RTD officials on Tuesday presented agency directors with a plan for completing all FasTracks construction by 2017, assuming voters approve another 0.4 percent sales-tax increase to start in 2011 and that RTD gets $1 billion from the federal government for two FasTracks trains.
Under what they called a “best- case” scenario, the Regional Transportation District is hopeful it could “sunset” the additional tax by rolling it back in four 0.1 percent increments beginning around 2022, RTD General Manager Cal Marsella told directors.
Under the timetable presented, sunsetting of the additional tax might end around 2036, he said.
Higher construction costs and lower sales-tax revenues have created a $2.2 billion gap between RTD’s latest price tag for FasTracks — $6.9 billion — and the $4.7 billion it expects to have for building it by 2017.
The nation’s largest transit expansion includes six new train lines in the Denver area and extensions to three existing light-rail lines.
Marsella presented other scenarios to directors Tuesday night, including one that assumes the 0.4 percent tax hike passes but that RTD does not get the expected $1 billion from the Federal Transit Administration for construction of trains to Arvada/Wheat Ridge and Denver International Airport.
Under this option, the entire FasTracks project still could be built by 2017, but “this is a tight financial scenario,” Marsella said. “There isn’t a lot of cushion .”
If RTD gets the $1 billion in federal money but not the tax increase, completion of all of FasTracks would likely stretch until 2034, he said.
Of the most troublesome scenario, in which RTD would get neither the $1 billion from the FTA nor the tax hike from voters, Marsella said: “We call that the doomsday scenario.”
RTD directors are expected to vote this summer on whether to put the FasTracks tax increase before voters in November.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
