Denver International Airport and private developers who own land in the Peña Boulevard corridor will have to spend up to $31 million in capital expenses to have one rail station added to the DIA train line, and about $72 million to add two stations, according to the Regional Transportation District.
RTD’s analysis also shows that the airport and developers will have to bear at least $2.1 million in annual operating and maintenance costs, whether one or two stations are added.
The report, prepared at the request of DIA, notes as well that the addition of one or two stations would result in the need for RTD to acquire an additional train set consisting of eight more railcars at a cost of $31.5 million to ensure that the commuter-rail line’s operator can keep trains running reliably with service every 15 minutes at peak travel times.
RTD has hired a private consortium to design, finance, operate and maintain the $1.1 billion DIA train line, along with other elements of the FasTracks program, including the Gold Line train to Arvada/Wheat Ridge and a short segment of the Northwest commuter-rail line to south Westminster.
The DIA train is scheduled to open in late 2015 or early 2016.
Airport officials and developers say the addition of stations at East 61st Avenue and Peña Boulevard, and East 72nd Avenue and Himalaya Road, east of Tower Road, would be catalysts for economic development in the airport’s “gateway” corridor.
“I do believe those two stations have enormous economic value to the region,” DIA Manager Kim Day said after speaking at a recent Denver City Council committee meeting that took up airport expansion issues.
RTD assessed the possible addition of the two Peña corridor stations during an extensive environmental study of the airport train project, but that study’s final report did not include the stations as part of the rail line’s base price and design.
Instead, there was an understanding that DIA and developers would have to pay what had been expected to be the fairly modest cost of adding the stations.
That cost ballooned, however, after the private consortium that won the contract to build the airport train converted about a 4.6-mile section of the rail line in the Peña Boulevard corridor from planned double track to single track as a cost-savings tactic.
Now, much of the sizable cost required to add one or both of the stations is attributable to the need to return single-tracked segments to double track, along with the expense of signals and overhead electrification that accompany track work, according to Brian Middleton, RTD’s top manager on the airport train project.
Middleton released RTD’s station-cost analysis late Friday afternoon after forwarding a copy to DIA officials.
“We will begin reviewing the information that we received this afternoon, and we look forward to working cooperatively with RTD and all other stakeholders to maximize economic development opportunities for our region,” Day said Friday.
