RTD officials presented three scenarios Tuesday night for finishing the financially strapped FasTracks transit expansion, with different completion dates for the project depending on how large a sales-tax increase the agency asks voters to approve.
One option presented by Regional Transportation District planners to the board of directors would ask voters for a 0.4 percent tax increase this year or next to complete the entire $6.7 billion project, including the North Metro commuter-rail line to Thornton/Northglenn and the Northwest train line to Boulder/Longmont, by 2019.
However, some business and government leaders in the area question whether the public will approve a doubling of the existing 0.4 percent FasTracks tax, especially in an uncertain economic climate.
An alternative offered by the RTD staff would ask voters to approve a 0.2 percent tax hike in November, with the aim of getting as much as 90 percent of FasTracks built by 2022 and the full program built by 2027.
If RTD went this route, the agency would likely market the 0.2 percent tax vote as an “extension” of the existing 0.1 percent Metropolitan Football Stadium District tax — which expires at the end of this year — coupled with a net increase of another 0.1 percent.
The final option would ask voters to support only a 0.1 percent increase, in effect substituting the new levy for the stadium tax.
An increase of 0.1 percent would allow RTD to build up to 81 percent of FasTracks by 2022 and get the full project completed by 2035, staffers told board members.
Under all three tax scenarios, RTD would begin to construct interim FasTracks elements early using about $305 million in identified funds. These elements include:
• Spending $90 million to ensure that HOV/HOT managed lanes on U.S. 36 will be extended from Pecos Street to the Interlocken commercial complex instead of stopping at Wads worth Parkway.
• Using $90 million to extend light rail in the Interstate 225 corridor from the current terminus at I-225/Parker Road north to East Iliff Avenue.
• Building the North Metro rail line from Union Station to its first stop near the current National Western stock show complex, also at a cost of $90 million.
• Building a $17 million park-n- Ride site in Longmont that eventually will serve an end-of-line station for the Northwest train.
RTD planning chief Bill Van Meter told directors that Federal Transit Administration officials have suggested that RTD would be a good candidate to win federal funding for another FasTracks rail line if the agency selects either the 0.2 percent or 0.1 percent tax hike, each of which push full project completion beyond 2019.
RTD is close to securing a $1 billion FTA grant for FasTracks trains to Denver International Airport and Arvada/Wheat Ridge, and it’s unlikely the federal agency would be able to contribute significantly to another FasTracks project before the end of this decade.
At RTD’s Jan. 25 meeting, the public will be able to comment on the three tax scenarios.
