FasTracks North Metro study gets public hearings
Simulation shows North Metro Corridor heavy rail commuter cars going through Thornton.
The North Metro commuter rail corridor through Denver, Commerce City and Thornton – the second-costliest project in the RTD FasTracks program after the train to Denver International Airport – is going to public hearings next week on a Draft Environmental Impact Statement that has two major items unresolved.
One is the exact route that the double-tracked heavy-rail train cars will take through Commerce City, in light of the costly and technically challenging path through the busy Sand Creek Junction of the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads under Interstate 270.
After initially rejecting Sand Creek Junction in favor of several overland routes to the west that avoid the freight railroads’ operations, RTD has begun to evaluate sending the North Metro Corridor tracks through Sand Creek partially on an elevated track over the freights, and crossing under I-270 to the west of the freight tracks.
Read the full story at Kevin Flynn’s Inside Lane.
Longtime journalist Kevin Flynn was the transportation beat writer for the Rocky Mountain News.
