DENVER | Transportation Thread

[Octavian]

Cost of Northwest Rail rises to $896.7 million
But cities along corridor resisting changes to plan
By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published November 25, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
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Photo by Brian Lehmann / The Rocky

Louisville Mayor Chuck Sisk stands on railroad tracks that are expected to be part of FasTracks' Northwest Rail line. The city is planning on a rail station downtown. "Transit-oriented development keeps our population densities in the core areas," he said.
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The FasTracks Northwest Rail corridor to Boulder and Longmont has increased nearly 60 percent in cost - to almost $900 million - even while a new computer simulation has cut its ridership projection by half.

The effect is a spike in the 41- mile diesel commuter train's cost from $16 per rider to $60.44, nearly three times more expensive per user than the next-most costly corridor.

But neither RTD nor the communities along the Northwest Rail line are asking the question: "Should we still be building it?"

As RTD struggles with FasTracks' total cost growth to $7.9 billion through 2017 and a $2.1 billion shortfall to pay for it, the agency remains focused on finding a way either to build all of the corridors as planned or cutting all of them equitably.

The northwest is the only part of the metro area that has two FasTracks projects - the rail line plus a system called Bus Rapid Transit along U.S. 36. BRT would expand the car pool-bus lane system all the way to Boulder and run frequent bus service using stations in the center of the highway.

Despite the drastic drop in the cost-effectiveness of the Northwest Rail project, no officials have suggested canceling it and instead extending the bus corridor to Longmont.

"In our minds, that question is off the table," said Broomfield Mayor Pat Quinn, whose city wants to augment RTD's plan with a second Broomfield station near the city's event center.

"We promised our voters $800 million in transportation investment in this corridor," Quinn said. "People at Flatirons are paying taxes in anticipation of that investment being there. I would have real trouble having that conversation with voters."

Longmont Mayor Roger Lange said it's important to build the rail corridor because it eventually would become the spine for a Front Range commuter rail system pushing farther north to Loveland, Fort Collins and possibly Cheyenne.

"We have a lot of people who come down from Fort Collins and Loveland to catch the bus here for Denver," he said.

Cal Marsella, RTD general manager, said the affected communities chose the two modes of FasTracks projects there and he's committed to making it happen.

"The people in the corridor overwhelmingly voted for this," Marsella said. Boulder County voted in favor of FasTracks in 2004 by 65-35 percent. "If they came back to us and said they wanted to take another look at this, then I think we would do that. But we can't in good conscience fly in the face of that overwhelming vote."

Worth the cost?

The drop in projected ridership came after the metro planning agency, the Denver Regional Council of Governments, updated its computer modeling to reflect a shift in housing and job growth toward the east.

When RTD reran projections for 2030, only the Bus Rapid Transit and Northwest Rail showed ridership declines from the 2025 model used in original FasTracks planning.

There are critics of Northwest Rail who say it's time to question whether it's worth the cost.

Kathleen Calongne, a Boulder resident and researcher with the Independence Institute, FasTracks' most persistent critic, said it would make more sense to use the money from the rail project - now estimated at $896.7 million - to extend the bus project to Longmont instead of the train.

"It's so ironic that the mayors and commissioners in this corridor are saying it's not equitable to cut them back when it was never equitable in the first place that they were getting two forms of rapid transit here while others got one," Calongne said. "Isn't this really about Longmont being at the end of the line? BRT could easily go to Longmont."

Instead, Calongne says, the debate centers less on transportation and more on lost opportunities for development near rail stations.

"If there's no train, then a train won't go through downtown Louisville or the south part of Westminster," she said. "That's what this is about."

Officials agree that's a big part of the push for rail.

"FasTracks allows all of us to develop our urban centers," said Louisville Mayor Chuck Sisk.

"Transit-oriented development keeps our population densities in the core areas," he said. "We made choices not to expand and grow our population outward, and this transit piece is the important part of growing and developing our cities."

Louisville is planning for a 350-home development at the FasTracks station.

Projections questioned

Like all of FasTracks, Northwest Rail is plagued with cost increases. It started at $565.1 million in 2004. The increase is mostly from construction cost inflation, but also due to $100 million in add-ons.

Communities along the line maintain that the rail line serves a different market than the highway BRT.

