Future of delayed G-Line goes to judge Feb. 15-16
A hearing crucial to the long-awaited launch of the G-Line commuter rail service to Denver’s western suburbs and whether crossings along the G-Line and airport line can finally shed their human flaggers will be held next week.
A spokesman with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission confirmed Monday that the hearing will take place before an administrative law judge on Feb. 15 and 16, nearly a month before its original scheduled date of March 12. Terry Bote, the PUC spokesman, said none of the parties with interests along the tracks filed objections in the matter, thus the earlier date.
PUC judge Robert Garvey offered the two hearing dates in December as part of an ongoing effort to bring resolution to a long-standing issue with the technology that controls the gates at multiple crossings along both lines.
The Regional Transportation District received approval from federal regulators in September for its crossing design but the PUC has been less convinced of the system’s timing and safety. At next week’s hearing, RTD will get the opportunity to present its case for safety to the PUC judge.
Bote said there would be no immediate ruling. Instead, Garvey will “develop the factual record” from the hearing and send that to the PUC commissioners, who will issue a final ruling at a “yet-to-be-determined deliberations meeting.”
The G-Line was supposed to open in the fall of 2016 but has been delayed while the crossing technology it shares with the University of Colorado A-Line is scrutinized. The Federal Railroad Administration and the PUC have allowed the A-Line to operate under a waiver, which includes the requirement that flaggers be used to monitor safety at the crossings, ever since it first opened nearly two years ago.
That same waiver was not granted to the G-Line, an 11mile line between Union Station and Wheat Ridge that has been fully constructed for more than a year. That has led civic leaders in Arvada and Wheat Ridge to put pressure on the PUC to give the line the go-ahead to open.