Denver's FasTracks holds lessons for NWI

A visionary mass transit project known as FasTracks in Denver shows both the promise and peril of such endeavors and the voter referendums that launch them.

In 2004, Denver voters approved the 122-mile light-rail project and a 0.4-percent boost in the sales tax to fund it, because supporters presented a strong case that it would create jobs and get people where they wanted to go, according to Valparaiso University President Mark Heckler.

"They did their homework," Heckler said of the coalition that pushed the project to passage.

The Valparaiso University president, on the job in Northwest Indiana for a little more than a year, was an interested observer of the ups and downs of the Denver rail initiative. Every week day, he rode the Southwest Corridor train from his home in Littleton to the University of Colorado Denver, where he served in top administrative posts for more than a decade.

Now the next chairman of the Quality of Life Council in Northwest Indiana, which is examining the region's own mass transit initiative, Heckler said he can see that region voters may not be at the same point greater-Denver area voters were in 2004.

"We have to make sure if people are not going to rally behind it, we don't wash our hands of it," Heckler said.

In fact, FasTracks was not approved in one easy step. Denver region voters turned down a previous version known as "Guide-the-Ride" in 1997.

"In 1997, they said you give us the money and trust us," said former Lakewood Mayor Steve Burkholder in discussing what changed between the two referendums.

Supporters spent the next several years building a coalition of business, labor, environmentalists and the mayors of the 32 communities that would be served by FasTracks. And a lot of careful study was done of both costs and benefits, Burkholder said.

Denver region proponents started out with a big advantage in pushing their initiative as compared to the Northwest Indiana mass transit initiative. Here, voters are going to the polls to decide whether to create a four-county regional transportation district with authority to levy an income tax. In Denver in 2004, a Regional Transportation District including city and suburbs already had been in place for decades. It already had its own sales tax.

"They were able to tell people this is what it will do, and this is what it will cost," Burkholder said.

The 2004 vote for building FasTracks and the 0.4 percent hike in the sales tax was 58 percent in favor to 42 percent against.

Denver region opponents of the aggressive rail plan see the coalition that pushed its passage in a somewhat different light.

"You have this incredible axis of evil coming up and pushing light rail: All the guys in neckties who will make money off it and the enviros who do all the soldiering and footwork," said John Caldara, president of the conservative Independence Institute, in Golden, Colo.

Caldara is no mass transit outsider. He was first elected to the Regional Transportation District in 1994 and in 1998 rose to the post of chairman before later being ousted.

He agrees with his opponents that a key to passage of the rail initiative and sales tax hike in 2004 was the comprehensive nature of the plan and the support of mayors.

Proponents pitched the claim they could build it all at once for the quoted price, so no community would get left out, Caldara said. And they pitched it as the solution to traffic congestion on freeways.

Caldara characterizes both claims as "lies."

He is now getting to say 'I told you so' on the first claim. Last year, the Regional Transportation District came out and told the public the sales tax hike they approved in 2004 will not be enough.

It then said another hike would be needed to raise $2.2 billion more. A vote was to take place in 2009, but public officials now have postponed the vote to an indeterminate date in the future.

"This will end up being one of the most embarrassing public works projects in the history of Colorado," Caldara said.

Officials at the Regional Transportation District say declining revenues because of the recession, soaring material costs and tough negotiations with freight railroads are driving costs higher. They argue the first two factors could not have been foreseen, although they admit to having learned a thing or two when it comes to dealing with freight railroads.

The RTD realizes it can't keep going back to voters, so it is making sure it has the right amount of money this time to finish the project, said RTD spokeswoman Pauletta Tonilas. It also will soon be issuing a "lessons learned" report.

Despite the overruns, the RTD maintains that support for FasTracks continues to grow, with the most recent polling showing 83 percent of Denver region voters think it's a good idea, Tonilas said.

And shovels on the project are finally going in the ground with this past summer's launch of the full construction phase of the 12.1-mile West Corridor light-rail line from Denver's Union Station to Golden. That is also the line that will serve Lakewood.

The building of FasTracks has actually been a 30-year project, if you count early pushes in the 1970s for expanded mass transit in the greater Denver region, according to Burkholder. That's when the original RTD sales tax was passed, but voters rejected a plan for an expansive, regional commuter rail system.

"A big question always is, when do you go to the voters," Burkholder said. "It was not a ready, aim, fire issue."