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.

FasTracks commuter trains would stop under a partial canopy right behind Union Station. The existing light rail tracks are to be moved 800 feet north. Rendering courtesy of RTD.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

A federal judge in Denver has denied a request from a rail transit advocacy group to stop RTD’s construction work at Denver Union Station while the group appeals to have the design study redone.

Judge John Kane turned down the motions for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction filed by the Colorado Rail Passenger Association, or Colorail, which has sued RTD, the city-formed redevelopment entity Denver Union Station Project Authority and the Federal Transit Administration.

The renovation of Union Station is a key to the FasTracks regional rapid transit rail program, and RTD is under pressure to keep construction on schedule to hold down costs.

The FTA in fall 2008 approved the Environmental Impact Statement for the FasTracks renovations to Union Station. It included several design decisions Colorail believes are harmful to the future of transit from the station area, including the separation of existing light rail platforms from the future heavy rail commuter train platforms, and the permanent dead-ending of the potential for intercity tracks right behind the station.

You can read about Colorail’s position here.

RTD takes the position that the environmental process produced the most feasible outcome and that the final configuration of these transit elements was necessary to allow the project to go forward.

Colorail has appealed the FTA’s approval of the environmental study, and sought to stop early site work that began a few weeks ago and will intensify soon with excavation for an underground bus station north of Union Station.

Kane said what while injunctions are meant to preserve the status quo, since Colorail waited until construction started before filing to halt it, “it is by no means clear given the passage of time and Plaintiff’s failure to act until construction started whether the injunction sought actually preserves, rather than disturbs, the status quo.”

Read Judge Kane’s order here.

“Preparation and construction activities at the site have commenced, and Plaintiff has been aware for months that this was the case,” Kane wrote. “Plaintiff filed its appeal of the Federal Transit Administration’s final Record of Decision approving the plan nearly one year ago, on May 18, 2009. The Decision itself was issued and made public on October 17, 2008. Briefing on the merits of Plaintiff’s appeal is nearly complete, and would have already been completed had Plaintiff, itself, not sought three separate extensions of time to file its briefs. Under these circumstances, does calling a halt to all activities onsite preserve or disturb the status quo?”

While it lost its attempt to stop the work, Colorail’s appeal of the FTA’s approval is still active. Ira Schreiber, president of Colorail, said the effort isn’t over.

“Only a battle, not the war, but a loss nevertheless,” he told Inside Lane.

A forklift moves a delivery of K Rail barriers for the construction site of the FasTracks underground bus facility north of Wewatta Street at Union Station. Inside Lane photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

U.S. District Judge John Kane today declined to issue an order that would have halted work that began this week on the conversion of Denver Union Station into the rail hub for the FasTracks network.

At a brief hearing this morning, the judge said that RTD and the authority in charge of the redevelopment hadn’t been properly served and therefore he could not act on the motion, said Philipp Theune, attorney for plaintiff Colorado Rail Passenger Association. Colorail filed for a temporary restraining order last week, and Theune said he will redraft the motion and file it again on Monday.

“It was a glitch and we will take care of it over the weekend and serve them on Monday,” Theune said.

Colorail sued RTD, the Federal Transit Administration and the Denver Union Station Project Authority last year over FTA’s approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the project. Colorail maintains that the final document, in differing substantially from the draft, did not follow the procedures in the National Environmental Policy Act that required it.

RTD and DUSPA respond that the process followed all of the rules and that the approval was proper. Earlier this month, FTA awarded the Union Station renovation project $304 million in two loans RTD and DUSPA were seeking to get the total $480 million project started.

Construction began Monday with earth work starting out north of the station property where the plan calls for an underground bus transfer station.

Among other things, Colorail said that the later inclusion of the bus station into the original plan entailed other changes, such as moving the light rail station two and a half blocks from the proposed heavy-trail commuter platforms. Colorail’s position is that the change resulted in the possibility of irreparable harm to the historic environments and future transit needs of the facility.

RTD and DUSPA disagree and say the changes were fully analyzed and worked through during the environmental study.

A pair of loaders scrapes the area north of Union Station where the design calls for excavating to build an underground bus station for FasTracks. Work began on Monday. Inside Lane photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

A group of rail transit advocates asked a federal judge on Tuesday to stop FasTracks construction at Denver Union Station until the court can rule in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the environmental approval for the work.

