AURORA | The highly anticipated R Line, which will bring 10.5 miles of new light rail to Aurora, remains without an opening date, officials connected to the Regional Transportation District recently confirmed.

Weeks of delays have quickly morphed into months for a project that was originally supposed to be wrapped up last year.

Now, the earliest the project could be theoretically completed is March, though even that seems to be a stretch, according to Tom Tobiassen, former RTD District F Board Member.

Former Aurora City Councilman Bob Broom replaced Tobiassen on the RTD Board Jan. 10.

Tobiassen said Kiewit, the contractor building the light rail line, has yet to hand the project over to RTD for additional testing. Once that power transfer occurs, RTD will need to conduct at least an additional 45 days of daytime testing, according to Tobiassen.

Officials from RTD and Kiewit did not immediately return requests for comment.

Tobiassen said the reason for the delays with Kiewit could be tied to paperwork, as well as certifying the many at-grade crossings along the Interstate 225 line with the Public Utility Commission.

“It’s like building a house … 90 percent of it looks like it goes up pretty quick, but that last 10 percent is when all that finish work comes in, and it’s just a time consuming process,” he said.

The crossings along the R Line should encounter fewer issues than those that have sprung up along the beleaguered University of Colorado A Line, according to Tobiassen. He said the systems controlling the A Line crossings, which are commuter rail, are more complex than those that control the crossings along the R Line, which is light rail.

As reported by The Denver Post, RTD officials told the Wheat Ridge City Council earlier this week that the new commuter rail line expected to connect Wheat Ridge with Downtown Denver, the G Line, will be further delayed due to continued issues with the at-grade crossings. The G Line is also a commuter rail line.

The new R Line will connect the East Rail Line through Aurora to Nine Mile Station and metro Denver’s Southeast Corridor Light Rail. The project will bring eight new train stations and four new Park-n-Rides to the city, according to the RTD website.