An outbound Denver RTD Southeast Rail Line light rail train meets an inbound train at the Denver University station in 2018. The extension of the Southeast line from the Lincoln station to three stations in Lone Tree, Colo., opened on Friday.
TRAINS: David Lassen
LONE TREE, Colo. — Denver’s Regional Transportation District has opened a 2.3-mile extension of its light rail system, extending the Southeast Rail Line with three stations in Lone Tree.
The $238-million project, which opened Friday, is expected to spur development of 2,000 acres of mostly open land east of Interstate 25 — one reason Lone Tree and local stakeholders contributed $25 million to the project, the Denver Post reports. Construction of the extension began in 2015.
It is the sixth opening of an RTD service in a three-year period, which RTD General Manager and CEO Dave Genova called “unprecedented,” KDVR-TV news reports.
OK, Let me understand this. They spent $100 MILLION per MILE to benefit the developers who own the 2000 undeveloped acres (and they contributed only $1 Million per mile). This is TAX dollars and probably mostly federal money (meaning yours and mine) to benefit a few developers. Please tell me why this is a good thing?
There’s no federal money for this project (only projects within the Eagle P3). Also the route is in the Denver Tech Center, which is a very quickly growing area along I-25 that can be developed into office space that will benefit the economy and create more tech jobs, and will be developed whether there is a light rail line or not. Also, there is a lot of open land, but also a lot of bridges (including very expensive earth moving and grading) to cross over roads and stations with park and rides that have big garages and such. Yes it is very expensive but it would be much much more expensive if the area was already built up
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s because the developers are going to build a large amount of housing and/or offices/shopping there?
The developer contributed more than 10% of the cost. Not sure where you’re getting $1M/mile, they contributed $10M/mile.