West Corridor : 38% Over Budget

RTD's 12.1 mile West Corridor, part of the Fastracks project, is nearly 40% over budget. Last year RTD's budget for the line hit $744 million. They reduced it to by $634 million through several cost cutting measure such as :

• Single track the few miles of the line, reducing rush hour frequency to a train every 15 minutes instead of 5
• Number of LRT cars a station can hand from 4 to 3.
• Build less parking spaces (for example, one ramp is planned to have 400 spaces, half of the originally recommended 800).
• Building the rail bed to withstand 5-year storms instead of 100-year storms.
• Eliminating some stations
  

These weren't enough. As mentioned, costs have continued to rise back up to $707.6 million. This has prompted even further cost cutting measures by RTD. These include :

• Reducing landscaping at stations.
• Further dumbing down station design to make building them cheaper
• Delaying installing safety equipment such as security cameras and emergency phones.
• Reducing furnishing at stations.
• Delaying constructing pedestrian bridges.
• Reducing the capacity of the bike path that will parallel the line.

Sources

• http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_9546240
• http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/Oct/26/rtd-cost-cutting-hits-sixth-avenue-segment-hard/
• http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5277508,00.html