The need to find more money for completing all FasTracks rail lines by 2017 is expected to get even more acute today as RTD is updated on costs and revenues.
Last summer, RTD said the cost of building six new train lines and other FasTracks elements had jumped to $7.9 billion, yet the agency said its revenue forecast identified only about $5.8 billion for that construction by 2017.
Today, RTD is expected to revise its construction cost estimate down, perhaps by as much as $1 billion — reflecting a steady decline in the cost of construction materials.
However, some officials close to the number-crunching say declining sales-tax forecasts mean RTD’s estimate of the money it will take in to build FasTracks by 2017 will drop even further, expanding the $2.1 billion gap between cost and available revenue from last year’s estimate. Jeffrey Leib, The Denver Post
