Colorado: Quinn

May 21, 2009 - 10:21 am
NEWS FEED: Denver Post

Metro mayors back year delay on RTD tax vote

Denver-area mayors have reversed course and now favor a year's delay and a November 2010 vote on a sales-tax increase for RTD's FasTracks transit program.

On June 2, the Regional Transportation District board of directors is expected to back the mayors' recommendation and set the vote for next year.

In March, the Metro Mayors Caucus, which includes about 40 area mayors, backed a proposal for a vote in November in the eight-county metro area on a proposal to double the current 0.4 percent FasTracks sales tax.

Such an increase — whether this year or next — would close a $2.2 billion shortfall in FasTracks funding that has developed because of shrinking sales-tax collections and higher-than-planned construction costs.

March 5, 2009 - 05:06 am
NEWS FEED: Denver Post

FasTracks unity derailed

The once-solid coalition of Denver metro-area mayors that unanimously promoted RTD's FasTracks tax five years ago is splintering into camps of potential winners and losers as they grapple with ways to close the project's $2.2 billion budget deficit.

At a FasTracks task force meeting of the Metro Mayors Caucus on Wednesday, Broomfield Mayor Pat Quinn said he cannot support the Regional Transportation District's pursuit of commuter-rail lines to Denver International Airport and Arvada/Wheat Ridge if doing so means the Northwest corridor line that will serve his community is relegated to a secondary position.

RTD is pushing forward the DIA train and Gold Line to Arvada/Wheat Ridge because it expects the two commuter lines will get $1 billion in federal money and a private consortium will build and operate them and bring another $1 billion to the project.