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Originally Posted by bunt_q
You keep saying this, but I am not sure what reality you are living in. I have seen an awful lot of City projects get cancelled this year because there isn't enough money.
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Not exactly true. New bond issuances have been delayed due to instability in the bond market. Pricing makes a huge difference so they're actually very smart to delay things and try to hit the most favorable bond market timing.
Don't look now but the city "budget" (which itself is surprisingly difficult to define) has actually swollen due to pass-through FEMA/Covid resources, and despite the $250 million shortfall against traditional revenue sources.
That last point was a bit of a red herring but the overall point is that money isn't a problem in the big picture, and that it's difficult to define due to all of the various revenue streams, bond issuances, PPPs, let alone what is and isn't included in the city budget.
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You've mentioned value capture a couple times. While that would help defray some of the hit to the City longer term (maybe you could reduce the long term tax to cover O&M somewhat), there's really no good way to capture that upfront to cover initial capital costs of the project. Certainly not at this quantum. Some folks get paid a lot of money to go around the country bursting the dreams of people who think value capture will solve their problems. It's tricky, and even in the best case requires substantial credit support. (Best recent example is probably Chicago and their use of TIF.) Moynihan Station in New York didn't even pencil on value capture alone - and that was with 1,000,000 square feet of facebook office space sitting on top - it still needed state support.
When you say confront Denver's biggest problems head-on... who has the political capital to take something like that to the voters? Nobody I know of in City politics today.
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You're right. There is nobody with enough political capital right now.
We seem to generally agree that 1) it's preferable to deal with new mass transit investment here in 5-10 years as opposed to NOW, 2) Denver will be better positioned at that time for grade separated mass transit that actually gets people out of their cars; and 3) this will require at least a half-dozen funding sources and regional participation is probably out of the question unless there's something in it for Arapahoe/Adams/Jeffco/Boulder.
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Originally Posted by TakeFive
Let me Google that
Cities by population in 2020- Austin - passed the One Million mark in 2020
- Dallas - 1,350,000
- Denver - 750,000
City Infrastructure funding programs
Rail transit ridership - According to the 2019 Fourth Quarter Report from APTA
Light Rail Average Weekday Ridership - Austin - None
- Dallas - 92,000
- Denver - 95,300
Commuter Rail Average Weekday Ridership- Austin - 2,200
- Dallas - 7,200
- Denver - 40,000
Combined Light and Commuter Rail Average Weekday Ridership- Austin - 2,200
- Dallas - 99,200
- Denver - 135,300
NOTE: Denver has 33% more rail ridership than Austin and Dallas combined. Also note that Dallas has 80% more population than Denver; Austin has 33% more population than Denver.
Since transit systems serve the metro areas, the MSA populations are:- Austin/Round Rock - 2,250,000
- Dallas/Ft Worth - 7,750,000
- Denver - 3,000,000
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You're missing the point. Dallas and Austin are
not successful urban planning models and my point was we can at least spend as much money as those cities. They are the bleak future that awaits us if Denver does not take a more active role in its own transformation.
When I have heartburn over how little Denver has to show for $7 billion in FasTracks, which should have resulted in less cars not more cars, at least we haven't flushed as much money down the drain as DART.
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