State OKs start of G-Line, end to flaggers

Through rain, snow and sun across the seasons, they’ve lounged in lawn chairs, kept watch from inside their cars and stood with their stop signs as trains whooshed to and from Denver International Airport.

But the flaggers who have kept watch over the 11 University of Colorado A-Line train crossings for the past two years — at a price tag in the tens of millions of dollars — will soon be getting their walking papers.

After years of delays and back and forth, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday approved the Regional Transportation District’s automated crossing gates. Regulators also voted to push forward on the longawaited G-Line, which was supposed to debut in the fall of 2016 and connect Wheat Ridge and Arvada with Denver Union Station.

Both lines use the same crossing gate technology, which is the first of its kind in the United States.

“I’m a little bit puzzled as to how we’re here now in 2018 and have not had this resolved,” Commissioner Wendy Moser said at the meeting.

Despite the commission’s approval, there are still contingencies to meet and hoops to jump through that will delay both the removal of the flaggers and the GLine start. Because of this, RTD spokesman Scott Reed said it was impossible to give a timeframe for when everything will be completed.

The automated technology was only approved as long as RTD continues to meet conditions federal authorities set when they approved a waiver for the ALine and B-Line in September. RTD must get a similar waiver for the G-Line.

A-Line flaggers will be removed on a crossing-bycrossing basis as they’re verified safe by state regulators.

Three crossings are ready to be verified, while eight still have some administrative processes to go through. Additionally, the federal government needs to approve RTD’s plan on how they will remove attendants.

For the G-Line, RTD still must finish its internal testing on the 11-mile line, which Reed said is weeks away from being done. Then those crossing will each have to be approved by PUC.

Additionally, Reed said RTD needs to read the commission’s written order, which could take a few weeks, before taking its next steps.

“Construction on this line was completed two years ago, so it’s something the community along the line have been very patient with,” Reed said.

Prior to opening in 2016, the A-Line’s crossing technology ran into problems, such as gates dropping without a train approaching and gates that didn’t fully drop before a train went through. Although the glitches have been fixed, the crossings hadn’t been certified.

Federal regulators gave RTD a waiver to operate as long as flaggers manned each crossing, a cost covered by the transportation district’s private sector partner Denver Transit Partners.

Federal regulators eventually signed off on the agency’s crossing gates, but that wasn’t enough to remove flaggers. The PUC still had to approve the technology and certify the crossings.

Last year, commissioners were wary of the wireless technology, which keeps arms down for longer than federal standards, fearing they would lead impatient motorists to drive around the arms and into the path of an oncoming train.

RTD spent several months trying to convince state regulators that the gates are safe. Last month, several safety experts testified that flaggers were no longer needed during a hearing in front of an administrative law judge.