Denver approves tax increase for $4.7 billion rail project

Project could involve engineering and design firms across the country

Denver-area voters recently approved a sales tax increase of a penny per dollar for the Regional Transportation District to pay for a 12-year $4.7 billion project named FasTracks, which will build 119 miles of rail corridors throughout the Denver metro area as well as pay for suburb-to-suburb bus service and parking spaces along the bus and rail lines.

Cal Marsella, Regional Transportation District (RTD) general manager, says that RTD won’t manage design and engineering efforts by itself. “It’s not our intent to do all of the work in-house,” Marsella says. “Rather than build a huge overhead, we’ll hire those skills.” The contract is creating a lot of buzz from small, local companies to some of the largest engineering and design firms in the country.