• Daily Camera:  RTD holds firm on bus route cuts in Boulder County; and,
• Denver Post: RTD board approves transit cuts but keeps some service for blind riders.

The Daily Camera article, in particular, carries two quotes from my comments during our discussion regarding the service cuts.  Specifically, it notes that I said, “[O]ur hands are tied” and “We find ourselves with our backs against the wall.”  All that is true, but it is important to clarify the context for these comments to fully understand the predicament that the RTD Board wrestled with during last night’s debate.

From the very outset of our conversation regarding the 2012 budget, it was clear that RTD was facing a very challenging year.  Staff explained that we could only balance the 2012 budget with either significant fare increases, service reductions or a combination of both.  Since we raised fares almost every year I have been on the RTD Board prior to 2012 and further fare increases would seriously jeopardize access for the transit dependant, let alone drive away discretionary customers, the focus for balancing the 2012 budget fell on service cuts.

This is where I get on my soap box regarding RTD finances.  As I have explained in previous posts, RTD is mired in a funding model that primarily ties our fate to sales tax, a revenue source that is highly volatile and has very little connection to the demand for transit service.  Thus, when the economy is in the tank and sales tax receipts drop, RTD is forced to cut service (or raise fares) during a period when the public often is more heavily dependant on transit and has less capacity to absorb increased transportation costs.  

The goal of the Long Range Fiscal Sustainability Task Force that I chaired this year was to identify operating efficiencies and revenue enhancement that would provide RTD with a more diverse financial base.  The Task Force discovered many promising opportunities, as outlined in its report (which you can read here: Fiscal Sustainability Task Force Report).  As I said last night, I will be riding staff to make sure we follow-up on all of these options.  We need to break out of the paradigm that limits our budgeting options during poor economic times to either cutting service or raising fares!

Unfortunately, most of the opportunities that the Fiscal Sustainability Task Force identified will take a year or more to implement due to the need for legislative authorization and/or further policy analysis.  So, for 2012, we were stuck with limited choices for balancing RTD’s budget.  After holding down employee costs and other discretionary spending, the final budget gap was roughly $10 million, a wide chasm representing about a 9 percent cut in RTD transit service.  It was in this context that I spoke last night of having our hands tied and our backs against the wall.

I could wax eloquently regarding the undeserved hit that Boulder County is taking in the service cuts that RTD staff ultimately proposed to cover the $10 million budget gap.  As I said last night, the staff proposal has terrible consequences for routes that are both heavily patronized and highly popular.  This includes reduced service on route 203 and the BOLT as well as complete elimination of the Superior call-n-Ride and the CC route.  Each of these adjustments is painful and I share many of the sentiments that my constituents offered in opposition, either through their direct e-mails to me or in their public hearing comments.

Of course, my fellow Board members and their own constituents offer similar appeals on behalf of service cuts in their respective districts.  In truth, when you are staring down the barrel of $10 million in service cuts, everyone feels the pain and staff did not spare any corner of the RTD district in its recommendations concerning the most appropriate adjustments to meet the budget target.  I felt fortunate that we were able to reverse a few initial staff recommendations for cuts on such routes as the SKIP and elimination of the DD routes.  Those bright spots aside, it was impossible to attract support from my RTD Board colleagues for sparing further routes in Boulder County while they accepted painful service cuts in their own districts.

As other Board members noted, last night’s vote was one of the most painful they ever cast.  Knowing that we were upholding our fiduciary responsibility to balance the RTD budget did not make it any easier to accept.  The charge now, as I suggested above, is to immediately get to work on building a more stable financial footing for RTD so we can begin to restore the service cuts we were forced to make last night and to meet the growing demand for transit service across the Denver region.

You can read about my initial response to the proposed service cuts in the Denver Post coverage from a recent RTD Board meeting:  “RTD staff backs bus, light-rail cuts to close budget deficit“.   Fundamentally, as I said in the article, the service reduction proposal is the “most powerful rationale for making (RTD’s) revenue stream more sustainable.”  That is why I spearheaded the effort to identify operating efficiencies and revenue enhancements through the Long Range Fiscal Sustainability Task Force.  The Task Force recommendations (which are available here: Sustainability Task Force Report) provide a host of options that the RTD Board and staff are assessing for implementation over the course of the next few years.

In the meantime, as RTD confronts an immediate $12 million funding gap, service cuts and fare increases are the only two significant budget-balancing options.  I have received a great deal of comments regarding the service cuts that RTD staff is proposing and share your concerns about protecting the Boulder area’s high performing local and regional routes.  We must ensure that RTD truly is making the best use of its limited transit dollars, as I explained in a recent Daily Camera article: “Boulder fears ‘profound impact on transit’ — including Skip, Jump routes –from RTD cuts“. 

In the coming weeks, I will be making the case for a more targeted focus on service optimization in the face of necessary service cuts.  I also will work with my RTD Board colleagues to identify funding which will help us maintain the most possible service during these challenging economic times.  Your continued input is appreciated during this analysis period.

