Slow going for FasTracks

Bob Ewegen

These are trying times for the metropolitan Denver Rapid Transit District’s FasTracks rail transit project. The single most important environmental issue in Colorado faces mounting costs, shaky revenues and a fracturing political base. But it remains critical for Colorado’s future.
FasTracks was originally billed as a $4.7 billion project that would build a combined 119 miles of new rail transportation in six projects blending light rail, diesel commuter rail and electric commuter rail lines. Additionally, plans included two bus rapid transit projects from Denver to Boulder and to northern Adams County. Park-n-ride facilities and expansion of existing light rail stations were also envisioned.
Voters overwhelmingly approved FasTracks in 2004. I was a strong supporter and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing for 138 editorials or columns I had written in The Denver Post in support of a balanced transportation system as a lynchpin of the metro area’s future. Have the current setbacks changed my mind?
Not a bit. When we look back from the start of the 22nd Century, I’m confident that Coloradans will see FasTracks as a decision every bit as wise as the decision by city fathers in 1870 to build a railroad spur to Cheyenne after the transcontinental route bypassed Denver for the gentler slopes of Wyoming. If we hadn’t made that investment in a 106-mile spur line, Denver today would probably be a modest regional center like Casper or Sterling. Cheyenne would be the economic engine driving the Rocky Mountain region.
Transportation decisions are the single most important elements in the growth equation because they determine where growth will occur and the nature of that growth. As Robert Caro noted in his epic work “The Power Broker,” such decisions, once made, are essentially irreversible. If multi-lane expressways are hurled willy-nilly into the prairies, those lands will soon become besprawled with low-density subdivisions. Even if rights-of-way are made within those freeways for rail lines later, the density will seldom support such energy-efficient transit.
That’s why FasTracks was so critical. FasTracks has been carefully planned by RTD and cooperating local governments to foster transit-oriented developments such as the “urban village” that now graces the former Cinderella City shopping center at Englewood station. Such gracious and energy-efficient life-styles simply aren’t compatible with the old “one-car, one-vote” way of thinking in Colorado.
But even necessary projects can have teething problems. FasTracks first ran into cost escalation as the economic boom in China and elsewhere sent costs of steel, copper, concrete and other construction materials soaring. That has been partially remedied by the current economic slump, which is bringing some of those prices down again. But a more enduring source of cost escalation was right-of-way and property acquisitions, which helped boost FasTracks to its current $7 billion estimate. Meanwhile, the economic slump was lowering projections for the revenue that would be collected by the 0.4 percent sales tax increase – from 0.6 percent to a full penny on every dollar – that voters approved to launch the project.
Higher costs and lower revenues are now forcing RTD planners to take a serious look at priorities. Barring a radical change in those numbers, there is no feasible way to build all six projects by their original completion dates in 2016.
Some RTD board members and FasTracks boosters have urged keeping all six projects on schedule by doubling down – asking voters for yet another tax increase in 2010 to finance the projects. If nothing else, you have to give those transit enthusiasts credit for giving us all a good laugh. Double a transit tax adopted just six years ago by assuring voters, Lucy Van Pelt style, “This time, we won’t move the football, Charlie Brown. This time, cash without accountability will work miracles!”
And, of course, voters will happily double the FasTracks tax in the teeth of the worst recession since the 1930s. Of course they will.
Hah, hah, hee, hee, har-de-har-har.
Well, that was fun. But now let’s go back to the real world and talk about what RTD will have to do after the 2010 election crushes the tax increase. Could it be that it’s time to set priorities?
In terms of the good they’ll do and the people they’ll carry, all rail lines are not created equal. FasTracks’ premier line is the one linking downtown Denver to Lakewood and the Jefferson County Space Flight Center – er, the county offices commonly known as the Taj Mahal – in Golden. RTD is already digging dirt on this line, which has strong federal support.
Next up is the line from Union Station to Denver International Airport. The Denver Regional Council of Governments has given it strong support and it’s likely to attract federal funding.
Third in priority and likely to make the final cut is the “Gold Line” to Arvada, in part because the strong private sector and local government support.
After those three, the numbers drop precipitously. Finishing just out of the money is the rail line along I-225 that would link the Denver Tech Center, already served by the Southeast light rail line build as part of T-Rex, with the revitalized former Fitzsimmons complex, a modern medical center and job creator that will be served by the line to DIA.
Prospects are even more doleful for the proposed rail lines to north Adams County and Denver-Boulder-Longmont. Boulder-Longmont is rightly the tail-end Charlie of the FasTracks plan because its costs are so high and projected ridership so low that it’s expected to cost taxpayers about $60 per person per trip.
Equally important, Adams County and Boulder-Longmont can be better served by bus rapid transit, at a fraction of the cost of rail and with greater frequency of service.
It’s unfortunate that some rapid transit advocates settle on rail as their preferred choice with an almost religious fervor. And at times, like along the congested I-25 South corridor, rail is clearly the best choice. But the key to rapid transit isn’t that it’s rail – it’s that it’s rapid.
Trains are rapid because they can bypass the car-strangled manner of our freeways on their own rights-of-way. But buses on dedicated Bus Rapid Transit lanes can be equally fast and much more flexible. Buses are equipped with a highly advanced technology called a “driver.”
And drivers can turn off the dedicated lanes and onto feeder streets where needed.
Basically, nobody takes a train from home or work or back. People drive their cars or, sometimes, take a bus to a park-n-Ride. Then they catch the train and get off at the train station nearest their destination. Then they usually have to catch a shuttle bus to get to their office.
Buses, in contrast, can circulate through a neighborhood or office park to pick up riders, whisk them in comfort down dedicated Bus Rapid Transit lanes, then drop them off near their offices or homes. One ride instead of three makes bus rapid transit usually much more rapid than train lines that require catching shuttles like those serving the Denver Tech Center or Boulder.
So if better bus service has to span the gap between the first trio of FasTracks projects and the later ones that will be built as the economy revives, so be it. The important thing is that the Denver area not lose its faith in a balanced transportation system, with trains, buses, vans and car pools helping end the Car Strangled Manner that has been our state anthem for so long.