Denver dazzles: in key measures, the Mile High City's light rail system is miles ahead of bigger systems

Railway Age, August, 2003 by Luther S. Miller

If any urban/suburban/regional transportation system can be devised to be all things in all people, this one could come close. One element of FasTracks is development of Union Station (which RTD acquired as part of the Platte Valley Extension) as a multi-modal hub. At about 20 other points there will be transit centers for rail/bus connections featuring parking, timed transfers, security, shelter amenities, and real-time schedule updates.

Light rail came to Denver in October 1994 with the opening of a 5.3-mile line from 30th/Downing through downtown to 1-25/Broadway. A second line opened in the summer of 2000, running 8.7 miles along south Santa Fe Drive from 1-25/Broadway to Mineral Avenue. The new downtown spur brought the system to 15.8 route-miles and ridership to its current daily average of 38,000 boardings, an all-time high.

Commuter rail is on the way. On June 12 RTD and CDOT unveiled a plan for a regional rail system that would be made possible by rerouting Union Pacific and Burlington Northern and Santa Fe freight lines out of Denver and other urban areas and onto the Eastern Plains, a plan advanced by the railroads two years ago. The two railroads would benefit from faster freight movements, primarily coal trains. RTD would acquire the vacated tights-of-way to operate regional train service linking Fort Collins, Denver, and Pueblo. The proposed sales tax increase would pay for the rights-of-way. The Colorado Transportation Commission has allocated $500,000 for a study to determine the public benefits of the line relocation. For CDOT Executive Director Tom Norton, whose enthusiasm for passenger rail has its bounds, the main benefit would be improved public safety and an enhanced rail freight industry.

Commuter rail is a major component of FasTracks. "Colorado Railcar has built a DMU that I'm eager to try," said Marsella. "We have two corridors and maybe three where the recommended alternative is commuter rail."

Finding the money to cover rising capital and operating needs is a never-ending quest for transit planners and operators. The Denver RTD is no exception. Marsella closely monitors RTD's sales tax income. Recently it was running 4.5% below 2002 levels, which were lower than 2001 receipts. "This has impacted both our operating and capital budgets," said Marsella. "I've had to go to the board for service reductions on both rail and bus, but we've been able to contain it to about 5% of service hours. Some RTD capital projects have been deferred, but there's been no major impact on the rail side. That's because T-REX went into contract before the funding decline and we are meeting the construction-driven capital requirements of that project. The total cost on the RTD side is $879 million. Of that amount, we received a full funding grant agreement of $528 million. We're funding the local match out of proceeds from bonds that we issued."

In meeting mandated cost recovery, RTD is in good shape, said Marsella: "There are two farebox recovery policies. The first is a state policy that says we have to make 30% back from the farebox and other revenues, including federal grant monies. We've been able to meet that fairly handily. The second is our board's policy, which calls for a 20% recovery of operating costs from fares and advertising revenues. We're at about 18.7% right now. We plan to make that up through some service adjustments and fare increases."