It doesn’t solve RTD’s financial challenges, but the Colorado General Assembly’s passage this week of key legislation improves chances for new FasTracks rail lines to be built where area voters thought they would.
The Regional Transportation District planned to put FasTracks passenger trains serving Denver International Airport, north Adams County, Boulder/Longmont and Arvada/Wheat Ridge in freight-rail corridors after negotiating property purchases and operating rights with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific railroads.
“This was established as an absolute must-have by (BNSF) as a condition for negotiations,” said RTD general manager Cal Marsella. “By getting it done, we’re back at the table in meaningful negotiations to get the property and develop operating plans to implement FasTracks.”
When metro Denver voters approved an RTD tax hike to pay for much of the $4.7 billion FasTracks plan, the assumption was that at least four of the trains would share routes with freight railroads.
Yet after a fatal train crash in California in January 2005 involving passenger and freight trains, BNSF demanded that RTD limit the liability of the railroad if an accident were to occur involving FasTracks trains in freight-rail corridors.
To satisfy the railroad’s demand, legislators passed Senate Bill 219, which limits the imposition of “punitive or exemplary damages or damages for outrageous conduct” in the event of an accident involving FasTracks trains, even if a freight railroad is responsible for the accident. It also allows RTD to buy insurance covering a freight carrier’s negligence if there is an accident.
Some legislators said they resented being pressured, but RTD said the bill was a requirement for FasTracks to proceed.
The bill now goes to Gov. Bill Ritter for signing. RTD government relations officer Sherry Ellebracht said there is “no indication that he has a problem with it.”
For the two commuter trains to Longmont and Wheat Ridge, RTD will negotiate largely with BNSF, which owns most of those freight corridors.
Planners working on the Gold Line from Union Station to Arvada and Wheat Ridge have looked at operating streetcars on city streets as an alternative in case railroads balked.
Being forced to indemnify private businesses from accident liability was “unfortunate” and “distasteful,” said Arvada Mayor Ken Fellman, but it was “one of those things that had to be done.”
His city’s “preferred alternative” is for rail in the freight corridor, Fellman said.
“If we couldn’t get over this hurdle, we would probably end up with an alternative that is not acceptable to our community,” he said.
Denver City Councilman Rick Garcia said passage of the bill means RTD can get back to the promise of the 2004 FasTracks vote.
“This gets us closer to what was originally intended,” he said.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
