By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

An RTD board committee gave preliminary approval Tuesday evening to a financial plan for FasTracks that keeps the option open for the time being of asking metro Denver voters for a second sales tax increase in November.

But several members were clear they think that option is not realistic.

The full board is expected to make a decision sometime in March or April whether it will take the plunge into the November 2010 ballot to seek a sales take hike of up to 0.4 cents to close a $2.45 billion funding gap and allow the transit agency to build the $6.5 billion rapid transit expansion by the original 2017 completion date.

But just in case, the board’s FasTracks Monitoring Committee – consisting of the full board, although three members were absent Tuesday evening – recommended a Plan B. That was to develop a financial plan for the program based on putting off going to voters until 2012.

Approving the current financial plan that assumes voters will approve a tax hike this fall was purely a placeholder measure. Board members made it clear they aren’t ready yet to make that call, and are hearing from constituents that they shouldn’t try it until the economy shows betters signs of a solid recovery.

In fact, several board members balked at seeming to send the wrong message by giving the public the impression a 2010 election was a go.

“I think we need to be extra sensitive now we word this so it doesn’t send the wrong message,” said board member Bill Christopher of Westminster.

“The message that has to be sent on this is that this board has not yet made its decision,” added Jack O’Boyle, a board member from Lone Tree.

Julie Skeen, manager of program-wide support for FasTracks, told them to think of the staff recommendation to keep the 2010 vote as an option if only because the board hasn’t decided either way.

“It’s simply there so as not to preclude you from making that decision,” she said.

Bill Van Meter, RTD’s planning manager, said it is important for the board to approve a financial plan in order to submit the data to the Denver Regional Council of Governments, which does an annual review and approval for the FasTracks program in the spring.

RTD’s calendar calls for a decision on a 2010 election by April at the latest, due to various deadlines for other activities that need to happen if the decision is yes.

Waiting until 2012 to go to voters would add an estimated $400 million to the price tag through inflation caused by the delay. It changes some of the original assumptions of the program and could lead to attrition of the program staff during the interim.

“We are working in very aggressive fashion to determine, if we do go in 2012, what else we would have to do in that case,” said RTD General Manager Phil Washington.

Of course, the projections in both the Plan A and Plan B financial plans assume voters say yes. RTD board members and staff are hearing a lot of cautions from the community that such an assumption is overly optimistic.

On the other hand, RTD’s projections show that with the impacts of the recession and the precipitous drop in sales tax revenues, if it were to have only the revenue from the initial 0.4 cent sale tax approved in 2004 – along with federal grants and other resources assumed in that 2004 plan – it would now take until 2042 to complete all 10 FasTracks rapid transit corridors.

FasTracks consists of four new heavy-rail commuter train corridors, two new light rail corridors, extensions to three existing light rail corridors and one Bus Rapid Transit corridor, on U.S. 36.

With existing revenue trends and no new tax, RTD says it can only project completing the West Corridor light rail now under construction in Denver, Lakewood and Golden, Phase One of the Bus Rapid Transit improvements that are well underway on U.S. 36, conversion of Denver Union Station into the FasTracks rail hub, the East Corridor heavy-rail commuter line to Denver International Airport – and, perhaps, the Gold Line commuter rail to Arvada and Wheat Ridge.

Left without sufficient funds for completion would be the Northwest Rail commuter corridor to Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont, the North Metro commuter corridor to Commerce City and Thornton and the Interstate 225 light rail corridor in Aurora, as well as the extensions to the Southeast Corridor, Southwest Corridor and the original Central Corridor light rail lines.