Heapin' helpin' of FasTracks

Program's director has a smorgasbord of things to do

Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 30, 2006 at midnight

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Metro voters put a lot on Liz Rao's plate.

She has $4.7 billion worth of FasTracks projects to push through the pipeline during the next 10 years.

As program director for the Regional Transportation District's rapid-transit build-out, Rao is overseeing development of six new rail corridors, extensions to three existing ones, redevelopment around Denver's Union Station and a host of ancillary projects that will give the metro area an expanded transit system that integrates buses with trains.

A New York City native whose voice drips with a Brooklyn accent, Rao worked for the Army Corps of Engineers and New York City Transit Authority before moving to Denver in 1992.

The Rocky Mountain News sat with Rao, 52, in her office overlooking the Colorado Capitol and discussed her background, the status of FasTracks and the challenges she faces to get the projects completed.

Her answers have been edited for space and clarity.

How did you come to be working in transit?

I had an inclination for public service. That was one of the things at an early age I knew I wanted, to give back to the community.

What is the biggest challenge you face in implementing FasTracks?

It's keeping FasTracks on time and on budget. But there's also delivering a quality project that meets the needs of the communities that we serve.

Voters saw some pretty specific plans for each corridor based on the earlier studies, but now in the more detailed environmental studies, some changes might be made, such as going from light rail to commuter rail on the Gold Line in Arvada and Wheat Ridge. How do you deal with past expectations when faced with making changes?

We were very careful in the FasTracks information to indicate on each map, whenever we talked about those corridors that had not had their environmental impact studies, that the final outcome of what would move forward with construction would depend on the outcome. I think while we might not be able to deliver light rail on the railroad line for the Gold Line, we do have a good substitute for that, either another alignment or a different technology for that alignment.

Do these changes have the potential to cause schedule and budget problems?

They do, but we are at a point in the process where the schedule can accommodate these changes in technology. But we want to come to a preferred alternative within a certain period of time. The longer you extend the studies, the longer you get to a conclusion and it will impact your schedule. At this point, it is on schedule.

Is there any corridor in FasTracks that has more construction challenges than the others?

I don't think any one of them is more difficult than another. When you talk about construction projects that have challenges, you're looking at projects that go underwater or you're tunneling through rock or you're building elaborate structures.

None of the corridors that we're building in the metro area really have any of those bona fide engineering construction challenges. They're not going to be much different from what we've already got on the ground today.

On T-REX, we had that cut-and-cover section to take light rail under Colorado Boulevard. You're going to see that on the West Corridor when we have to go under Union Boulevard.

Where do the major corridor projects stand right now?

We have one corridor, West, that has a completed environmental study and is in final design to be completed in 2008. For Northwest Rail to Boulder and Longmont, we expect to be finished with the draft Environmental Impact Statement in 2007, with a final in 2008. East Corridor we expect to be done by the end of next year with the EIS.

For North Metro and Gold Line, we just kicked off the EIS and expect to be done toward the end of 2008 on both. For I-225, we are still doing preliminary work. We haven't started the EIS or preliminary engineering on that as yet.

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