AURORA | It’s a lot more than a simple case of bad vibrations. They get that.
But some Aurora residents still wonder why RTD board members are changing the course of Aurora’s FasTracks light rail line near University of Colorado Hospital because of vibration and electromagnetic interference.
Old design plans called for the light rail to travel north along Interstate 225 and turn west onto Montview Boulevard near the University of Colorado Hospital’s health sciences buildings. Now, a majority of RTD board members agreed June 11 that the tracks and station should be redesigned and moved half a mile north from the campus to protect medical equipment.
“Information about this issue must have been somewhere all along, and it seemed to have been missed in the planning process,” said Aurora resident Dale Nichols.
In fact, information about the potential negative effects of the light rail’s electromagnetic field on high-tech, sensitive medical equipment has been available since 2008. Back then, the University of Colorado Hospital conducted two studies that showed its high-tech research and medical equipment could be affected by the electromagnetic field generated by Aurora’s future light rail line.
According to that report, vibration from the light rail could interfere with equipment at the Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Building near the intersection of Montview Boulevard and Tucson Way. Also, devices including nuclear magnetic resonance machines, Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines and electron microscopes could be affected by the light rail’s electromagnetic field.
In 2009, the Regional Transportation District conducted its own environmental assessment, which also showed a need for mitigation strategies to protect the hospital’s equipment.
Aurora resident Bernie Rogoff, a member of the city’s Veterans Affairs Commission, said RTD might have avoided the cost of a change if the light rail realignment was done a few years ago.
“Somebody didn’t get involved then, and now this is going to cost them,” Rogoff said. “Somebody didn’t do their work.”
However, RTD staff members said at the meeting June 11 that the redesign could be done at no cost. They will have a formal estimate within a month.
RTD’s entire FasTracks program suffered in 2008 when the economy tanked. In 2010, RTD officials said then it would need $2.5 billion in additional taxpayer money to complete all 12 extensions of the FasTracks light rail expansion project by 2017. During that time, the Anschutz Medical Campus continued to expand, and campus officials had concerns about how Aurora’s portion of the light rail might impact medical equipment.
But it was uncertain how many years or decades it would take for RTD to get around to building Aurora’s Interstate 225 light rail line, said Michael Del Giudice, director at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus’s Office of Institutional Planning.
“Because the light rail was pushed back in schedule, a lot of these issues went on the back burner,” he said.
Now, five years after the first electromagnetic interference study was completed, it’s even more important for the light rail to move away from the campus. That’s because research and medical equipment has gotten more advanced and more sensitive to vibration and electromagnetic fields, Del Giudice said. The campus has electron microscopes that weigh molecules down to the nano-level, he said.
The future of Aurora’s light rail line was uncertain for years, until summer 2012, when Kiewit Infrastructure Co. offered to build out the $350 million light rail line through the city.
“A year ago, we didn’t think we were even going to have a train to Fitzsimons campus, and all of a sudden it’s here and real,” Tobiassen said. Electromagnetic interference concerns are now growing more important, and RTD wouldn’t be able to afford up to $60 million worth of mitigation costs, Tobiassen said. Changing the alignment could be the most cost effective way of addressing the issue, but RTD won’t know how much Kiewit will charge them to change the alignment until next month. Residents will be allowed to comment on the proposed light rail change at some point, Tobiassen said.
No light rail construction activity has been done on the line near the campus yet. Construction isn’t supposed to begin on the Montview Boulevard light rail until spring 2014, according to RTD’s website.
The proposal to move the light rail to Fitzsimons Parkway also comes with concern that the move would impact accessibility to the campus, especially for disabled people.
RTD board members themselves are concerned about the issue.
“If we don’t have something in place to transport people from that station to those hospitals, I think we’d be doing our citizens a disservice,” said RTD board member Barbara Deadwyler, whose district includes Aurora, at the meeting June 11. “I want assurance that something will be in place to move those people.”
RTD officials have said plans for a shuttle bus are in the works, which would transport people from the proposed Fitzsimons Parkway station to the campus. Rogoff said the move to Fitzsimons Parkway would be unfortunate for disabled patients.
“It makes the hospital even less accessible,” Rogoff said.
Rogoff and other veterans have been lobbying since September 2012 for a bridge from Colfax Station to the future Veterans Affairs Hospital to accommodate disabled veterans. The Colfax light rail station will be about half a mile away from the hospital, the same distance away from the campus as RTD’s proposed Fitzsimons Parkway station.
A bridge from the Colfax Station to the VA Hospital is even more important now, since it could transport all disabled patients going to the campus for doctors’ appointments.
“This absolutely strengthens my argument,” he said.
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com.