People driving to and from Denver International Airport on Peña Boulevard could be asked to pay a toll to help defray the surging cost of RTD’s FasTracks project, according to officials who are wrestling with ways to close a more than $2 billion funding gap for the program.
As higher vehicle-registration fees embedded in the FASTER transportation bill signed by Gov. Bill Ritter on Monday get consumers’ immediate attention, a less-discussed element — one that allows tolling of existing highway lanes — is seen by some as a way to help.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper floated the concept of tolling Peña Boulevard at a Metro Mayors Caucus retreat, according to Broomfield Mayor Pat Quinn and others who were there.
“Others have posited that as a potential solution,” said Thornton Mayor Erik Hansen, whose community is worried that its FasTracks line — the North Metro train from Union Station to 162nd Avenue — could become an underfunded afterthought to the DIA line and the Gold Line train to Arvada/Wheat Ridge.
Hickenlooper spokeswoman Sue Cobb said the mayor was traveling Monday and was not available to comment.
The Regional Transportation District has said it must complete the airport train and the Gold Line by the original FasTracks completion date of 2017 or risk losing an expected $1 billion from the federal government.
Officials say tolls on Peña Boulevard could be used to help offset some of the cost of the $1.7 billion DIA line, making more money available for other FasTracks lines. About 100,000 vehicles travel in and out of DIA on Peña per day, the airport says.
RTD hopes to get a team of private firms to build and operate the DIA and Gold Line trains and attract at least $1 billion in additional private financing.
Thornton’s Hansen and Broomfield’s Quinn are among mayors worried their FasTracks lines could be shortchanged if money is diverted to bail out future gaps in the budgets of the airport train and the Gold Line.
Quinn and Louisville Mayor Chuck Sisk represent cities in the Northwest rail corridor, a 41-mile train line from Union Station to Boulder and Longmont.
As communities consider tolling of existing lanes to help make up for the FasTracks shortfall, tolling Peña Boulevard “is one of the logical ones that can be considered,” Sisk said.
“This is a metropolitan system we’re building,” Sisk said of FasTracks, “and certainly Peña Boulevard is part of the metro system.”
Peña “gets users from all of the (RTD) district,” he said, adding that tolling the airport-bound artery “is not singling anyone out.”
If a plan to toll Peña Boulevard were enacted, it likely would have to be part of a wider strategy to raise more money for FasTracks, possibly including a sales-tax increase.
The FASTER bill signed by Ritter includes a provision that allows RTD to levy a sales tax “at any rate that may be approved by the board.”
Before FASTER changed existing law, RTD needed to get the legislature’s approval if the agency wanted to hike its sales tax above the current 1 percent.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
