I wrote my state legislators about plans to privatize more bus routes

I hear that there are plans to further privatize bus and train service in the Denver Metro area. Bus riders in Boulder County have endured ten years of cuts to service. In 2018 and 2019, RTD could not keep buses running as the drivers quit the private services.

This has made life difficult for low income people, and led to dangerous increases in greenhouse gases.

Don't Democrats have a majority in the Colorado Legislature? Should we not be strengthening our transit systems throughout the state instead of weakening them?

Congress Should Restore Transit Funding

Transit agencies get some money from the Highway Trust Fund, so when the fund runs out of money, those agencies will lose one source of revenue. The greatest impact will be on rural agencies that live in communities that cannot afford basic service.

Here is the message that I emailed my congressional representatives about this issue:

I recently learned that when the Highway Trust Fund runs out of money in September, transit agencies will stop receiving money. This is a problem. 70% of Americans want money for buses and trains increased.

Congress should restore this money. In fact, Congress should increase funding. I would like to see buses and trains get $8 billion more. Investments in buses and trains increase tax revenue, so this proposal would pay for itself.

RTD Board may be getting serious about seeking more money

The RTD Board has approved a FasTracks Internal Savings Account that RTD staff estimates will hold $277 million by 2017. Staff plan to use this money to build the North Metro line to 72nd Avenue and complete RTD's funding commitment to the US 36 BRT project.

This money is coming from both savings and new revenue. The biggest savings are coming out of the Eagle P3 (Gold and East commuter rail) accounts. Enough construction milestones have passed and enough contracts signed for RTD to be able to better predict how much the project will end up costing. That means that less money needs to be held in the account that RTD has set up in case of cost overruns. Right now it looks like RTD is going to be able to transfer $72 million toward other projects.

In addition, careful accounting has found $10 here, $20 million there. Some of these savings may not materialize or be as big as RTD hopes, but overall they add up.

The biggest amount of money will come from new revenue. RTD is going to ask the State of Colorado for the ability to audit sales and use tax receipts so that RTD can confirm that buses and trains are getting the money that they are supposed to be getting. RTD will also ask the State for the ability to collect sales tax on all the items that the State of Colorado collects on. This would mean $127 million more money.

The best news is that RTD is going to start asking for money. The press release refers to these entities as "stakeholders" which is rather vague. Here is hoping that RTD points out to cities and counties that do not support transit within their borders that cities and counties that do are subsidizing their bus and train service AND saving them money on road repair.

Organizing to Defend the Southwest Chief

The City of La Junta is working to organize a grassroots effort to get funding to keep the Southwest Chief on its current route. That means keeping it in Colorado as well as in southwestern Kansas and in northeastern New Mexico to Albuquerque. The first meeting is:

Tuesday, November 10
2 to 4 pm
La Junta City Hall
601 Colorado Avenue
The meeting is happening at this time so that people can come from the east on train 3 and then go home on train 4. City Hall is five blocks south of the Amtrak station. Just look for Colorado Avenue when you leave the station area.

If this is a genuine grassroots effort, they should be able to find the money. Lakewood spent $7 million widening 4 blocks of road; I would much rather that we spent that money on something that I would actually use.

A Way to Support Local Transit

Senator Chris Dodd recently introduced the Public Transportation Preservation Act (S. 3412) . So far only Senators from states with good transit are co-sponsoring this bill. This act would give local transit agencies money to maintain basic bus and train service, something that we are losing now.

The companion legislation in the House is HR 5418.

So please call your Senators and Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor this legislation.