In the meantime, others already have weighed-in on this matter.  According to those who responded to initial polling, 58 percent of the public would approve a 0.4% sales tax increase that completes the entire FasTracks system by 2018 (it actually won’t be complete until 2019 under that tax increase scenario).  Most interestingly, public support drops for a lower tax increase rate which takes longer to complete the full FasTracks system.  In the words of David Kenney, the person responsible for the most recent poll, “For most people, the value of time is as or more important than the amount of the tax increase.”

Regardless of what the polling appears to be telling us, the Denver Post is urging RTD to show some restraint.  In their editorial, “Don’t overreach on FasTracks tax,” the Post editors argue that RTD should not double the FasTracks tax in light of other competing public needs.  They even make light of those who are concerned that a lower tax increase will leave folks along the Northwest Rail Line waiting far too long for their promised FasTracks benefits.  “[I]s seven years really such an intolerable delay for a project that was first approved by voters in 2004 and wouldn’t be finished even in the best of circumstances for at least seven more years?”

More opinions on this matter are sure to come from all corners of the Denver region in the next few weeks, but I particularly hope to hear from my District O constituents.   So please feel free to drop me a line or post a response to this blog message.

Denver’s “unprecedented” last-minute bid for funding would upset the scoring system the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) uses to appropriate federal transportation dollars.  This scoring system gives fair weight to funding requests from all communities around the region and includes flexibility to address regional equity concerns. 

Most egregiously, Denver specifically targets funds for Boulder County transportation initiatives in order to achieve its project goals.  This includes funding for enhanced Bolt bus service between Boulder, Lyons and Longmont along with support for the Lyons community Eco Pass program, which could be a model for the region.

In my own testimony last week before the DRCOG Board of Directors, which includes representatives from all cities, towns and counties across the metropolitan region, I registered my strong objection to Denver’s proposal.  By way of comparison, I noted that the RTD Board would lose trust with the citizens if we abandoned our criteria for allocating bus service in favor of arbitrary decisions.  I urged the DRCOG Board to keep trust with the citizens by relying on its established criteria in the allocation of federal transportation dollars.

I am hopeful that rational heads will prevail in next month’s final vote by the DRCOG Board.  It appears some are seeking a middle road that could satisfy both Boulder County and Denver funding goals.  In the meantime, you can register your own thoughts on this matter through the DRCOG web site at:  http://www.drcog.org/index.cfm?page=2012-2017TransportationImprovementProgram(TIP)PublicHearing.

In summary, their initial recommendation is a modest increase in the FasTracks sales tax of 0.2%.  With public support of this tax in 2011, RTD staff anticipates that it could complete the full FasTracks program by 2027.  Unfortunately, due to operations costs associated with the Northwest Rail line, Boulder County’s rail system would bring up the rear under staff’s recommendation.  

As RTD’s representative for the Boulder County area, I find the timing for completion of the Northwest Rail under a 0.2% sales tax increase scenario quite troubling.  That is why I have been pushing staff for a full evaluation of the 0.3% percent scenario, which they failed to do in their initial analysis, and I also continue to consider the option of seeking a 0.4% increase.  I note that the FasTracks Committee of the Metro Mayors Caucus has expressed similar sentiments:  Metro Mayors Task Force Recommendation. 

The RTD Board is expected to make a final decision regarding allocation of the remaining FasTracks dollars and a potential future sales tax hike at the end of this month.  These are pivotal matters for the fate of the FasTracks program, so now is the time when I need to hear from you.  Please let me know where you stand on these issues so I can have the benefit of your opinion when I cast my Board vote.

I want you to be aware that RTD staff has offered their recommendations for distribution of the $305 million in remaining FasTracks dollars.  The full recommendation is available at the following link:  2011 Annual Program Evaluation.  The gist of the staff proposal is to allocate a majority of the funding in $90 million chunks, toward the Us 36 BRT system, the North Line and I-225.  The Northwest Rail Line would receive an infusion of $15 million to complete station improvements in Longmont that also will accommodate bus service.

The 2011 Annual Program Evaluation also features three sales tax increase options, each with different implications for the completion of all transit lines in the original FasTracks program.  An increase of 0.4%, for example, will complete the full program by 2019, whereas we will have to wait until 2035 to see the full system build-out if we only get a 0.1% increase.  Staff will offer a more detailed explanation of these packages at a Board meeting on January 25 along with their preferred alternative.  Obviously, though, the voters will have the final say on this matter, assuming the Board decides to pursue one of the proposed sales tax increase options.  

So, the initial recommendations and options are on the table.  Please continue to offer your input.  In the meantime, I will leave you with one other interesting item which is driving some of my thinking on future FasTracks planning . . . a map that the US 36 Mayors and Commissioners Coalition prepared that highlights the severe inequity between transit infrastructure investments in the southern part of the Denver region as opposed to the north, including Boulder County: Funded and Unfunded Transit Corridors.  Have a look at this yourself and you can probably understand why I will be fighting even harder to secure financial support for the BRT System and the Northwest Rail Line.