"Our employment centers are changing, and the two corridors really do serve different destinations," said Debra Baskett, Broomfield's transportation director. "People think it's duplicative, but the rail really serves different origins and destinations."

They also don't accept the new ridership projections as the final word.

"The DRCOG model results tend to fluctuate and there are certain things it doesn't recognize," said Tracy Winfree, transportation director for Boulder. "It doesn't recognize the transit-supportive environment that exists in the northwest area. We have over 67,000 Eco Pass holders in Boulder. The model doesn't recognize that."

George Gerstle, Boulder County transportation director, said integrating transit lines with land-use policy produces better quality of life.

"The critical question for us is how and when to build it, not whether," Gerstle said. "If funding doesn't get better, we'll have to work on the most important aspects earlier and the ones that can wait come later."

Corridor costs

The projected cost per rider for the planned FasTracks commuter rail lines increased as costs went up and projected ridership fell for the Northwest Rail and U.S. 36. Here is a comparison of all 10 FasTracks corridors' cost per rider in the original plan and in this year's revision.

* Central Corridor:

In 2004: $8.95

In 2008: $9.43

* East Corridor:

In 2004: $5.65

In 2008: $9.23

* Gold Line Corridor:

In 2004: $6.73

In 2008: $8.35

* Southeast Corridor:

In 2004: $16.24

In 2008: $7.33

* I-225 Corridor:

In 2004: $7.90

In 2008: $10.08

* North Metro Corridor:

In 2004: $9.73

In 2008: $21.34

* Northwest Rail

In 2004: $16

In 2008: $60.44

* Southwest Corridor:

In 2004: $9.05

In 2008: $15.62

* U.S. 36 Corridor:

In 2004: $4.40

In 2008: $9.21

* West Corridor:

In 2004: $5.23

In 2008: $6.61

[Cirrus]

Blegh. We've all said it 100 times: RTD should have picked one mode for the Boulder corridor and done it correctly, rather than half-assing two.

[The Dirt]

Seriously, why both rail and BRT??? Just get rid of the silly BRT plan and focus on the rail. I'm also getting really confused about their cost projections. As far as I know fuel prices, steel, and building material prices are way down, so shouldn't their costs be down as well?

[Octavian]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Seriously, why both rail and BRT??? Just get rid of the silly BRT plan and focus on the rail. I'm also getting really confused about their cost projections. As far as I know fuel prices, steel, and building material prices are way down, so shouldn't their costs be down as well?

The rail shares track with a railroad so it can't run from like 10am - 2pm. The bus is projected to carry more people and run more frequently since it runs on US36 and the more central part of Boulder. If they were going to drop anything it would be the rail.

[1Post2]

Extending the carpool lanes for the BRT is less than satisfactory, too. The biggest problem, as I understand, is that they will remain uni-directional, meaning that they will be inbound in the morning and outbound in the afternoon, which is a disaster given the increasing spread of jobs around Broomfield. Also, toll-payers, motorbikes, and car-poolers are allowed in there, and frequently jam up the lanes during peak hours. When I used to commute downtown from westminster, there were many occasions where too many cars or even accidents caused the carpool lanes to gridlock as bad or even worse than the highway at large.

Like Cirrus says, this is kind of half-assed. At the very least, limit those lanes to buses only.

[glowrock]

One slight problem here. Do these new cost projects include the enormous DROP in commodities prices we've seen over the last few months? Copper, steel, etc., have all dropped by nearly 50% in the last 3-6 months! Something tells me that the lines are cheaper now than they were before, not more expensive...

Something's fishy with these new projected costs.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[bcp]

they may need to drop the "R"

[SnyderBock]

these are the projected costs from August, this is not a new projection. In another article, RTD said they will begin a new cost analysis in February and the results are expected to take several months, before complete.

Honestly, this is a good article, but completely mis-titled. It is titled almost in a way to push it as an alarmist perspective. It is intended to make the casual resident that doesn't keep up to date on it all, think it has gone up even more in price and the author is doing that to set the tone to favor his ideal solution--which seems to be canceling the rail and focusing on the BRT.

