RTD using two-budget strategy for FasTracks program

Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 21, 2007 at midnight

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RTD is preparing two new budgets for FasTracks.

One will keep track of whether RTD can actually build what it said it would for the original $4.7 billion. The other will track a larger price tag, including extras that continue to be added to the original plan.

The strategy, similar to the budget reporting for the recently completed T-REX project, will help the transit agency focus on the original plan as it struggles to edge the rapid-transit expansion program back toward affordability.

RTD is currently redoing the budgets of all the projects that make up the FasTracks program, which includes six new rail corridors, a bus rapid-transit project on the Boulder Turnpike, renovations to Denver Union Station and other elements.

Cal Marsella, RTD general manager, said Monday that since voters approved FasTracks in 2004, two major factors have driven up costs.

Spikes in the price of construction materials - copper, steel, concrete - are pushing FasTracks over the inflation levels built into the program budget, Marsella told the Denver City Council's FasTracks Committee.

The individual projects in the program also are expanding as they move through required final studies. Cities, civic groups and the public at large have asked for more add-ons in many corridors.

Marsella said the second budget report will keep a separate running tab on those items.

As an example, Marsella noted that there originally were only five stations planned for the East Corridor commuter rail to Denver International Airport, which had a $702.5 million price tag.

But during the lengthy environmental impact study, which is still going on, participants have asked that at least three more stations be added. That adds the expense not only of construction of the stations. More stations mean more stops and longer travel times, requiring RTD to buy more train cars in order to keep the planned departure schedule of every 15 minutes to the airport.

There is precedent for what RTD is proposing. T-REX reported its spending this way.

The highway-mass transit project reported regularly on the status of the initial $1.67 billion budget for the original scope of work, while separately tracking $75 million in extra work, some funded by outside parties, that brought the total to $1.75 billion.

flynnk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5247

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