The Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) released on June 28th, 2013, a Request for Proposals (RFP) to design and build the North Metro Rail Line. This comes after RTD determined that an unsolicited proposal received in February by Graham Contracting Limited has technical merit, thus providing RTD the opportunity to accelerate its bidding process for potentially building the line.

In January, RTD announced it would release an RFP in October to build the North Metro Line up to 72nd by refinancing some of the agency's debt, issuing new sales tax bonds and using available local funds. After receiving Graham's unsolicited proposal, RTD staff spent about a month conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the proposal consistent with the agency's Unsolicited Proposals Policy and determined that the proposal had technical merit, allowing RTD to move up the RFP release by four months.

The deadline for proposals is September 23. RTD staff will make a contract recommendation to the RTD Board in late November. Construction is planned to begin in 2014.

The North Metro Rail Line is an 18.5-mile electrified commuter rail line that will connect Denver and Adams County by serving Commerce City, Northglenn and Thornton, and is part of the FasTracks program.

FasTracks is RTD's voter-approved transit expansion program to build 122 miles of commuter rail and light rail, 18 miles of bus rapid transit service, add 21,000 new parking spaces, redevelop Denver Union Station and redirect bus service to better connect the eight-county District. For more information, visit www.rtd-denver.com and click on the FasTracks tab.

RTD said it is also open to proposers' innovative solutions to completing other unfinished FasTracks projects.