FasTracks: a few billion reasons to embrace transparency
According to a press release from the Independence Institute:
Four years after RTD assured voters that it could build six new rail transit lines for $4.7 billion, RTD continues to deceive voters about the high costs and lack of benefits from its FasTracks plan. Web of Deceptions, a new report from the Independence Institute’s Center for the American Dream, documents sixteen major deceptions that RTD has used and continues to use to encourage voters to raise taxes even more.
A few of the deceptions are highlighted below:
1. RTD spent 28 percent more than its original cost estimate on the Southwest light-rail line and 59 percent more on the Southeast line. Yet RTD continues to insist it has always built its transit projects on budget.
2. Denver’s light-rail lines use more energy and generate more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than the average SUV. Yet RTD maintains that light rail is good for the environment.
3. RTD light-rail trains are the emptiest in the country. RTD wants you to think its trains are full, but in 2007 RTD light-rail cars carried an average of less than 14 people, compared with 24 on light-rail cars in the rest of the country.
4. Denver-area traffic grows more every five months than all the cars FasTracks is projected to take off the road. Yet RTD claims FasTracks will significantly reduce congestion.
5. U.S. light-rail lines built with public-private partnerships went an average of 60 percent over budget. Yet RTD insists that public-private partnerships can save 30 percent on construction costs.
6. By failing to negotiate agreements with BNSF and Union Pacific prior to the 2004 election, RTD’s poor planning added more than $300 million to the projected cost of FasTracks. Yet RTD blames all of the cost increase on increased materials costs.
Despite RTD’s obvious inability to manage taxpayers’ dollars, the agency says with a straight face that voters likely would approve a tax hike to bailout FasTracks. In fact according to the Rocky Mountain News, RTD commissioned a poll of 700 likely voters and “found 64 percent either strongly or somewhat support an increase of up to 0.4 cents - four pennies on a $10 taxable purchase - to complete the system by 2017.”
And the emperor has a fabulous new suit of clothes! COST is going to go out on a limb and predict that voters will not approve another massive tax hike to bailout RTD’s boondoggle. Maybe if RTD was a bit more forthcoming about all its expenditures…a little transparency goes a long way with taxpayers.
Remember: No taxation without information!