West Corridor rail cuts eyed

Rising costs force RTD to look at ways to modify project

Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 18, 2006 at midnight

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An independent panel of transit engineers dissecting plans for the first FasTracks rail corridor is considering suggestions ranging from the extreme to the mundane to cut costs on the West Corridor line.

The $508.2-million, 12.1-mile light- rail line to Lakewood and Golden is in the final design phase and the start of construction is scheduled for 2008. It would be the first rail line to be built under the Regional Transportation District's $4.7 billion FasTracks program.

But steep inflation in the cost of materials such as concrete for railroad ties, copper for overhead wires, and steel for bridges and rails is cutting into RTD's buying power following voter approval of the program in 2004.

Ultimately, cost increases threaten to rein in the scope of the West Corridor line as well as on the eight other corridors. Cost-cutting decisions on the West Corridor could signal what the other lines face.

The West Corridor line is expected to open in 2013. Other corridors are scheduled to open in stages through 2016.

"Please don't faint, they are only proposals," Dennis Cole, RTD's project manager for the West Corridor, told community representatives who were shown the panel's suggestions at a meeting Friday.

The engineering panel was told to look at everything in the plan, he said. "There will be no holds barred, no sacred cows."

Indeed, one of the first suggestions from the panel was to revisit a cut that was so controversial two years ago that it was shot down: to end the line at the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood and defer building the final 3 1/2-mile segment to the Jefferson County government center in Golden. That alone could save up to $200 million.

"It's a very expensive piece of the project," said Bernie Dull, an engineer who was the panel's facilitator. "But it's a hard political decision to make."

It panel listed 62 cost-cutting suggestions in three categories. Not all of the cuts could be accomplished, because some are alternatives to others. In fact, the total of all the suggested trims, $694 million, exceeds the entire cost of the project.

Fourteen of the proposals alone totaled $609 million, and all were major enough that they would trigger a new environmental impact study and cause a delay in the project.

Another 14 proposals, totaling $26 million, were major enough to cause a delay but would not require a new impact study.

The final 34 ideas totaled $59 million and are all considered minor changes.

The suggestions included eliminating four small stations that have no bus or park-n-Ride service, using grade crossings instead of train bridges at Wadsworth and Sheridan boulevards and Kipling Street, and reducing the amount of signalization on the line.

Another idea is to bypass the Denver Federal Center, which would eliminate two bridges over the Sixth Avenue Freeway.

RTD hired the panel to assist with what is called "value engineering."

It is the second value engineering process RTD has held for the project in an effort to economize. The agency isn't bound to accept any of the suggestions.

The panel consisted of eight engineers with broad experience on rail systems in the U.S. and abroad.

RTD will rank the ideas one of four ways: accepted, accepted with changes, declined or tabled for further analysis. Liz Rao, RTD's FasTracks chief, said community input will be important.

"There will be things we definitely will do and some things we ought not do," she said.

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