DENVER - RTD's board agreed Tuesday night to pay the BNSF Railway Co. about $144 million for land acquisition, relocation and engineering support tasks needed before RTD can begin construction of key FasTracks projects, the Post reports.
Of the total, Regional Transportation District directors approved the payment of $102.7 million to buy property from BNSF in the freight rail corridor from Union Station to West 71st Avenue in Westminster and in a separate BNSF corridor from near Sheridan Boulevard and West 58th Avenue to the city of Golden.
RTD's Gold Line commuter train to Arvada and Wheat Ridge has a planned end-of-line station at Ward Road near West 49th Avenue, but the transit agency is buying BNSF property to Golden to accommodate the possible future extension of commuter rail to that city.
The BNSF will continue to operate its freight trains in the Gold Line corridor but on separate tracks from that used by RTD's commuter trains.
BNSF is a unit of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.
RTD's FasTracks financial plan predicts that there will be enough money to build and operate the Northwest commuter train from Union Station as far as 71st Avenue in Westminster.
Extending the Northwest line to its planned destinations of Boulder and Longmont will require additional revenues that RTD is likely to seek from an area sales-tax increase proposal to voters either this year or in 2012.
The deal with BNSF that RTD directors approved Tuesday night does not include costs or operating plans that the two parties will need to settle on for possible future shared use of tracks between 71st Avenue and Boulder/Longmont, said RTD spokeswoman Pauletta Tonilas.
RTD expects a sales-tax increase, if approved by voters, would pay for other unfunded FasTracks rail lines, including the North Metro commuter train to Thornton and Northglenn, and the Interstate 225 light-rail line in Aurora.
Also Tuesday night, directors approved a $15.3 million contract with a Maryland company to provide "smart" fare card technology to the agency.
ACS Transport Solutions Inc. will outfit about 1,100 RTD buses with smart card readers and install the mobile communications that will allow the readers to transmit passenger data.
RTD hopes smart cards will give the agency better information on how passengers use its bus and light-rail system and allow RTD to price pre-paid fare cards such as Eco Passes in ways that more accurately reflect the use of the system.
(This item appeared in the Denver Post March 24, 2010.)
