Metro mayors talk tough on FasTracks
August 20th, 2009
Tuesday the Denver Post reported some pretty tough talk from Denver metro area mayors about RTD’s FasTracks boondoggle. The rail project which is facing more than a $2 billion funding shortfall continues to show failures of management and yet area politicos seem bent on supporting it to its bitter end.
Aurora mayor Ed Tauer and Thornton mayor Erik Hansen continue to be two of the more vocal members of the metro area mayors group and insist that the rail project be completed fully and on time. Tauer wanted assurances that if voters approved a doubling of the tax increase and billions more funding lines such as the I-225 corridor and the north corridor through Thornton would be completed. Hansen told the Post, “It better be more than happy talk; it better be legally binding.”
That all sounds great but what if voters approve the additional funding and the project can’t be completed? What recourse do the cities have? Absolutely none and it is the Denver metro area taxpayers who are going to have to foot the bill.
It is beyond comprehension that anyone thinks that RTD, with their long history of failures, can complete this project even at the new budget.
RTD makes the claim that they completed their prior rail lines on budget. This is of course a complete fallacy. The Southwest light rail line cost 28 percent more than initial estimates and the Southeast line cost 59 percent more. Why would anyone think FasTracks would be any different?
The district woefully underestimated costs and revenues when they first sold the project to voters in 2004 promising the project would be completed by 2017 at a cost of $4.7 billion. That of course is simply not going to happen. Budget estimates climbed and climbed and each time RTD said they had the numbers right finally. And yet, just last week, DRCOG released an independent study saying that RTDs estimates were “overly optimistic.”
As we said at the time, if RTD can’t even get the math right, what makes us think they can manage the $8 billion FasTracks boondoggle?
It is also important to note that RTD is now counting on receiving $1 billion in federal funding for the DIA and Gold Lines of the project. With the current state of affairs in Washington D.C., is it wise to count this money before it is in hand? What happens if voters approve the tax increase and the federal grants don’t come through or are less than the amounts projected?
Again, why does anyone think RTD can get this project done? Honestly, would someone please tell me why, given RTDs history of failures, they believe a voter approved increase in 2010 is going to solve this project’s problems?
Related:
One of the key features of any marquee city is a modern and efficient mass transit system. Denver has been fighting its ‘cow town’ image for decades and FasTracks will be another step to shed that image.