We actually talked about this months ago. After much conversation, I believe we concluded it would be ideal if RTD could build the BRT, not the rail. I still believe that electrified rail up the medium uf US-36 was passed up too fast. For the price of this DMU line and BRT line, why couldn't they build electrified rail up US-36? The grade being too steep and turns into Boulder too sharp is BS. electric rail can handle those grades, just look what Seattle is doing with much greater grades. Elevated or tunneled portions could also be solutions for steep grades or sharp turns. And for the cost of both this DMU and BRT line, they could have pursued a full blown, expensive rail/highway line simular to the T-Rex project.

The proposed DMU line does not serve well. It is jagged, and indirect. Let the Front Range Commuter Rail provide that service.

[bcp]

well they get to use existing track...saving some serious coin.

as for going up 36 - it was knocked out due to bridge replacement costs for fitting trains.

messy corridor for sure....i can't believe they are keeping the long mont leg on the table at all.

[Octavian]

Great if this happens, but there's a big difference between making a budget request and having money appropriated. Even harder to get than an Act of God . . . an Act of Congress. Seeing as plan A is out of RTD's hands, what is plan B, aside from wishful thinking?

DENVER AND THE WEST
RTD hoping new year brings new funds for rails
By The Denver Post
Updated: 11/25/2008 01:52:24 AM MST

Officials with RTD are hoping that the Obama administration and the new Congress will promote an economic-stimulus plan including at least $1 billion that could allow construction of the train to DIA and other FasTracks projects to begin early next year.

The Regional Transportation District has been counting on getting that amount of money from the Federal Transit Administration for construction of the DIA train and the Gold Line train to Arvada/Wheat Ridge.

The two lines, along with other FasTracks elements, are part of a proposed public-private partnership that RTD hopes also will bring $1 billion in private capital to the DIA train/Gold Line project.

Up to now, RTD had predicted it might take until late 2010 to get the FTA to act on the funding request.

But in a letter last week to House Transportation Committee chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., RTD general manager Cal Marsella said if "RTD were to receive funding as part of the proposed new economic stimulus package," the transit agency could "leverage" it with the private capital "to assure that this critical transportation infrastructure project for the region could proceed into construction early in 2009."

In its request to Oberstar, RTD listed other critical projects that could benefit from stimulus funding, including at least $230 million for development of Denver Union Station as the hub for FasTracks.

Recession in the United States, coupled with a global economic slowdown dragging down China and other formerly fast-growing economies, could keep commodity prices low for a time and benefit U.S. infrastructure projects promoted as part of a new economic-stimulus package, said Wachovia Corp. chief economist Mark Vitner at a transportation finance conference held last week in Broomfield.

Jeffrey Leib, The Denver Post

[Cirrus]

If Congress passes an infrastructure stimulus package it will most likely target projects that can begin construction right away. Therefore, any large projects around the country that have already completed their environmental documentation will stand a good chance of getting money.

Are all FasTrack's EIS's complete?

[SnyderBock]

This is the status of FasTracks EIS's that are complete or scheduled to be complete by the end of this year or the project's current schedule:

-West Corridor LRT: completed the Environmental Impact Statement in 2003 and began Final Design in November 2005. During Final Design, an Environmental Assessment was prepared that addresses all environmental impacts due to changes from the original EIS document. It will be the first corridor to be completed in the FasTracks program, opening in early 2013.

-Denver Union Station On October 17, 2008, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) signed the Denver Union Station (DUS) Record of Decision (ROD) which confirms that construction of the proposed arrangement of transit improvements can proceed. The ROD includes the light rail, passenger rail and regional bus facilities as well as associated site improvements.

-Gold Line EMU: RTD is now hard at work completing the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), which is scheduled for release in early 2009. The Gold Line Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is complete.

-East Corridor EMU: began the Environmental Impact Statement for this project in July 2003. The Final Alternatives have been selected. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) will be released in January 2009. The Final EIS will be released in July 2009. The Record of Decision will be released in October 2009.

-US-36 BRT Corridor: The Draft Environmental Impact Statement for US 36 began in 2003 and was completed in 2007. The Final Environmental Impact Statement is scheduled to be complete in 2009.

-NW DMU Rail Corridor: will not meet minimum federal ridership estimates to qualify for Federal Funding and thus does not need to complete an EIS. Instead, an Environmental Evaluation (EE) and a Finding Of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is due to be complete by January 2009. Final Design/ROW Acquisition is to be complete by late 2010.

