Given the troubling economy, it was quite a stretch to think metro area voters would approve another 0.4 percent sales tax this fall to complete FasTracks.
That’s why we heartened to see that the Denver-area mayors who had been pushing for a November vote have had a change of heart.
The Metro Mayors Caucus now wants to go to voters in November 2010. We expect RTD’s board of directors will concur when it meets next month.
FasTracks is too important to the future of the metropolitan area to be rushed along by a political timetable.
The mayors, of course, are rightly concerned that RTD’s current $2.2 billion shortfall for FasTracks could mean train lines to their towns and cities will be truncated.
Those are real concerns, but timing is everything when asking voters to raise taxes. And besides the down economy, the pending departure of RTD general manager Cal Marsella makes the delay to next year inevitable.
If RTD is able to hire a new director before the fall, which is unlikely, that person would be saddled immediately with pushing a sales tax hike that he or she had no control over.
If they don’t hire someone right away, voters will wonder, as Lakewood Mayor Bob Murphy pointed out last week, exactly who will be the new steward of this additional money.
By waiting until the transit agency can replace Marsella, it gives the new director an important voice in shaping the tax proposal and the future of FasTracks.
In March, when the Metro Mayors Caucus backed a proposal to go to the ballot this year, we acknowledged their anxiousness to finish the project on time but wrote that “patience seems to be the prudent approach in this economy.”
Volatile markets and uncertainties about inflation would have made it very difficult to give voters a credible plan. It’s far better to hold off and let economic conditions settle down before even considering asking metro-area voters for another tax hike.
Remember, it wasn’t even five years ago that voters overwhelming agreed to a 0.4 sales tax hike to fund what was then a $4.7 billion plan to build six new train lines and extend three existing light-rail lines.
Higher-than-planned construction costs, coupled with declining sales tax numbers, have created a $2.2 billion shortfall. Tempting as it might be to try to solve the shortfall by asking for extra revenue right now, we don’t believe voters would go for it.
It could be a tough sell in 2010, as well. It helps that a new director will give the project a fresh look.
Since RTD grossly miscalculated the costs of FasTracks and the amount of sales taxes coming in to pay for it, it will take a years-long, concerted effort to convince voters that a doubling of the tax is the right answer.