Colorail – the Colorado Rail Passenger Association – sued in U.S. District Court in Denver last May claiming the Federal Transit Administration should not have approved the Environmental Impact Statement that RTD produced for the $480 million project. RTD, along with its partners Denver, CDOT and the Denver Regional Council of Governments, is converting Union Station into the hub of most FasTracks rail lines.

An E Line light rail train prepares to depart for Lincoln Station from Denver Union Station, while a mall shuttle takes on passengers. Inside Lane photo.

You can read the 25-page court filing here.

You can read the original lawsuit here.

You can read the Union Station environmental impact statement here.

And you can read the FTA’s Record of Decision approving it here.

Colorail has longstanding objections to the design of the transit facilities and maintains that it wasn’t properly reviewed in light of requirements in the federal National Environmental Policy Act that requires such studies. The FTA issued its approval on Oct. 17, 2008.

This true-perspective view from the existing light rail platform at Union Station looks northwest to where it would be relocated for Fastracks, to right in front of the freight cars where the concrete pipes are lined up. Inside Lane photo.

They would be connected by the underground bus station and grade-level plaza planned to run along the 17th Street axis. That is the site where early construction began this week.

Colorail wants a new environmental study.

Backers of the Union Station design, including RTD and Denver’s newly created authority overseeing the redevelopment, Denver Union Station Project Authority, maintain that the law was properly followed. Delay at this point, RTD says, would delay completion of the station improvements necessary to stay on schedule with FasTracks corridors. The West Corridor light rail is currently under construction in Denver, Lakewood and Golden with an opening in mid-2013 that would bring its trains into the station. The East Corridor heavy-rail commuter train to Denver International Airport is supposed to be done the following year.

The case is before Judge John Kane.

The Regional Transportation District has put together a $122.6 million wish list of projects that are ready to go in the event Congress approves a second stimulus program for transportation infrastructure.

Half of that total consists of four FasTracks pieces totaling $60.5 million. RTD also has come up with seven projects totaling $13.1 million to upgrade the existing rail system as well as a dozen base-system projects totaling $49 million.

You can read the entire RTD list of projects by clicking here.

The largest single item on RTD’s list is $32 million to fund relocation of a range of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway facilities from the joint Gold Line-Northwest Rail FasTracks commuter rail corridors between Denver Union Station and Pecos Street, and the proposed commuter rail maintenance facility on Fox Street north of 48th Avenue.

RTD intends to route the Gold Line, a heavy-rail corridor serving Denver, Adams County, Arvada and Wheat Ridge, alongside the BNSF and Union Pacific right-of-way north out of downtown, and the funding would help move things around to make room. The corridor is shared as far as Pecos Junction with the Northwest Rail, which is a heavy-rail commuter project that would Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont.

A typical Bus Rapid Transit vehicle of the type that would be used on the US 36 FasTracks BRT corridor. Courtesy RTD.

RTD is eager to replace some of the Denver-Boulder coaches because of their age and wear. It has documented undercarriage corrosion on some vehicles, and the mileage on the current fleet of 49 coaches ranges from 900,000 miles to three million miles. They are 12 years old.

The Denver-Boulder runs have seen a huge increase in ridership. In the five years from 2003 to 2008, daily boardings on the Route B, as it is called, increased 65 percent to an average of 6,356 per day.

RTD wants to replace the fleet of over-the-road coaches that has seen some vehicles rack up to three million miles in service. It has documented undercarriage corrosion on some of them. Courtesy RTD.

RTD’s list can never be fully funded by the proposed federal jobs and stimulus package, which currently totals $8.4 billion for transit projects and $27.5 billion for highways to be spread nationwide. But transportation planners consider it essential to be prepared with a flexible list of projects from which the ones that best fit the as-yet-unknown rules can be selected.

Last year’s stimulus, for instance, required that half of the highway money allocated to states be obligated to shovel-ready projects within 90 days. Planner say the new bill, called Jobs for Main Street, may have an even tighter time frame for some funds, necessitating that a variety of projects be poised for funding.

The Colorado Department of Transportation also has its new shovel-ready list, with 90 projects adding up to $701.3 million. Click here to read that list.

