RTD has won the largest job training and placement grant among 12 awarded by the Federal Transit Administration to promote workforce development in the transit industry.
FTA said the Regional Transportation District will get $486,465 for its Workforce Initiative Now (WIN) program, which aims to provide skills training and jobs on upcoming RTD FasTracks projects, including the $1.1 billion train to Denver International Airport.
FTA awarded $3 million in job- training funds. Other recipients include transit agencies in New Orleans; Buffalo, N.Y.; Los Angeles; Chicago; Salt Lake City; and Cleveland.
In the WIN program, RTD is collaborating with the Community College of Denver, the Urban League of Metropolitan Denver and Denver Transit Partners (DTP), contractor for the airport train and other FasTracks projects.
DTP is in charge of a public-private partnership called Eagle P3 that will build the DIA train, the Gold Line train to Arvada/Wheat Ridge, and a short leg of the Northwest commuter train as far as south Westminster.
In all, DTP is expected to construct projects for RTD worth more than $2 billion.
In a statement, DTP director Gregory Amparano said his consortium is “committed to making a portion of the jobs on the Eagle P3 project available to WIN graduates.”
DTP spokesman Chuck Easterling said peak construction will be in 2012-13, “so hiring will peak during that timeframe as well.”
RTD’s Daria Serna said her agency still is putting together a plan for spending the federal money on WIN and it does not yet know how many people will be trained.
RTD has said previously that the $6.8 billion FasTracks program will create and support thousands of jobs in metro Denver.
The first FasTracks projects underway are the $710 million West Corridor light-rail line from downtown Denver to Lakewood and Golden, and the $488 million redevelopment of Denver’s Union Station as a hub for FasTracks trains and existing RTD transit lines.
The West rail line is about 80 percent complete and due to open in May 2013. The Union Station project is about 40 percent complete.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
