Denver City Council approves $79M purchase of train cars at DIA

A $78.9 million purchase contract approved Monday will add 26 new cars to Denver International Airport’s underground train system, in part to keep up with growing passenger traffic.

The City Council approved the deal with manufacturer Bombardier Transportation Holdings USA in a block vote. It comes on top of a sevenyear, $162 million operations and maintenance contract for the system that the city signed with Bombardier last fall, when the new cars had not yet been priced.

That latter deal included components that are intended to boost the reliability of the 23-year-old Automated Guideway Transit System, which connects the terminal to all three concourses.

DIA has kicked off large capacity-expansion projects this year that are renovating the terminal building and adding gates to each concourse, making the people-moving train’s reliability even more im- portant. All are among expansion projects that will receive money from a $3.5 billion airport bond issuance now under separate consideration by the council.

DIA officials have said the train cars likely will be delivered in batches in 2020. They plan to use 16 of them to retire cars that date to the airport’s opening in 1995, resulting in a net increase of 10 cars for the current 31-car fleet. That will allow flexibility to increase train frequency or expand each train’s capacity.