Friday, April 24, 2009

RTD's FasTracks problem

One of my main problems with RTD is their failure to properly forecast problems before they happen and their subsequent inability to adapt when what they though was supposed to happen ends up false.

Take this article in yesterday's Denver Post. RTD is trying to use eminent domain on a shingle plant in north Denver so they can build a sprawling maintenance facility there. The problem with this proposal in that according to workers at the shingle factory, they would take years not months to properly move the facility at a cost of $80 million. 

RTD disputes those claims, but doesn't actually have any analysis of what they think the move would cost, waiting until this fall when the Environmental Impact Study of the Gold Line is completed. But the plant represents another costly and time-consuming obstacle to the completion of FasTracks at a time when RTD can scarcely afford one. Not to mention the fairness of putting the jobs at the shingle factory at risk. 

And the reality is this has everything to do with RTD's inability to anticipate the realities of a large and complicated infrastructure project. RTD first wanted its maintenance facility to be acquired from Union Pacific land, but that proved too costly. Then the agency wanted in near the new River North developments next to Brighton Boulevard, but after the developers decried the plan, RTD is trying for the shingle plant, which may be just as intractable as the other sites. Of course the real reason it needs the maintenance facility in the first place is that RTD now will be using commercial rail cars instead of light rail for the vast majority of the newly-built lines. Many of the lines were originally supposed to be light rail, but had to change most of them to commercial rail once Union Pacific told them light rail cars would be too dangerous to operate next to the heavy freight lines. So now RTD has to scramble to build a huge maintenance facility for these new trains. Poor planning, don't you think?

It's an unfortunate reality now that the FasTracks voters passed in 2004 is turning into something more expensive and complicated now that it is being built. The shingle plant is just the latest obstacle of RTD's making that could further delay or increase costs in an already bloated plan. RTD wants voters to approve even more money to FasTracks in November. But with a bad economy and constant signs that RTD doesn't know what it is doing, will voters endorse that?

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