For quite some time, the Northwest Rail corridor stakeholders have been waiting to hear the results of direct negotiations with Burlington-Northern over the cost of running rail service along their tracks between Denver and Longmont.  Well, the numbers are in and . . . they are big. We learned that the full cost of getting [...]

By now, you’ve probably read the coverage regarding last night’s decision by the RTD Board to accept most of the staff proposed transit service cuts.  If not, you can catch two of the stories here: Daily Camera:  RTD holds firm on bus route cuts in Boulder County; and, Denver Post: RTD board approves transit cuts [...]

RTD is in the midst of wrestling with budget challenges that are forcing the agency to consider a proposed $12 million in bus and rail service cuts.  The initial menu of cuts that staff presented attempts to eliminate low performing routes and run periods while considering a variety of other factors, such as regional equity.  The full staff [...]

As the Denver Post reported on Monday, ”RTD delays decision on how much to request from taxpayers,” the RTD Board decided to wait until its March 8 meeting before making a final decision on seeking a proposed tax increase for FasTracks in 2011.  The primary reason for this delay is the notice we received from some [...]

In one of the more audacious knocks to regional cooperation, Denver is making a bid for taking $7 million in funding away from transportation projects in Boulder County in order to cover the cost of their $25 million in desired improvements at the intersection of Peoria Street and Smith Road.  Here is the full story, [...]

To those of you who are tired of loging into my District O web site every day to see if there are any new posts (and I know there must be somebody like that out there ( : ) . . . You can now get post alerts via Twitter.  Just click on this link [...]

As expected, RTD staff offered their proposal at the end of last month for speeding completion of the FasTracks program.  The full staff presentation is available here:  Annual Program Evaluation ( I addressed some of this material in a previous post).   In summary, their initial recommendation is a modest increase in the FasTracks sales tax of 0.2%.  With public support [...]

I have received great input from a number of local citizens regarding the two significant FasTracks decisions the RTD Board will be making in the near future associated with the distribution of remaining FasTracks dollars and whether to pursue additional sales tax funding.  I thank you for this continued input and, in the words of former [...]

For quite some time, RTD has suffered from lagging sales and use tax revenue that has forced the agency to make significant reductions in its operating budget, including painful service cuts.  In total, RTD’s base annual bus service hours have dropped about five percent since 2008, from a high of 2,823,000 to the current level of 2,682,000 hours.  [...]

As I stated in my recent newsletter, I need your input on two important decisions associated with the FasTracks program that the RTD Board will confront at the beginning of 2011. First, the Board needs to allocate an anticipated $305 million in remaining funds from the innovative public-private financing, construction and operations arrangement for the two [...]