DENVER | Transportation Thread

[SnyderBock]

The Draft Environmental Evaluation (EE) studies are now available for the SW and SE LRT extensions in form of an interactive map! (note, both projects are presented on the same map, so you can navigate to either project from either of the two links below):

-SW Corridor LRT EE Draft Interactive Map

-SE Corridor LRT EE Draft Interactive Map

Also completed and now available to the public is the US-36 BRT Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS):

-US 36 Final EIS

Earlier this month, the East Corridor EMU Commuter Rail Line to Denver International Airport had it's Final EIS approved (Record of Decision) by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA).

About a week later, the FTA issued a Record of Decision, also approving the Gold Corridor EMU line to Arvada and Golden. Here's this projects official press release.

The Eagle P3 project to find a PPP partnership for the construction and operation of the East and Gold EMU lines, issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) on September 30, 2009.

Last week, one of the three qualified teams Mile High Transit (headed by Bombardier & including John Laing, HOCHTTEF PPP Solutions, Flatiron Corporation, Archer-Western, Alridge Electric, AECOM ann CH2M-HILL), withdrew from the competition because they had not made enough progress compiling a team capable of developing a competitive bid by the deadline.

The remaining two groups bidding on the Eagle P3 are the groups listed below (showing the partners comprising each group):

Denver Transit Partners:
-Fuor Enterprises
-Macquarie Capital Group Ltd.
-Ames Construction
-Balfour Beatty Rail, Inc.
-Alternate Concepts, Inc.
-HDR Global Design Consultants

Mountain-Air Transit Partners:
-Siemens
-HSBC
-Veolia
-Kiewit
-Herzog
-Stacey & Witbeck
-HNTB Corporation
-Mass. Electric Construction Co.

[wong21fr]

Thanks for the summarized update, Snyder.

Man, that interactive map is pretty damn cool. Hopefully this is what RTD does with the remaining EIS's.

[SnyderBock]

RTD does such an outstanding job with its EIS's, that in 2007(?) the FTA created a completely new award, just so they could recognize RTD for raising the bar far beyond what any other cities have done thus far with EIS's. Judging by this new interactive map, it's fair to say RTD just raised the bar once again--and no one had even caught up to the standards RTD set for the T-REX corridor EIS. Here are the 2008 recipients--once again lead by RTD!

This is all from memory of course, but I recall a quote from an FTA official saying something along the lines of, "This [RTD EIS] was the quality and detail we had first envisioned for the EIS process, but had failed to receive from other studies." I made that quote up, but it's a close approximation of what I remember the official press release of the award saying.

[sashyenka]

^Paraphrasing is the term you're looking for here.

I'm really excited to see the progress on all of these developments, and I'm really proud to see that RTD is doing things well (and hopefully right ). Full speed ahead!

[rds70]

DIA-train launch on ’10 agenda for RTD

By Jeffrey Leib The Denver Post

Describing RTD’s condition as “sound but challenged,” the transit agency’s acting chief on Tuesday night laid out plans for 2010, including breaking ground in August on construction of the train to DIA and issuing 300,000 “smart” farecards to users of some transit passes.

In the first-ever State of the District presentation, Regional Transportation District interim general manager Phillip Washington said the agency expects to award the contract for the $1.3 billion, 23-mile-long Union Station-to-airport train in July to a public-private partnership, or PPP, that will start work the following month.

Another goal for next year is to secure support in Washington for RTD’s bid for $1 billion in federal money that would back construction of the airport train, the Gold Line train from Denver to Wheat Ridge and other elements of the Fas-Tracks program as one package.

RTD officials have said construction of the train to DIA is not dependent on getting the federal money because it can be built using RTD funds and about $950 million in financing that the PPP companies are expected to bring to the project.

The new farecards will be distributed to holders of business and Neighborhood Eco Passes and the College Pass, said Bruce Abel, RTD’s head of customer and contracted services.

These passes, which provide nearly unlimited access to RTD transit services at deep discounts, are purchased in bulk by employers, neighborhoods and colleges.

With smart farecards, the transit agency can collect accurate data on transit use by holders of the passes that can help RTD ensure the pass products are priced fairly, Washington said.

