at each corner while carrying dozens of people at a time during peak hours.

The mall will be extended three more blocks north beyond Union Station as part of the FasTracks program, which will construct a new light rail station near the Millennium Bridge. The added length alone requires that RTD add several more shuttles to the fleet in order to maintain the same frequency of service – every 75 seconds during peak service periods.

RTD currently has 36 mall shuttle buses, and the fleet was recently refurbished to extend their service life for six more years. The project, done in-house by RTD personnel, finished at 25 percent under budget.

DesignLine makes airport shuttle buses such as this one. DesignLine photo.

Work crews will close the east- and west-bound center lanes of the heavily traveled highway between the Simms/Union exit Indiana Street beginning April 11 to move the Colorado Department of Transportation sign. The sign is in the middle of the highway near the area of the entrance road to Red Rocks College.

Go to Lakewood Edge to see the entire article.