Construction of the FasTracks West Corridor light rail project will reach a milestone next week with three overnight closures of Wadsworth Boulevard at 13th Avenue to set girders on what is planned to be Lakewood’s signature bridge. The Wadsworth Station on the West Corridor will be smack on top of the bridge.
Denver Transit Construction Group – a joint venture of Herzog Corp. of St. Joseph, Mo., and Stacy & Witbeck Inc. of Alameda, Calif. – has an update on recent construction progress and a look-ahead to upcoming construction activities in Golden, Lakewood and Denver.
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.
An RTD board committee gave preliminary approval Tuesday evening to a financial plan for FasTracks that keeps the option open 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.
Tom Clark, Executive Vice President, Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, explores the issues surrounding the timing of a potential RTD decision for a second FasTracks tax election.
FasTracks’ federal funding picture came into sharper focus on Friday as the Federal Transit Administration announced it will provide the sought-after $304 million in loans toward the conversion of Denver Union Station and $120 million in grants to three rail corridors.
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.
Simulation shows a typical streetcar running on Colfax Avenue at Columbine Street.
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.
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.
This U.S. 85 bridge in Douglas County is one of the 124 poor-rated bridges on the list to be replaced with the controversial FASTER auto fee increases. Some opponents will try to repeal the new revenue in 2010.
Follow the money, and you’ll find most of the Top Ten Transportation Stories of 2009.
The transportation funding crisis and the difficult efforts to establish a sustainable annual program are at the foundation of many of the important transportation infrastructure stories.
From Washington to Colfax and Sherman, to your closest light rail station, the disruption to programs caused by the volatility of transportation funding dominated the stories of 2009 – one of the worst economic years in generations.
The entire staff at Inside Lane, together with his wife, Harriet, reviewed the major stories to come up with this list for your consideration.
Lakewood Edge reports that FasTracks construction will force rolling closures of two-block stretches along West 13th Avenue starting next week while installing a large underground culvert in a project that is expected to continue through spring.
The work will bury the culvert under the tracks of the oncoming West Corridor light rail line between Zephyr and Carr streets and will be based mainly on the north side of West 13th Ave. Crews will excavate a large ditch along the path of the future tracks and install segments of the concrete culvert. Although most of the work will be on the north side of the road, the culvert switches to the south side of West 13th just east of Zephyr.
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