He said a top safety goal for next year is to have technology in place on the Southwest Corridor lightrail line to warn RTD if there is a freight-train derailment on nearby parallel tracks.

In recent years, several train derailments — in which freight cars and their commodities spilled onto RTD’s track — highlighted the potential danger of running passenger trains in close proximity to freight operations.

By April, RTD hopes to have “intrusion detection” equipment in place along the Southwest line that will detect a freight derailment using seismic instruments and allow the transit agency to bring its trains to an emergency stop as a safety measure.

[VirtualConstruction]

I really hope that RTD can pull this off next year. After looking at the DIA platforms and layout, I am a little surprised that more has not been done in the design phase to build the DIA stop in a more enclosed manner, whereby passengers can be protected from the elements. Does anyone else find this to be a little odd? It's Colorado afterall, not southern California!

[PLANSIT]

So, the PPP option is basically like selling bonds, except the city doesn't bare the risk?

[DenverInfill]

I believe the DIA station will be fully enclosed and not like the little tent thing. It will be incorporated as part of a major expansion of the terminal to the south.

[wong21fr]

Wow, but the Union Station platforms will be almost wide open to the elements. Way to go RTD.

I know that RTD builds bare bone enivironmental protection at the stations due to costs, but come on....

[Giovoni]

Wow Wong that wound had already just about healed for me... way to rip out the stitches. :-P Please remember it's not all or even a significant amount RTD at Union Station(-ish) it's mostly East West, who are basically spreading what RTD has given them responsibility for around in a neighborhood that they have a huge stake in spreading traffic around it for their own financial reasons (not the least of which is putting light rail access as close as possible to condo and living units that they develop in Riverfront Park).

I have to say though that I do like how it is all turning out. Probably because in this economy getting anything at all done seems miraculous to me.

[rds70]

Not specifically related to Fastracks, but here is a myth-busting study regarding subsidies for highways. Public transit may be overtly subsidized, but clearly highway users don't pay anywhere near enough to to claim superiority:

http://www.subsidyscope.com/transpor...hways/funding/

[pablosan]

Very interesting read rds. Thanks.

[Giovoni]

Originally Posted by rds70

Not specifically related to Fastracks, but here is a myth-busting study regarding subsidies for highways. Public transit may be overtly subsidized, but clearly highway users don't pay anywhere near enough to to claim superiority:

http://www.subsidyscope.com/transpor...hways/funding/

A very honestly conservative and self-reliant, freedom encouraging, individualism rewarding thing to do would be to eliminate all gas taxes, registration fees for roads, income taxes allocated to roads etc and make every road and every mile traveled payable through tolls. Cars could be equiped with GPS localizing software that determined the number of miles traveled on different types of streets like alleys, surface streets, minor and major arteries, highways and interstates and charge based on the relative cost of each. There could be modifiers for number of axles, weight of vehicle, etc. The formulas could be readjusted every year etc.

Every new road project would be approved and paid for by the users who had a history of driving in the affected area in the last say 3 years or so.

I'm surprised the Independence Institute or some other conservative organization hasn't advanced this idea actually. Nothing could be more conservative than making people pay for what they use - this is nothing but celebrating personal responsibility. You could even do the same for cycles, pedestrians, rollerbladers, etc if you wanted to. Right now there is a road and highway welfare state that Americans clearly shouldn't stand for.

[SnyderBock]

Does anyone know why the North Metro Corridor doesn't qualify for the Federal New Starts funding program? Where exactly did this project fall short; by how much was it short? With the updated ridership projections and the EMU technology, is it closer to qualifying?

I wonder why they can't get this corridor to qualify for federal funding? It seems if RTD could make some tweaks and get either the North Metro and/or US-36 BRT lines to qualify for New Starts federal assistance, it would help out a lot. Is it true the new transportation spending bill might make the qualifications less strict? If they do, would either of these projects stand to qualify?

Here's a document on New Starts qualifications:
http://www.fta.dot.gov/planning/news...ation_Criteria

[Octavian]

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

Does anyone know why the North Metro Corridor doesn't qualify for the Federal New Starts funding program? where exactly did this project fall short; by how much was it short? With the updated ridership projections and the EMU technology, it it closer to qualifying?

