Tuesday, March 17, 2009

More taxes for RTD?

On Wednesday, several Metro Area mayors tentatively approved a ballot measure that would ask taxpayers in November to double the sales tax to complete FasTracks on schedule. As many of you know, FasTracks has a $2.2 billion construction deficit that might forestall the completion of the transit system

Last Sunday, two columns appeared in the Denver Post one by RTD Director Lee Kemp and the other by Kevin Hoist. The columns were about whether and how RTD's FasTracks system should be implemented. Kevin Hoist argued in part that since RTD has already mismanaged the implementation of the system (not to mention its own services), maybe we need to consider taking FasTracks away from RTD management before we even consider a tax increase. Kemp just blathered on for nine paragraphs about the need for more transit, but did not even try to say why RTD should deserves to manage it or what RTD is going to do to make sure the system is not faced with even more inept planning.

As it stands now, RTD will only be able to build the West Line that is already under construction, the DIA line that has significant federal funding and probably most of the Gold Line to Arvada which is the next closest to being ready as it will travel mostly on rail that is already built. There may not be enough money for the other three lines and the expansions to the current lines. And there may also not be enough money to run the lines once they are finally built.

The reason we are in this situation is mostly because of RTD's ineptitude. When they asked voters to approve the plan, they undercut the price and didn't really study the lines enough to understand the difficulty of getting the land they wanted or that they couldn't build light rail next to major freight lines and so the cost went up. And then it went up again because of international spikes in commodity prices. And now sales taxes are down for the recession and because they didn't expect that, they now have less money coming in than they thought they would, meaning they can't take advantage of the lower materials cost.

And now RTD wants to ask for more taxes in a recession to make up for the cost. It's going to be a tough sell to taxpayers. No tax increases even for worthy causes or even industry taxes passed in the 2008 election despite significant gains by more left-leaning politics. This November there won't be a national election to increase voting, so those who vote will most likely be the ones most passionate about the specific issues involved, and I think there are a lot of people who do not like RTD or how FasTracks is going right now.

I am not really one of those Independence Institute types (I suspect Kevin Hoist may be), who think light rail and other transit is a waste of money. I do think that Denver should make investments in its transit infrastructure to really make us competitive with other cities and of course to help alleviate growth, traffic, pollution and many other ills. But RTD has not really proven itself worthy of the public's trust on this. They continue to cut service, and half-ass construction plans because they have no ability to figure out the trajectory of their ambitious plans. They already broke the promise they made to taxpayers

So maybe we should see a smaller FasTracks, or a longer construction time for FasTracks. Or maybe Kevin Hoist is right and we should put another agency in charge of building FasTracks (but who?) and then maybe give RTD control once the lines are finished.

But by November we are going to have to make some of these decisions as a community. What I want is some real options presented clearly. Let the taxpayers and riders decide what the next step is not government or quasi-government bureaucrats who in many ways have already failed us. Let us decide.

2 comments:

Brian said...

You are not being entirely fair to RTD. There were many factors that were out of their hands. First, the Economy flopped and sales tax revenue declined making running the current system much more difficult. The railroad companies were totally uncooperative in making deals on right of ways and maintenance facilities. Material costs have been a roller coaster ride making it hard for any business to operate.

I don't think this means RTD is incompetent, they are just a victim of the times and an easy target.

This is a hard time for any government agency/business/individual. Everyone is having trouble dealing with the baloney that has happened in the last year. Sure, RTD hasen't managed things perfectly. Everyone is criticizing, no one offering any good ideas on how to fix the problem. Just whining and finger pointing.

RTD Watch said...

I think it's both. I think you are right and many of the problems are out of RTD's control. To me the agency's biggest fault is a lack of pre-planning. They fully assumed the railroad companies would accept anything RTD offered them instead of figuring out what the issues were before they asked taxpayers to vote on the package.

To me the best solution is to let taxpayers decide how to continue with this instead of giving the agency another comprehensive tax increase. Let's say we give taxpayers three options in November: 1) to add no more taxes and just let RTD finish what it had the money to do now. 2) to increase taxes by .2 on the dollar to fully finish the system but by a much longer time frame (maybe 2020) 3) to ask for the full .4 on the dollar tax increase to get the entire system up on time.

The reality is that whether through their own fault amd/or through conditions that were out of their control, RTD has broken its promise to taxpayers in regards to FasTracks. And in this crappy economy, taxpayers have every right to scrutinize and put strings attached to the way this pseud-governmental agency works.