Suddenly, almost magically, the number of people expected to use the proposed FasTracks lines north of Denver and in Aurora is about twice what was previously thought.
It’s awfully good news — and awfully convenient — for the cash- strapped Regional Transportation District as it continues to seek federal funding for the light rail and commuter rail systems.
We’re a bit skeptical about the new ridership estimates, however, as well as anxious about what they might mean.
We’re skeptical because over the past year, we’ve watched RTD come to grips with the fact that some earlier estimates used to sell voters on the multimodal transit system were way off. The reality has been that RTD’s projections for the cost to build FasTracks were too low, and its estimates for how much tax money it would collect were too high.
We’re anxious because RTD’s new general manager, Phillip Washington, has promised to be more accountable on estimates used by the agency than his predecessor was.
If RTD hopes to convince voters that a second hike in the regional sales tax is warranted to complete FasTracks, it will be imperative that he keep that pledge and offer voters realistic projections.
The new ridership calculations come from the Denver Regional Council of Governments, not RTD. Analysts ran a computer model of proposed FasTracks lines for the long term — out to 2035 — but used some new data that hadn’t been considered when RTD took its sales tax increase to voters in 2004.
The new estimates for the line to Thornton-Northglenn jumped from 13,100 riders per day to 24,100. The Boulder-Longmont estimates went from 8,400 to 17,400, and the Interstate 225 line in Aurora went from 17,900 to 34,200.
The increased ridership projections are attributed to new land-use and population data that were provided by local governments, according to The Denver Post’s Jeffrey Leib.
Note that modeling is tricky, and not an exact science. But if you want realistic results, you’ve got to enter realistic data.
Meanwhile, the local governments supplying the new data have been grousing for months that DRCOG’s old estimates were too low. And RTD missed a chance to win hundreds of millions of federal transportation dollars, those governments contend, because the old estimates were lacking.
With these new projections in hand, RTD stands a better chance at future attempts to win federal tax dollars. Obviously, we want the northern districts to have the best, most realistic ridership numbers available. It could be that when DRCOG ran the numbers in anticipation of the 2004 tax vote, it relied on overly conservative data.
But if that’s the case, it’s a rare exception to the other projections RTD accepted, which proved too optimistic.
RTD needs to review these numbers carefully.
