Posted on 05/19/2007 10:42:11 AM PDT by george76
FasTracks is nearly $1.5 billion over its original $4.7 billion budget, forcing RTD to look even more closely at hiring private companies to build and operate rail lines.
The new, $6.2 billion total - a 32 percent increase - reflects requests for extras on FasTracks corridors and unexpected spikes in things such as steel, concrete and copper.
"The cost increases in construction materials really whacked us," Cal Marsella, RTD general manager...
One example: the cost of steel to be used in tracks, bridges and other structures went up from an average of 73 cents a pound in Colorado in 2003, when the FasTracks budget was being finalized, to $2.63 a pound last year, a 260 percent increase.
"We've had big hits on capital costs, but we're going to take effective corrective action to bring this program back in line," ...
It won't be simple.
The report shows RTD substantially increasing its borrowing, nearly up to the limit set by taxpayers in the 2004 vote that authorized FasTracks. But that, plus cuts in the original plan and other measures, still leaves the agency nearly $670 million short.
To close that gap, Marsella will propose that the RTD board approve several measures, the biggest of which is to put all of the new transit lines out for bidding by private companies.
Those private partnerships could do everything from designing and building the lines to financing them on their own and taking over complete operations for as long as 50 years.
The move, which wasn't mentioned during the 2004 FasTracks campaign...
The board is meeting today to go over details in the report...
an early draft of the revisions showed the total program could cost $6.5 billion - in 2006 dollars. That would have been close to $8 billion in actual expenditures ...
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
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I bet they are :
” The board is meeting today to go over details in the report... “
Chris Martinez, RTD board
• “If only somebody had warned the people of metro Denver that FasTracks might go over budget, we could have stopped this. Wait, we did warn them ... Now’s the time to pull back and rescind the program and tax, and let RTD come back with a real plan.”
Will the money problems end up costing taxpayers more?
Right, like that’s going to happen.
Caldera is enjoying this whopper of an "I told you so"!
They only missed by several millions of dollars ?
/s
er...
Billions of dollars.
Jon was having an absolute blast this weekend, suggesting we got back to the 1970’s when they promised 93 miles of fixed track transit, which they never delivered. Yet, we keep paying more and more in taxes for pipe dreams.
Did you see that Russell George is now going to allow the study of a train to run next to I-70 ( more millions wasted $$ on another study ) ?
As we know : there are train tracks from Denver to Minturn-Vail to Glenwood already.
Then, we can build several Georgetown loops and several more tunnels ?
Plus, buried in these articles is the fact that sales tax revenues are behind what was budgeted. Now, sales tax collections have made huge increases the last couple of years, which means that at the same time we were being sold a tax revenue "crisis" with Refs C&D, this branch of government was projecting increases in sales tax revenue beyond the best case.
Of course, the MSM "journalists" are swallowing the RTD line without asking the tough questions.
Yep. It sounded like he was basically being ordered to do that by Ritter. Every "study" shows it's not feasible, but the ecotards and nimbys keep demanding it.
That road needed to be widened years ago.
I always suspected that they were light on the costs and over optomistic on the revenue.
That they lied to the voters and that the Denver Post is helping by swallowing again is no surprise.
Russell should have gone back to private practice. He is just further embarrassing himself again.
We agree that we need more lanes...
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