RTD directors endorsed a plan Monday evening that resolves a dispute with state transportation officials over the route of the west light-rail line along U.S. 6 to the Jefferson County government center in Golden.
In November, Colorado Department of Transportation chief Tom Norton said the state would give land to RTD for the train line from Simms Street to the government center if the transit agency pledged to return an equivalent amount of property to CDOT if expansion of U.S. 6 is needed any time over the next 50 years.
Regional Transportation District general manager Cal Marsella said his agency could never accept such an open-ended demand.
The compromise accepted by an RTD committee Monday calls for the transit agency to restore the land to CDOT only if highway improvements on U.S. 6 are included in the regional long-range transportation plan by 2017, when RTD’s $4.7 billion FasTracks transit expansion is due for completion.
RTD “had problems with the 50-year horizon,” Marsella told RTD board members, but the transit agency does not expect an expansion of U.S. 6 to be included in the regional plan over the next 11 years.
Members of the Colorado Transportation Commission also have endorsed the compromise agreement.
The 12.1-mile, $511 million west train is the first of six new lines that will be built under FasTracks. The line will run from central Denver through Lakewood to Golden.
Today, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta is expected to name RTD’s west train as one of the key national projects eligible for money from the the Federal Transit Administration.
Last summer, Congress earmarked $270 million in federal money for the west train line in a multi-year transportation measure passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Bush.
Construction of the west line and 12 stations is due to start in late 2008 and be completed by the end of 2013.
On Thursday at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds from 6 to 8 p.m., RTD will hold an open house at which residents can sign up for committees to help plan station and bridge designs, noise walls and fencing, and pedestrian crossings. The open house will be in the fairgrounds’ Exhibit Hall B, 15200 W. Sixth Ave.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-820-1645 or at jleib@denverpost.com.