I wonder why they can't get this corridor to qualify for federal funding? It seems if RTD could make some tweaks and get either the North Metro and/or US-36 BRT lines to qualify for New Starts federal assistance, it would help out a lot. Is it true the new transportation spending bill might make teh qualifications less strict? if they do, would either of these projects stand to qualify?

Here's a document on New Starts qualifications:
http://www.fta.dot.gov/planning/news...ation_Criteria

Projects get a grade based on ridership and cost. North Corridor falls short.

[wong21fr]

^Yes, but Snyder is asking where it falls short.

[SnyderBock]

Exactly...
I'm looking for the exact shortcomings. I want to know exactly where it falls short and by how much. I also want to know if the upcoming federal transportation bill will reduce minimum requirements for qualifying for new starts funding (I believe I read somewhere that they might do so).

It seems to me that the North Corridor is not far behind the Gold Corridor in cost effectiveness and environments benefits and whatnot. How much did the North Metro corridor miss out on the federal funding by? What about the US-36 BRT corridor? That corridor has relatively high ridership projections and a moderate cost-per-mile for construction. How much did the US-36 BRT fall short on federal assistance? Would something like using compressed natural gas buses increase it's grade enough to qualify?

I just can't help but wonder if they have overlooked someway to get another one or two corridors to qualify for new starts federal funding.

[Pizzuti]

Originally Posted by Giovoni

A very honestly conservative and self-reliant, freedom encouraging, individualism rewarding thing to do would be to eliminate all gas taxes, registration fees for roads, income taxes allocated to roads etc and make every road and every mile traveled payable through tolls. Cars could be equiped with GPS localizing software that determined the number of miles traveled on different types of streets like alleys, surface streets, minor and major arteries, highways and interstates and charge based on the relative cost of each. There could be modifiers for number of axles, weight of vehicle, etc. The formulas could be readjusted every year etc.

Every new road project would be approved and paid for by the users who had a history of driving in the affected area in the last say 3 years or so.

I'm surprised the Independence Institute or some other conservative organization hasn't advanced this idea actually. Nothing could be more conservative than making people pay for what they use - this is nothing but celebrating personal responsibility. You could even do the same for cycles, pedestrians, rollerbladers, etc if you wanted to. Right now there is a road and highway welfare state that Americans clearly shouldn't stand for.

I know you're just being theoretical here, but really I can't think of a more effective way to expand the welfare roles. With no regards to income on fees charging for transportation, it will be too difficult for low-income people to get to work.

Economic justice is actually a major reason I support public transportation, because owning and maintaining a car is expensive, and we want people below the poverty line to be able to get to work. I think before we criticize people for not getting to work or applying for jobs we have to eliminate every reasonable excuse for them not to. Public transit is best, but until all parts of the city are easily accessible by rapid transit, keeping driving affordable is vital.

[SnyderBock]

And what of people who can't afford to fly, when they go on vacation or visit relatives in other states? Would tolling the entire Interstate system, make it nearly as costly as flying? So they can still take secondary routes, but they can only afford to miss 4 days of work and you just increased their travel time each way by a couple hours. Too bad Amtrak really isn't an option for most destinations. An expansion of AmTrak, could be done along with Interstate tolling.

[Giovoni]

Originally Posted by Pizzuti

I know you're just being theoretical here, but really I can't think of a more effective way to expand the welfare roles. With no regards to income on fees charging for transportation, it will be too difficult for low-income people to get to work.

Economic justice is actually a major reason I support public transportation, because owning and maintaining a car is expensive, and we want people below the poverty line to be able to get to work. I think before we criticize people for not getting to work or applying for jobs we have to eliminate every reasonable excuse for them not to. Public transit is best, but until all parts of the city are easily accessible by rapid transit, keeping driving affordable is vital.

If I was conservative I wouldn't give a rats patootie what the poor could or couldn't do. If they can't get a job they can walk to until they can afford to drive then they can suck it. Or they can bike, or seriously in most cities make the time sacrifice and take the bus or combine bus/walk/bike.

You're right that having a car is EXPENSIVE. So if you HAVE a car you're by definition NOT poor.

Or so I would say if I was conservative. (Today's conservative, not an actual fiscal conservative)