Rising costs of materials, especially steel and concrete, have sent the construction estimates for the FasTracks regional rapid transit project soaring from its $4.7 billion price tag to $6.2 billion.
Yet to hear RTD staff tell it, that $1.5 billion cost increase is the good news. A preliminary estimate last March indicated the final tab might be as much as $2 billion above initial projections. A number of cost- saving moves pared those numbers down, but that doesn’t mean transit planners won’t have to work hard to ensure FasTracks is completed on time and within budget – as all four of RTD’s existing light rail lines were.
RTD hopes to cover the largest part of the $1.5 billion cost gap – $800 million – by simply borrowing more money. The agency hoped to originally borrow just $2.4 billion but now plans to issue $3.2 billion in bonds. That’s still within the limit allowed by the 2004 election that authorized FasTracks. The debt will be repaid with proceeds from the RTD sales tax that voters increased from 0.6 percent to a full 1 percent.
To cover much of the remaining gap, RTD is hoping for extra federal aid – $1.22 billion, about $400 million more than the original estimates. While nobody can bank on those federal grants, the higher targets may be reasonable, given the strong support the U.S. Department of Transportation provided for the T-REX project, which included a light rail line. If anything, the new Democrat-controlled Congress may be more willing to fund transit projects than its Republican predecessors were.
Yet even such a jump in federal funding would leave FasTracks about $300 million short. The most promising ways to bridge that gap would be to issue “design, build, operate and maintain” contracts with public/ private partnerships on the four heavy commuter rail lines now envisioned – to Boulder/Longmont, Arvada, Denver International Airport and the North Metro line through Adams County.
All four of these projects share existing rights-of-way with freight railroads – a fact that precludes the use of light rail cars because of safety concerns. Two of them, Boulder/Longmont and North Metro, are already scheduled for so-called diesel multiple units, which use the new ultra-low sulphur diesel fuels. But the Arvada and DIA lines are planned for more expensive electrified commuter trains, which could add as much as $200 million to the initial costs, as well as requiring maintenance facilities for two different commuter rail types.
RTD Director Bill Christopher is urging RTD to cut costs and simplify operations by consolidating all four commuter rail lines into the less expensive diesel multiple units. We hope his fellow board members heed his advice and keep this vital project on time and within the available funding limits.
