Tragic Commuter Train Crash in California Damages Denver Transit System

When Juan Ignacio Alvarez parked his SUV on Glendale, California commuter rail tracks and started to set it ablaze in an apparent suicide attempt, reports the Rocky Mountain News, he didn't just kill eleven people and injure 180, he also set in motion consequences that now block commuter rail expansion in the north of Denver.

Denver's existing light rail system was cleverly designed to take advantage of existing railway right-of-ways, and thus to involve very little land-taking or other difficult governmental maneuvers to gain access to the locations needed to lay the tracks. The system has been developed in phases, and so the time from funding votes to "all aboard" has been fairly reasonable, resulting in fairly enthusiastic ridership, and housing development planned to take advantage of soon-to-be-available transit options, termed "light rail condos."

In the next phase of development, called "FasTracks," mounting concerns over accidents such as Alvarez's have caused a change in the degree of cooperation that the railroads have provided to the RTD, the agency which oversees the public transportation system in the Denver area. The light rail system planned for the northern part of Denver, the next phase, has been redrafted as a "heavy rail" system, more like the commuter rail systems in some communities, because of railroads' demands that the rolling stock used be less vulnerable in case of a collision with railroad stock, reducing the personal injury liability exposure for the railroad companies.