RTD directors are considering replacing outgoing General Manager Cal Marsella with two top executives, one to manage the agency’s current bus and rail system and the other to manage FasTracks, RTD’s financially troubled transit expansion project.
A “FasTracks Project Executive,” if selected, would report directly to the board of directors and not to the second executive, who would head daily transit operations, director Bill Christopher, a member of the committee charged with finding Marsella’s successor or successors, said at Tuesday night’s board meeting.
Late last month, Marsella said he will leave the Regional Transportation District’s top post on July 31 after 14 years in that position.
Marsella, whose base salary is about $300,000 a year, is credited with leading RTD’s expansion over the past decade and a half, generally bringing in light-rail projects on time and on budget.
With FasTracks, however, he and RTD have stumbled badly, hurt by a weak economy that has reduced sales tax revenues — the key funding source for the $6.9 billion project — and a corresponding rise in construction costs for the project over original estimates.
Marsella’s departure gives RTD’s board an opportunity to seek out a skilled construction executive who might be able to “ramrod” the huge project to completion, Christopher said.
“We have a $2.2 billion funding gap that has to be addressed immediately,” added director Lee Kemp, about the shortfall in FasTracks funding — another task for Marsella’s successor.
Also at Tuesday night’s board meeting, RTD officials said they are exploring another possible site for a commuter rail maintenance facility — one that would not require acquiring an operating Owens Corning roofing products plant at 52nd Avenue and Fox Street in Adams County.
Owens Corning executives say it might cost RTD as much as $80 million to relocate their factory.
