Some Denver-area mayors warned Tuesday that if RTD asks voters next year to double the FasTracks sales tax to get the project built by 2017, all rail lines must be constructed as promised.
“It better be more than happy talk; it better be legally binding,” said Thornton Mayor Erik Hansen.
Metro Denver voters approved a 0.4 percent sales tax in 2004 to build six new rail lines and other transit improvements, but the Regional Transportation District’s most recent finance plan shows the agency is short $2.3 billion to get the whole FasTracks project built by the planned completion date.
Higher construction costs have contributed to the gap, but plummeting sales-tax revenues are the most troubling aspect of the FasTracks deficit.
On Tuesday, Denver Regional Council of Governments consultant Ray Murphy said: “We consider (RTD’s) sales-tax growth forecast to be the greatest challenge in the financing plan.”
That plan assumes voters will agree to raise the FasTracks tax to 0.8 percent, beginning in January 2011, to stay on the 2017 construction schedule.
In the past, RTD has said that some FasTracks trains — including the Northwest line to Boulder/Longmont, the North Metro line to Northglenn/Thornton and the train serving the Interstate 225 corridor in Aurora — might have to be shortened initially if more money is not raised for the project, while construction of the train to Denver International Airport and other FasTracks elements advance.
Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer said those who live in the Northwest, North Metro and I-225 corridors need assurance that they will get finished rail lines if “we put in more money.”
Hansen said voters should get a pledge: If the FasTracks tax increase passes and the lines are not built as promised, “we will give you your money back. I guarantee that’s what my voters are saying.”
RTD’s plan is to ensure that all FasTracks lines are “shovel ready” — with environmental studies and preliminary engineering complete — for construction to start shortly after voters approve the sales-tax increase in November 2010, said interim general manager Phil Washington.
RTD most likely will not be able to secure $1 billion in federal money for the DIA and Gold Line (Arvada/Wheat Ridge) trains until early 2011, but the transit agency hopes for an interim agreement with the Federal Transit Administration that could bring an early down payment of “at least tens of millions of dollars” on the billion-dollar grant so construction of the airport train might start by next summer, said Bill Van Meter, RTD’s planning chief.
Last week, RTD board members said the DIA train should be the next FasTracks line built. The West Corridor light-rail line to Golden already is under construction.
