Gene Davis, DDN Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Group pushes for investment in public transportation
Activist
groups showed up yesterday morning to RTD’s Market Street Station in
support of “Transportation Freedom Day”— the date that marks when a
typical area household has earned enough income since Jan. 1 to cover
transportation costs for the entire year — for Boulder, Denver and
Greeley counties.
According
to findings released by the Colorado Public Interest Research Group
(CoPIRG), the average Denver household spends the equivalent of just
over two months of its annual salary — which CoPIRG calculated as
$51,888 for Denver, Boulder and Greeley counties — to pay for
transportation costs. CoPIRG used data from the Center for Neighborhood
Technology in Chicago that examined such things as car ownership,
maintenance, gas and transit to determine transportation costs.
“The
cost of getting from place to place shouldn’t take such a huge slice of
our paycheck, especially in these tough times,” said a statement from
Danny Katz, state director of CoPIRG. “People may not recognize how
much they pay for transportation because they do so in increments. But
when gas prices tip over $4 a gallon again, transportation will likely
become households’ biggest expense.”
CoPIRG
said their study found that access to high-quality public
transportation is a primary factor for how much of Colorado residents’
income will be spent on transportation. The American Public
Transportation Association calculates that a driver in Denver could
save $8,800 annually by switching to public transportation, according
to a press release.
FasTracks
CoPIRG
and other activist groups that included FRESC: Good Jobs, Strong
Communities, Environment Colorado and the Colorado Environmental
Coalition used yesterday’s event to promote their belief that Colorado
should use some of the estimated $102,715,664 in stimulus money for
funding FasTracks and other public transportation projects. CoPIRG’s
announcement came on the same day the Denver Post reported that
several Colorado mayors are pushing for a FasTracks sales-tax increase
on the November ballot to help fund the expected $2.2 billion funding
gap for the project.
Katz
said the sales-tax increase is a good idea because he believes
FasTracks must be completed, regardless of the economy. According to
Katz, FasTracks would create 18 percent more jobs than building roads
in Colorado while also helping reduce global warming emissions.
“Shortchanging
public transportation is a classic case of being pennywise and pound
foolish,” he said in a statement. “Now more than ever, public officials
must make transit a top tier pocketbook issue.”
Bad idea?
Not everyone thinks increasing the sales tax to help fund FasTracks is a good idea.
Jon
Caldera of the Independence Institute said mayors that vote in favor of
increasing the sales tax would be rewarding failure and deception.
According to Caldera, the assumptions that RTD used to say that
FasTracks would be on time and on budget, like projecting a local 6
percent revenue growth over the next 30 years, were misinformed at best.
“Those
mayors who decide to reward the deception that was FasTracks, this
could be a mistake that they might not recover from politically,” he
said.
A
recent decline in sales tax revenue has hurt RTD because the
transportation department depends on the source of revenue for funding.
RTD has estimated that sales-tax revenue will be down approximately 4.4
percent in 2009 compared to the previous year.
“RTD is doing things as effective as any transit agency,” said Katz. “It’s not their fault we’ve got a bad economy right now.”
Caldera
said he isn’t buying the sales-tax argument, and that he believes the
forces behind FasTracks blatantly lied when they gave their original
estimations for the project’s funding and cost.
“When
the economy was good, (a FasTracks funding shortage) was because
commodity prices were too high. When commodity prices go through the
floor, it’s because sales-tax revenue are slow,” he said. “It was such
a faulty fiscal plan, it’s inexcusable.”
