DENVER (KDVR) — Denver International Airport is asking for some serious cash for its new train system.
Airport leaders met with Denver City Council on Wednesday to ask for nearly $290 million to upgrade the system and keep it running. It's been an ongoing topic for months: DIA is upgrading its train system, and city council just gave the green light to the plan and its big price tag.
Dave LaPorte is the chief operating officer of Denver International Airport. LaPorte and other leaders from the airport testified before city council, seeking $288.7 million for a contract with Alstom, the company that maintains and operates the tracks where trains run at the airport.
"Those cars have about 1.6 million miles on them now, that really is very close to the end of their useful life and that is why we are replacing those," LaPorte said. "We have 41 train cars and we have the track that has to be maintained every day. So, that is the maintenance side of the operations and maintenance contract. Alstom also operates the train for us. So they are the ones that are making sure the train is stopping where it's supposed to stop and that we have enough capacity in on our system when we need it."
A separate contract for the actual train cars costs about $76 million. DIA had a fleet of 31 train cars, with the goal of expanding to 41 cars over the next year or so. Airport leaders said they have to decommission the old cars in order to bring on the new ones.
LaPorte said the aging tracks and installation of new cars are the culprits behind slowdowns seen at the airport earlier this year.
"We did have some mechanical problems. Most of the issues we had were in relation to the track, rather than the cars. So the new cars being introduced adds complexity to the operations, that had sort of a halo effect to some of the issues that we had. But yeah, most of that was mechanical issues," said LaPorte.
The city council's business committee approved the plan without objection. It now advances to the full council.
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