-North Metro DMU: will not meet minimum federal ridership estimates to qualify for Federal Funding and thus does not need to complete an EIS. Instead, an Environmental Evaluation (EE) and a Finding Of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is due to be complete by January 2009. Final Design/ROW Acquisition is to be complete by late 2010.

-I-225 LRT extension Project schedule has environmental planning completion by first quarter of 2011 and construction starting at that time.

[SnyderBock]

So honestly, the West Corridor already has federal Commitment and probably won't get anymore. This leaves Denver Union Station, Gold Line EMU, East Corridor EMU and oddly enough, the US-36 BRT Corridor most likely to get any kind of Federal Funding Boost in such a stimulus package.

Once the EIS for the NW Corridor showed the rail ridership would be too low to qualify for Federal Funds, resulting in the Rail and BRT segments being split apart from the EIS, so the BRT could move forward with the EIS, well that should have been the hint that both were not needed, imo. This basically means the EIS discovered that the BRT option was actually best, over the rail, but because of local issues, the rail could not be dropped from consideration as would normally happen. I would think if they dropped the NW DMU Rail and put a little more money intro the BRT, it would essentially operate just as a rail line. It might also be possible to actually upgrade the BRT ROW into an electrified rail at some point in the future (20+ years).

[bcp]

i wonder what 36 rail would be like if there was no BRT

if rail diverts a few times from the existing track (added cost) it could serve the corridor just as well as the BRT

[Strange Meat]

Hmm. Kind of a bummer if they drop rail from the NW line.

What are the current ridership requirements for federal funding? Didn't the SW line exceed ridership expectations when it was opened? Do they tend to underestimate these things, or do projections and expectations change a lot depending on what actually happens?

[Cirrus]

The big problem with the Boulder rail, of course, is that it doesn't serve either of the two biggest transit-trip generators in the corridor: CU and downtown Boulder.

If RTD took all the money it's spending on the BRT and instead spent it on the rail, then maybe they could find a way to get the rail into central Boulder. At the very least, that should have been studied. Maybe it wouldn't turn out to be worth it, but AFAIK nobody even looked into it.

[Cirrus]

What are the current ridership requirements for federal funding? Didn't the SW line exceed ridership expectations when it was opened? Do they tend to underestimate these things, or do projections and expectations change a lot depending on what actually happens?

Ridership requirements are formula driven. The more money you're spending, the more riders you have to generate to qualify.

But a couple of things are worth noting about that:

1) Road projects don't face the same scrutiny. All states are automatically entitled to lots of highway-building money, regardless of the efficiency of whatever roads they have proposed.

2) It is almost certain that those rules will change within the next 18 months. The upcoming TEA authorization is going to be radically different than recent versions, and Obama will most likely put into place a much more progressive USDOT boss.

[Octavian]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Ridership requirements are formula driven. The more money you're spending, the more riders you have to generate to qualify.

But a couple of things are worth noting about that:

1) Road projects don't face the same scrutiny. All states are automatically entitled to lots of highway-building money, regardless of the efficiency of whatever roads they have proposed.

2) It is almost certain that those rules will change within the next 18 months. The upcoming TEA authorization is going to be radically different than recent versions, and Obama will most likely put into place a much more progressive USDOT boss.

Congress appropriates the money. Obama has less power in deciding where transportation funds go than the relevant Congressional committees.

[1Post2]

The east corridor EIS is supposed to be done, but I believe it has been delayed due to the issues with UP and the relocation of the 40th/40th station to either 38th & Blake or 33rd & Blake. Both alternatives are still on the table.

The east line, of course, is one of (3?) corridors that already qualify for federal assistance, so it would be nice to see the rules changed for the lines that currently must be funded locally. Frankly, the increased murmurs of infrastructure investment and rewriting the federal transportation rules in 2009 that have been coming from congress since 2006 could be why RTD hasn't already had to make a decision about what to do with Fastracks.

[enjo13]

Originally Posted by Octavian

Congress appropriates the money. Obama has less power in deciding where transportation funds go than the relevant Congressional committees.

I can't speak for transportation, but I've worked semi-closely with the allocation process for other agencies. Congress sets the budget, but the secretaries/department heads have tremendous flexibility in allocating funds within that budget.

It likely doesn't matter, however. Obama is going to be an extremely powerful president for at least the first year or two. I'm optimistic that we'll see increased funding for rail projects, as he certainly seems quite hawkish about infrastructure projects.