This was not a simple vote for the RTD Board, as there is some risk that committing $30 million now will threaten the ability to complete the final design work on the remaining unfunded FasTracks corridors.  However, as RTD staff and most of my RTD Board colleagues agreed, there are many countervailing reasons for taking that risk:

1)  The $30 million from RTD will leverage about $130 million in funding from a variety of other sources toward a total investment in the US BRT system of $160 million;

2)  The communities along the US 36 corridor have been a model of cooperation in RTD’s efforts to secure additional funding sources, culminating in their successful advocacy for additional federal and state support; and,

3)  The investment in US 36 will initiate concrete progress on an element of the FasTracks system, with immediate construction activity that will achieve significant transit benefits.

There are still some elements of the full $160 million financing package that need clarification before we get the final green light to proceed toward construction on this next phase in the US 36 BRT project.  This includes insuring that the private contractor bids for the Eagle P3 project, which will outline the extent of RTD’s financial commit to construction of the East and Gold rail lines, are within budget expectations.  I am confident that all of these pieces will fall into place and we will begin digging dirt in 2011.

In the meantime, I want to extend my thanks to the coalition of local governments along the US 36 corridor that has worked so hard to bring this exciting opportunity to our doorstep.  I also applaud my RTD Board colleagues, particularly Lee Kemp and Bill Christopher who joined me in advocating strongly for the $30 million commitment, that voted to seize this financially responsible opportunity to advance another element of the FasTracks plan.

No matter how you slice it, the news RTD received from the Federal Transportation Administration yesterday is a big leap forward toward realizing the full vision of the FasTracks plan.  You can read about all the developments at the following link: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14345646.  The summary, though, is that the federal government has agreed to take the following steps in support of the East and Gold train lines (collectively known as the Eagle project) and the Union Station project:

     – The President’s recently released proposed 2011 budget recommends $120 million dollars for the FasTracks program – $40 million dollars each for the East Corridor, Gold Line and West Corridor projects. 

     – In addition to these specific funding recommendations, the President’s budget also signals its intent to sign Full Funding Grant Agreements (FFGA) totaling about $1 billion for the East Corridor and Gold Line. 

     – The $40 million recommendation for the West Corridor is part of the full $308 million FFGA approved in 2009. 

     – FTA also announced the U.S. Department of Transportation’s approval of about $300 million in federal loans to help fund the Denver Union Station project.  

Our financial plans always calculated that we would receive this level of federal financial support, but it is great to see it coming to fruition.  The promise of a billion dollars in federal transportation funding was the basis of my agreement to the financial plan that committed RTD to fund the East line with most of the remaining FasTracks dollars we have available for the foreseeable future (which also led to my proposal for the the Regional Equity Compact Resolution:  http://www.johntayer.org/2009/09/19/the-regional-equity-compact-resolution/).  The upshot is that we can now move forward with three substantial elements of the entire FasTracks system.

Of course, none of this funding does anything to finance the two arms of the FasTracks system that are slated for Boulder County, the Northwest Rail line or bus rapid transit (BRT) service.  Securing these resources, without an intolerable waiting period, likely will entail further federal support and/or additional taxpayer funding.  I also will push RTD to explore other creative financing mechanisms and cost-cutting measures. 

However, now that we have a clear path toward financing the East and Gold lines in hand, along with the Union Station development, we know the Boulder County lines will not be competing for additional resources with those FasTracks projects.  The other benefit for our corridor is the confidence the federal government is demonstrating in RTD’s capabilities through these new funding commitments.  This bodes well for further federal support. And it serves as an encouraging vote of confidence for RTD and its ambitious FasTrax project.

Specifically, proponents of the beltway are asking the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) to add a significant roadway link to the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), the Jefferson Parkway.  Getting the Jefferson Parkway in the RTP is the green light the project needs to begin moving toward implementation.  This includes securing the necessary financial support for what is designed to be a privately funded toll road.

You can learn more about the Jefferson Parkway proposal, including the many concerns communities like Golden and Boulder are raising, at the following links:  http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/12/jefferson_parkway_a_weird_disc.php and http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_13895972.  It was many of these same concerns that drove me to testify at the DRCOG public hearing regarding this matter.  Most troubling to me, the Jefferson Parkway will create the need for about $1 billion in additional roadway improvements, beyond what the private sector is offering to handle.   These are unfunded transportation needs that will compete with other critical projects, such as the HOV lanes for US 36 that are the foundation of bus-rapid-transit service between Boulder and Denver.

You can read my public hearing testimony at the following link:  Jefferson Parkway Comments.  The DROCG Board will issue a final decision regarding the proposal to add the Jefferson Parkway to the RTP at its meeting in January.  I am hopeful that they will send the beltway proponents back to the drawing board.

I have been very clear, throughout this recent discussion of proposed service adjustments, that eliminating productive service should be among the last tools that RTD uses to balance its budget.  As I said to my Board colleagues during last week’s committee discussion:  “[Transit] service is our business.  Let’s hold the line on service and keep doing the job that we are sent here to do.”   I am pleased there was overwhelming majority support from my Board colleagues for keeping more transit service on the road.

You can read more about tonight’s decision following Daily Camera story: http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_13605938.