Bumpy ride for FasTracks as cutbacks stir debate

Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, September 20, 2007

RTD was pounded from both sides at a public hearing Wednesday night on changes to the FasTracks West Corridor light-rail project as some speakers demanded that cutbacks be restored while others called for the project to be scrubbed entirely.

"We want what was promised to the voters," said Justin Everett, president of COHOPE, a coalition of homeowner associations in Jefferson County, during the meeting at Jefferson County Fairgrounds.

Cost-cutting changes that reduce service to the county government complex and surrounding area of Golden aren't acceptable to the associations.

"A lot of them campaigned for FasTracks and feel they were promised a level of service that they now won't be getting. They're angry."

The West Corridor, a 12.1- mile light rail line from Denver to Golden, was budgeted in 2004 at $511.8 million. A significant spike in construction costs helped send it as high as $744 million with all the original scope of work.

So RTD has trimmed back on parts of the project, including a controversial plan to build only one track on the final leg from the Denver Federal Center to Golden and reduce the service from trains every five minutes in rush hour to every 15 minutes.

That and other cutbacks have brought the budget estimate down to $634.3 million. Because some of the changes are substantial enough, RTD is obligated to conduct a new environmental review.

On the other hand, Brian Wareing, of Arvada, told RTD during the public comment period of the hearing that the project should be canceled.

"The taxpayers are getting taken to the cleaners for something we don't want and won't use," Wareing said.

Other speakers criticized specific changes to the plan that impact them directly.

Rick Patten has purchased 26 acres of industrial land south of the Colfax Viaduct for redevelopment into housing and commercial projects to take advantage of the new line going by the properties.

But a change in routing the tracks and relocation of a Union Pacific access track to a nearby railyard has damaged its prospects, he said.

"I've lost four businesses already over this that would have brought 300 jobs to the neighborhood," Patten said.