As part of the process of authorizing these projects for federal funding, the Denver Regional Council of Governments has scheduled a public hearing for 6:30 p.m. March 3 at 1290 Broadway.

In addition to taking testimony from the public on the RTD list, DRCOG also invites the public to comment on the $421.4 million share of highway projects on the CDOT list that are located in whole or part within the nine-county metro Denver DRCOG territory.

You can read the break-out of CDOT highway projects in the DRCOG region by clicking here.

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.

RTD board member Jack O'Boyle of Lone Tree, right, discusses the FasTracks financial plan while member Kent Bagley of Littleton listens. Inside Lane photo.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

An RTD board committee gave preliminary approval Tuesday evening to a financial plan for FasTracks that keeps the option open for the time being of asking metro Denver voters for a second sales tax increase in November.

But several members were clear they think that option is not realistic.

The full board is expected to make a decision sometime in March or April whether it will take the plunge into the November 2010 ballot to seek a sales take hike of up to 0.4 cents to close a $2.45 billion funding gap and allow the transit agency to build the $6.5 billion rapid transit expansion by the original 2017 completion date.

But just in case, the board’s FasTracks Monitoring Committee – consisting of the full board, although three members were absent Tuesday evening – recommended a Plan B. That was to develop a financial plan for the program based on putting off going to voters until 2012.

Approving the current financial plan that assumes voters will approve a tax hike this fall was purely a placeholder measure. Board members made it clear they aren’t ready yet to make that call, and are hearing from constituents that they shouldn’t try it until the economy shows betters signs of a solid recovery.

In fact, several board members balked at seeming to send the wrong message by giving the public the impression a 2010 election was a go.

Bill Christopher

“The message that has to be sent on this is that this board has not yet made its decision,” added Jack O’Boyle, a board member from Lone Tree.

Julie Skeen, manager of program-wide support for FasTracks, told them to think of the staff recommendation to keep the 2010 vote as an option if only because the board hasn’t decided either way.

“It’s simply there so as not to preclude you from making that decision,” she said.

Bill Van Meter, RTD’s planning manager, said it is important for the board to approve a financial plan in order to submit the data to the Denver Regional Council of Governments, which does an annual review and approval for the FasTracks program in the spring.

RTD’s calendar calls for a decision on a 2010 election by April at the latest, due to various deadlines for other activities that need to happen if the decision is yes.

Waiting until 2012 to go to voters would add an estimated $400 million to the price tag through inflation caused by the delay. It changes some of the original assumptions of the program and could lead to attrition of the program staff during the interim.

“We are working in very aggressive fashion to determine, if we do go in 2012, what else we would have to do in that case,” said RTD General Manager Phil Washington.

Of course, the projections in both the Plan A and Plan B financial plans assume voters say yes. RTD board members and staff are hearing a lot of cautions from the community that such an assumption is overly optimistic.

On the other hand, RTD’s projections show that with the impacts of the recession and the precipitous drop in sales tax revenues, if it were to have only the revenue from the initial 0.4 cent sale tax approved in 2004 – along with federal grants and other resources assumed in that 2004 plan – it would now take until 2042 to complete all 10 FasTracks rapid transit corridors.

FasTracks consists of four new heavy-rail commuter train corridors, two new light rail corridors, extensions to three existing light rail corridors and one Bus Rapid Transit corridor, on U.S. 36.

With existing revenue trends and no new tax, RTD says it can only project completing the West Corridor light rail now under construction in Denver, Lakewood and Golden, Phase One of the Bus Rapid Transit improvements that are well underway on U.S. 36, conversion of Denver Union Station into the FasTracks rail hub, the East Corridor heavy-rail commuter line to Denver International Airport – and, perhaps, the Gold Line commuter rail to Arvada and Wheat Ridge.

Left without sufficient funds for completion would be the Northwest Rail commuter corridor to Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont, the North Metro commuter corridor to Commerce City and Thornton and the Interstate 225 light rail corridor in Aurora, as well as the extensions to the Southeast Corridor, Southwest Corridor and the original Central Corridor light rail lines.

ColoRail, the Colorado Rail Passengers Association, has raised concerns about the new train station since the project was first conceived eight years ago. The inability to make easy connections quickly and easily is the group’s primary concern.

Go to Lakewood Edge to read the entire article.

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.