As anticipated, the May 19 RTD Board retreat was a real seminal moment for the FasTracks program. 

For the better part of five hours, staff explained why FasTracks is expected to exceed its original budget projections. The total cost increase is $1.45 billion, consisting of $1.03 billion in additional labor, materials and right-of-way acquisition expenses, as well as an added $420 million to address new system design elements. Couple these cost overruns with decreasing sales tax revenue, and the FasTracks program is in quite a financial pickle.

A more thorough summary of current the budget picture and the complete staff presentations from the May 19 retreat are available at: http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/main_83.

At this point, RTD Board members and Staff are committed to ensuring that we deliver the promised FasTracks plan within the current funding model. We will need to make some hard decisions in the near future, however, to address the added costs.  This includes possible “value engineering” measures and/or some creative financing mechanisms. 

One possible mechanism for achieving the FasTracks goals while enjoying possible cost savings is through some form of privatization. Privatization can take many forms and combinations.  For example, RTD used a design/build privatization model in its work on the T-Rex project.  The organization also has experience contracting with private entities for the operation and maintenance of bus service. There even is the option to combine all of these service development and implementation elements into a single privatization contract.

The RTD Board will be exploring these various cost-savings measures in the next few months. I would love to hear from you, particularly regarding your thoughts on potential privatization models.