Here's the text to the Post's editorial. RTD gets too much money as it is, so
as Dennis suggests they are only half right.
Randal
Editorial: Save RTD by leaving FasTracks in the past and increasing sales tax
The Regional Transportation District doesn’t need any more rail lines but it
does need more revenue
The Denver Post Editorial Board
<https://www.denverpost.com/author/the-denver-post-editorial-board/>March 7,
2022 at 6:01 a.m.
The Denver Post’s three-part series on RTD last month
<https://www.denverpost.com/2022/01/30/regional-transportation-district-crossroads-ridership-commuting/>
and Colorado Public Radios’Ghost Train
<https://www.cpr.org/podcast/ghost-train/> podcast that concluded last week,
painted a sprawling Denver-metro area that is on a collision course with
transit catastrophe.
Add to those reports the survey of scientists released last week by the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, worsening the predicted dire
results of unchecked greenhouse gas emissions, and the call to action is clear.
The Regional Transportation District is the key to addressing so many pressing
issues: greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, poor air quality, traffic,
worsening income inequality, and staggering costs of living pushed higher by
rising gas prices.
But RTD is underwater — bogged down with debt, dependent on exorbitant fares
for even the poorest riders, unable to hire and retain employees due to a
legacy of low wages and forced overtime, and cutting back from pre-pandemic
levels of bus and rail services.
The answer of course is simple: Fully fund the Regional Transportation District
with a sales tax increase.
We are not calling for additional infrastructure investments. During this
fragile time, RTD does not need more multi-billion dollar rail projects or
fancy bus shelters and street-scape projects.
Without more funding, the transit agency will be unable to provide the
frequent, reliable and affordable services needed for those dependent on
transit while also enticing more Coloradans out of their cars to save our lungs
and the environment.
The catch, however, is that RTD does not have the track record needed to win
the support of voters. Stung by incomplete projects, frustrated by a parochial
board, and livid at the lack of transparency, Coloradans would not be wrong in
their reluctance to hand over additional funding to RTD.
The transportation district, helmed by the promising new leader Debra Johnson,
has two years to clean up its act, regain trust, and build a proposal for
additional revenue.
In 2025 debt and operations of FasTracks will begin to exceed the almost $400
million raised annually by the sales tax voters approved in 2004. In other
words, FasTracks will begin to drag down the whole system.
That deadline of financial peril is how long RTD has to persuade voters it is
worth saving.
RTD must transform into a lean, mean public agency that is dedicated to
providing every penny possible to services – more frequent buses on a more
robust network, last-mile services that make our rail lines function without a
dependent park-and-ride, and true bus rapid transit run on existing
infrastructure, especially the U.S. 36 corridor to Boulder. The agency has not
been a bastion of transparency, and that must change. If voters are to approve
more funding, they must be told exactly what the money will bring them — no
more shell games or public-private partnerships that disguise true costs.
Colorado lawmakers should reduce the size of the 15-member Board of Directors
so less time is spent fighting for service in each district and more time is
spent addressing the health of the entire system. A smaller board representing
larger areas and a few at-large members would be more able to adjust to the
needs of the agency. We need transit experts, either because they are frequent
users or because they have a background in public transit planning and
management, running the board.
The Denver Post editorial board urges Colorado leaders and voters to sweep the
political barriers aside and simply do what must be done – increase RTD’s sales
tax revenue.
The City and County of Broomfield and Boulder County, which never received the
commuter rail or the robust bus rapid transit promised under the last sales tax
increase, should be exempted from these proposed sales tax increases but
residents should still enjoy the increased services and decreased fares funded
by the increase in other counties. It’s still possible Boulder will get its
rail service only in the form of a high-speed rail that would span from
Cheyenne to Pueblo. Now that we’ve addressed the elephant in the room, let’s
get on with the logistics of saving public transit on the Front Range.
RTD is funded, primarily, by two separate sales taxes that voters in the
eight-county service area have approved over the years and are combined 1 cent
on every dollar spent on most non-food items. Bus and train fares historically
provide only around 15% of RTD’s budget but that revenue source plummeted
during the pandemic and has yet to fully recover, according to The Post’s Jon
Murray who spent months digging through RTD financial and ridership data. Even
with federal stimulus dollars being used to backfill the shortcomings, RTD will
be forced to maintain service cuts and has tabled plans to reduce fares for
low-income riders.
What RTD needs is the funding to: pay off its debts, pay for competitive
salaries for more bus drivers/rail operators, address a backlog in bus
replacements and maintenance, reduce fares equitably, and provide frequent
dependable bus services and rail services with existing infrastructure.
When Colorado voters approved a .4 cent sales tax for FasTracks in 2004, the
understanding was that tax revenue would pay for 119 miles of light rail and
commuter rail — about 80 miles of which have been built.
However, in the coming years, the debt service on the bonds for construction
and operations of those rail lines will begin to exceed the FasTracks sales tax
revenue. The cost of building, maintaining and operating the light rail and
commuter rail will begin to spill over, pulling money from RTD’s base sales tax
that voters first approved in 1973 and have increased to .6 cents over time to
fund the region’s bus lines.
FasTracks overpromised and under-delivered, but that doesn’t mean we should sit
idly by while these legacy projects drag down the entire system.
Voters should be asked to increase the .4 cent sales tax – likely by a tenth of
a cent or two – so that the FasTracks project does not pull from base
operations starting in 2025.
Voters also should be asked in a separate question for a modest increase in the
.6 cent base operations sales tax. This would primarily be to provide
sustainable salaries to RTD employees and to fund an equity effort that will
either reduce fares for everyone or create a low-income fare. Fares now are
some of the most expensive in the country and those most in need of discounted
fares are the least likely to be offered a deal.
If additional funding is not available, then we agree with RTD’s new CEO Debra
Johnson that the best course of action is to focus on core services to the
transit-dependent, rather than attempting to increase ridership.
The stark reality, however, is that our vehicle emissions are contributing
dramatically to the greenhouse gases that are warming our planet. At the
current global rate of warming, large swaths of the world — particularly around
the equator — are likely to be subjected to extreme heat, frequent crop-killing
drought and other catastrophes, while also destroying our biodiversity.
Just serving those who have no other choice, with the bare minimum transit
services, is not acceptable.
Transit must be robust and RTD must not wither. We cannot ask Coloradans to
make irrational decisions for their transportation needs; instead, we must make
public transit an appealing viable option.
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<https://www.denverpost.com/2013/07/09/submission-guidelines-and-contact-information/>
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