RTD obviously is in a pickle.
The transit agency promised metro area voters in 2004 that if they approved a 0.4 percent sales tax hike, it would create the nation’s most ambitious transit and rail project. But because of lagging sales tax revenues and higher-than-projected costs, RTD needs another infusion of taxpayer cash to finish the massive FasTracks project by 2018.
If voters don’t agree to another tax hike, the project won’t be completed until 2042 — almost 40 years after voters approved the first hike. That’s a ridiculous timeline. Who knows what other technology might be available to move people from place to place in 2042 — and RTD still would be eking out its 2004 light rail?
However, given the outcome of the recent election and the grim forecasts of an anemic, jobless economic recovery, it seems unlikely to us that voters in 2011 will agree to double the existing 0.4 percent sale tax for FasTracks.
Waiting until 2012 to ask voters for a tax hike is politically tricky as well. If the prevailing public mood regarding federal spending continues, a conservative, anti-tax wave could be cresting in 2012, just in time for the presidential election.
FasTracks needs roughly $2.3 billion more to build all the elements promised to voters in 2004. RTD’s board of directors will decide in February whether to seek a tax hike in 2011. The board last week was presented with an array of options:
• A 0.1 percent tax increase would get 35 percent of the remaining program built by 2020 and the full project constructed by 2035.
• A 0.2 percent hike could complete 65 percent of the currently unfunded elements of its FasTracks transit project by 2020. The full program could be finished by 2027.
• A 0.3 percent increase next year would yield enough money to construct 75 percent of the unfunded elements by 2020 and get the full project finished by 2022.
• And only if voters double the existing sales tax — a 0.4 percent hike — could the full program be built by 2018.
Given the new makeup of Congress, we’re guessing federal grants will be harder to come by over the next few years. Yet without a substantial tax hike, there soon could be a battle between metro area mayors as RTD is forced to decide whether a few end up with little or no additional transit to their communities. That would be an unfortunate, since they’ve been paying the tax.
We don’t know exactly when the optimal time is to ask for a big tax hike, but it looks as if the next two years could be rough. Regardless of when, RTD should plan to keep the request as low as possible while also figuring out ways to hold down the total cost, include curtailing service on some lines.
FasTracks can’t be left unfinished, but voters will need to be sold on whether now is the time to invest further in a project that has turned out to be a boondoggle of sorts.
It could be a tough sell.
