DENVER | Transportation Thread

[Mulligan]

Coburn and McCain - shitheads.

Originally Posted by PLANSIT

God, I fucking hate Coburn.

[SnyderBock]

How come none of the Phoenix area transit projects are on McCain's list to strike from Federal Funding? McCain will fail miserably on this.

[llamaorama]

Why is that basically all major transit projects? Why not equally pick out earmarks for wasteful projects both transit and highway based on the merit of the individual projects? Sure, if absolutely necessary I can think of a few LRT projects that aren't super important...

But seriously, putting the DC Metro Silver Line on there? I'd like to know why he believes that project should get slashed in the same bill as "podunk junction bypass project"

[Pizzuti]

What he fails to realize is what a huge number of people would be angered by cutting what would be such a small amount of actual spending within the enormous federal budget. It's like a cup of water in the ocean, but it happens to be a cup of water that a lot of people are waiting and hoping for. A lot of the young idealistic people who end up being swing voters are pro-transit.

Anyway, Coloradans ought to take this personally and make a stink about it. I sure as hell am glad that John McCain didn't win the election.

[SnyderBock]

McCain thinks we need to have safer buses and bus stops for single Latino mothers getting off work at 11pm; with both her fatherless kids at her side, standing at a dark and dangerous bus stop. Sure there's a place for transit, he says. That was on his website when he was running for President.

Again I mention... Phoenix just passed a lot of transit construction projects. Why is he wanting to cut funding to all the nation's top, most important transit projects, but he did not include any of Phoenix, Arizona's transit projects on the Federal funding cut list?

I'm glad he's not President, as you can see he puts special interests ahead of National interests.

[Octavian]

nm

[Giovoni]

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

McCain thinks we need to have safer buses and bus stops for single Latino mothers getting off work at 11pm; with both her fatherless kids at her side, standing at a dark and dangerous bus stop. Sure there's a place for transit, he says. That was on his website when he was running for President.

Again I mention... Phoenix just passed a lot of transit construction projects. Why is he wanting to cut funding to all the nation's top, most important transit projects, but he did not include any of Phoenix, Arizona's transit projects on the Federal funding cut list?

I'm glad he's not President, as you can see he puts special interests ahead of National interests.

Every interest is special.

McCain isn't going to get anywhere with any of this. He showed in 2008 that he had stopped valuing his integrity by picking an anti-any-ideas-at-all luanatic to pander to the rotten part of the party that is eventually going to destroy it. He dissapointed millions of people like me that would have gladly voted for him had he picked an actual Republican for a running mate who resembled him a little more.

John McCain ruined his career last year by ceasing to be "John McCain." I'm certain we should all be worried about transit spending. It makes so much sense to spend money on it almost certainly won't be safe for the forseeable future. But if we lose it it won't be McCain's fault.

[wong21fr]

So..... anyone feel like making bets on whether or not FasTracks will be completed as first envisioned in a timely manner?

I'll give it 3:2 odds that it will happen. But right now there's a lot going against the program.

[Octavian]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

So..... anyone feel like making bets on whether or not FasTracks will be completed as first envisioned in a timely manner?

I'll give it 3:2 odds that it will happen. But right now there's a lot going against the program.

I think only Gold and East corridor will get built since they are the only ones that have funding. And maybe only East, since even the private money and the federal new starts dollars are not a sure thing.

Read the editorial in the Denver Post and visit the fastracks site and read the lessons learned document.

[wong21fr]

^Yep. There's a lot of unknowns that need to play out before the odds improve. But, while new starts needs to be renewed. The 2010 Federal Transportation Bill could change a FasTracks' finances quite a lot if the predictions about a significant increase to mass transit funding prove to be true.

As for the lessons learned. I'm glad to see the RTD decided to conduct design-build on the remaining corridors. RTD simply doesn't have the technical no-how or manpower to do in-house work. I wonder how much money they'll save going with design-build now.

[SnyderBock]

Design-build should bring down their cost estimates by a solid 5-10%, from what I know of it. Giving both the design and construction contracts to the same entity, allows for a discounted rate and for faster completion time; and time = money.

So if it saves 5%-10%, the projected $6.9 billion price tag would go down to between $6.21 billion and $6.555 billion. Anticipated funding is at $4.7 billion before any PPP contribution. They have most recently quoted that they hope to get an additional $800 million from a PPP (instead of the $1 billion they had hoped for in the past).

That would take RTD's budget up to $5.5 billion, leaving them between $771 million and $1.06 billion short.

However, simply eliminating (or postponing indefinitely) the NW DMU line, north of Interlocken and simply extending the BRT from Boulder on to Longmont, would reduce the cost enough to almost put this entire FasTracks budget in check. It could even perhaps allow for the north metro line to be electrified and the NW line to interlocken to be electrified.

[Octavian]

4.7 billion includes the new starts money and the PPP.

[SnyderBock]

I don't think that does include PPP, because they haven't yet committed to doing a PPP, nor have they received concrete estimates as to what the private contribution would bring. If it does include the $800 million from PPP's (as you may be correct), that leaves $3.9 billion from other funds. Minus the $1.1 billion they expect from the feds leaves only $2.7 billion in funds collected via sales tax.

I find it hard to believe that 0.4% of all sales in the 7 county RTD district over the next 20 years or so will only add up to $2.7 billion. It should be much, much more than that. Factor in a projected population increase in this region over the next 20 years by 1 million people, and the sales tax projections should be higher than that. I don't know where they are getting their figures, but I don't think it's reasonable to assume we will be in recession for the next 10 years and that the population will only grow by 12% over the next 20 years.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by Octavian

4.7 billion includes the new starts money and the PPP.

