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 [...]

As a follow-up to my April blog regarding progress toward completing the US 36 BRT system, I am please to report that my RTD Board colleagues voted this month to immediately commit $30 million toward further advancing elements of the full system.  This decision is expected to leverage sufficient funds to construct high occupancy vehicle [...]

In case you don’t receive my quarterly FasTracks newsletter (and let me know if you want to receive it in the future), I am pasting below the cover story I wrote about the RTD Board’s decision not to move forward with a 2010 ballot initiative to increase the FasTracks sales tax: ________ Last month, the [...]

Sometimes activity in the US 36 corridor is so fluid, it is hard to know when to provide an update, for fear that it will be outdated by the time I hit the “post” button.  There has been so much positive progress in recent weeks, though, that I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it. First, [...]

I want to express my deep sadness for the terrible loss of life associated with the three recent RTD bus accidents.   I do not have any more detail to offer regarding these incidents beyond what has been covered in recent news reports:  http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14841187.  Investigations into the accidents are ongoing, though, and I will share any new information [...]