“Bad, worse or worser” was the way one Longmont City Council member described the three choices presented to it Tuesday night, following the recent announcement that the price tag for completing the Northwest Corridor portion of the FasTracks commuter rail line to Longmont had gone up by a half-billion dollars.
The new total cost estimate for the Longmont portion of the metro-wide rail plan now comes in at $1.4 billion, up from the previous estimate of $894.4 million. The additional costs were identified in a recent study completed by BNSF, which RTD will contract with to build and operate the commuter rail.
Council expressed dismay at all three options presented to them but seemed to grudgingly accept option No. 1, which would delay completion of the Northwest line three to five years, meaning the earliest Longmont would see commuter rail would be 2023.
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