Rocky Mountain News: Inflation forcing RTD's West line to go bare bones (Denver-area light rail)

[marmar]

Inflation forcing RTD's West line to go bare bones
By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008



The meat and potatoes of the West Corridor light rail project - moving dirt, laying track and building bridges, tunnels and walls - has contributed the most to a 38 percent jump in price since voters approved FasTracks four years ago.

An analysis of four successive West Corridor budgets - increasing from $511.8 million in 2004 to the current $707.6 million - shows the trade-offs that RTD has made to keep the cost from soaring even higher.

For riders, it means fewer benches, less shelter from rain and snow, one less pedestrian bridge and at least one scaled- back station on the 12.1-mile line through Denver, Lakewood and Golden.

For RTD's rail managers, it means no system of live communication with the trains, no remote ability to turn power on and off, and no security cameras like those on the T-REX corridor and other light rail stations.

Inflation estimates wrong

RTD is on the lookout for outside funding to restore some of the cuts, particularly security-related ones.

"There are opportunities to get grants to restore things like cameras," said Liz Rao, RTD's program manager for FasTracks. "But we will have security personnel out there. It's not like there won't be any security."

RTD has a $37 million contingency fund for the West Corridor and has invited Denver, Lakewood, Golden, Jefferson County, neighborhoods, businesses and other parties to come up with a consensus list of items that should be added back if the project has any money left toward the end. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/16/inflation-forcing-rtds-west-line-to-go-bare/

[eleny]

1. I'm keeping an eye on this since this is in our area

Not that I'll need to use it every day since we're retired. But it's a much better way to get into Denver, occasionally, than driving.

This line really warmed my heart. Not.
"Cole, the project manager, said RTD found it needed deeper foundations for the corridor's many walls once it better examined soil conditions."
Like they didn't understand the wicked clay of this area that's riddle with bentonite? This stuff swells and contracts with the moisture conditions. Of course they had to take special care with the foundations or the damned things will heave.

Thanks for posting, btw.