Nope, check page 59 of the 2008 FasTracks DRCOG Report:

http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/media/u...COG_Report.pdf

FasTracks Estimated Capital Sources of Funds Through 2017
( Thousands of Year of Expenditure Dollars)
Source Amount Percentage of Total Cost
Revenue Bond Proceeds 2,085,768 29.8%
COPs Proceeds 77,155 1.1
TIFIA Loan Proceeds 308,086 4.4
Pay-as-you-go Capital 1,824,087 26.1
Federal New Start Grants 1,339,126 19.1
Other Federal Grants 277,791 4.0
Local Match Funding 140,591 2.0
Other Local Funding¹ 32,257 0.5
Public-Private Partnerships 897,807 12.8
Total FasTracks Program Funding 6,982,668 99.8%
Third Party Funded Projects² 17,097 0.2
Total FasTracks Financial Plan 6,999,765 100.0%

¹Other local funding includes state Senate Bill 1 funding and reimbursements from DUSPA for work to be done by RTD at
Denver Union Station.
2This represents third-party-funding for four projects in the West Corridor that are not a part of the base FasTracks plan:
o Federal bridge replacement = $12.9
o Bike bridges at Wadsworth and Kipling = $4.2

[Octavian]

Afraid so. Rtd estimated 5 to 6% revenue growth (because of population growth and economic growth). That 5% was compounding year over year. Since 2004, it has never been that high and this year there could be a 10% decline. Play around with a compound interest calculator to see what that does to revenue.

Also, RTD uses part of the four cent tax in the out years for operations, because RTD only has a farebox recovery rate of around 20%. the more operations they have, the more money they lose. They also have to make interst payments on their bonds. Also, rail capital needs to be maintained and has a life of about 30 years, so by the time 2030 rolls around, RTD will need to replace the oldest parts of the light rail network. The four cent fastracks tax will be with us indefinitely.

So their original revenue estimates were for approximately 14 billion and now they are at 9 (from memory so correct me if I'm wrong) for the projected period (till 2030 I think). It's an open question as to whether doubling the tax wouldproduce enough revenue. I think the revised 2009 estimates will be released on Tuesday.

[Octavian]

Read the section above this. The financial plan assumes voters will approve another 4 cent tax increase.

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Nope, check page 59 of the 2008 FasTracks DRCOG Report:

http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/media/u...COG_Report.pdf

FasTracks Estimated Capital Sources of Funds Through 2017
( Thousands of Year of Expenditure Dollars)
Source Amount Percentage of Total Cost
Revenue Bond Proceeds 2,085,768 29.8%
COPs Proceeds 77,155 1.1
TIFIA Loan Proceeds 308,086 4.4
Pay-as-you-go Capital 1,824,087 26.1
Federal New Start Grants 1,339,126 19.1
Other Federal Grants 277,791 4.0
Local Match Funding 140,591 2.0
Other Local Funding¹ 32,257 0.5
Public-Private Partnerships 897,807 12.8
Total FasTracks Program Funding 6,982,668 99.8%
Third Party Funded Projects² 17,097 0.2
Total FasTracks Financial Plan 6,999,765 100.0%

¹Other local funding includes state Senate Bill 1 funding and reimbursements from DUSPA for work to be done by RTD at
Denver Union Station.
2This represents third-party-funding for four projects in the West Corridor that are not a part of the base FasTracks plan:
o Federal bridge replacement = $12.9
o Bike bridges at Wadsworth and Kipling = $4.2

[wong21fr]

Whoops, my mistake.

Yeah, FasTracks is currently hosed barring some major funding changes.

[SnyderBock]

Well it appears the additional sales tax increase would put RTD's budget into the safe zone for project completion. Even if actual revenue ends up being less that those projections with the additional tax increase, it would seem to be enough to build everything except the Boulder to Longmont part of the NW line. An improved BRT between Boulder and Longmont would be more than adequate and far more cost effective anyway.

I still like the idea that someone here had of making Boulder the hub of a BRT network (Cirrus?). So the DMU would still go to Boulder, but it would be the end-of-line. However, from Boulder would run multiple BRT lines...

-One from Boulder down US-36 to Denver Union Station.
-One from Boulder to Longmont
-One from Boulder to Lafayette
-One from Boulder to Golden

[Octavian]

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

Well it appears the additional sales tax increase would put RTD's budget into the safe zone for project completion. Even if actual revenue ends up being less that those projections with the additional tax increase, it would seem to be enough to build everything except the Boulder to Longmont part of the NW line. An improved BRT between Boulder and Longmont would be more than adequate and far more cost effective anyway.

I still like the idea that someone here had of making Boulder the hub of a BRT network (Cirrus?). So the DMU would still go to Boulder, but it would be the end-of-line. However, from Boulder would run multiple BRT lines...

-One from Boulder down US-36 to Denver Union Station.
-One from Boulder to Longmont
-One from Boulder to Lafayette
-One from Boulder to Golden

Careful there. This sounds like the type of wishful thinking that got us here in the first place. I think it is unlikely that voters will approve a new tax, and the situation will probably look worse come tuesday.

[Strange Meat]

4 cents? that's it? really, who cares about that...

i'm still curious if they've gotten new estimates on the construction, materials, etc, that was all super inflated a couple years back. wasn't that a huge part of the increase in cost? are they locked in to the prices that they were quoted? i'm unfortunately very uneducated when it comes to this process.