Business, labor, civic and environmental groups from around metro Denver have created the nonprofit Coalition for Smart Transit to help rev up support for RTD’s financially challenged FasTracks project.
Coalition organizer John Huggins told the FasTracks task force of the Metro Mayors Caucus on Wednesday that the new organization is heir to the broad coalition that helped win support in 2004 from metro voters for a 0.4 percent sales tax for FasTracks.
“FasTracks is literally the backbone for regional cooperation,” Huggins told the mayors. “Nothing is more important to our regional economic health than FasTracks.”
The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Denver Partnership are among the organizations in the coalition.
The new coalition will undertake “research, analysis and education” activities on FasTracks that must be done before voters can be asked to support a tax increase for the project, Huggins said.
FasTracks, which includes construction of six new train lines in metro Denver, needs an extra $2.3 billion if RTD is to finish the project by 2017, as planned. Regional Transportation District directors have considered asking voters to approve a doubling of the existing FasTracks tax.
The current FasTracks funding gap may widen when RTD reveals its newest financial plan for the project in about three weeks.
Not long after details of the new plan are announced, directors will have to decide whether to ask voters next November to back the tax increase.
FasTracks proponents estimate they would have to raise about $4 million to run an election campaign in support of a tax increase for the project.
RTD and other FasTracks backers have little margin for error as they assess when is the best time to go back to voters, Huggins said.
“Going to a vote of the people and losing would be a disaster,” Huggins said.
Maria Garcia Berry, an RTD consultant who is providing polling assistance and political advice, told the mayors that next November may not be a propitious time to put an RTD tax increase on the ballot because it may be competing with anti-tax measures.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
