Public transportation advocates were jubilant on Thursday as they marched from one of the Regional Transportation District’s busiest hubs in downtown Denver to the state Capitol. After years of pushing for state investment and being denied , the advocates finally had something to celebrate: a bill, backed by legislative leaders and Gov. Jared Polis, that could mean tens of millions of new dollars annually to help expand transit services across the state — including at RTD. “We just don't have enough service,” said Danny Katz, executive director for the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, a long-time advocate for public transportation. “Having a significant amount of new money will improve our transit service and that's why we support this bill.” The bill, which had its first committee hearing in the Senate Thursday, creates the funding stream through a new fee on drilling projects in a bargain designed to head off a political battle between the oil and gas industry and environmental groups. But the new money for RTD would also come with strings attached. The introduced version directs the transit agency to prioritize the completion of two unfinished rail lines — the B Line to Boulder and Longmont, and the N Line to Denver’s northern suburbs. In addition, the bill requires RTD to use $190 million of its own savings that it has earmarked for building new rail lines before it could access another pot of money within the bill for train projects. Some members of the RTD board say those two directives amount to the legislature and governor bigfooting the transit agency. The RTD board has discussed for years how and whether the agency should complete the four unfinished rail lines left over from the FasTracks program that voters approved in 2004. The B Line to Boulder and Longmont in particular has been a thorn in RTD’s side since cost overruns indefinitely delayed the project more than a decade ago. Local officials and Polis himself have kept constant pressure on RTD to keep the project alive. Finishing the incomplete FasTracks lines, though, would cost at least $2 billion for only middling ridership returns. The B Line alone would cost $1.5 billion according to a 2019 RTD report. The agency is now studying a rush hour-only line to Boulder and Longmont, after prodding from Polis , which might be cheaper but would carry even fewer people. Such difficult math is a big reason why some board members have recently suggested RTD repurpose its rail savings for other projects like new rapid bus lines or bus stop improvements. Advocates, including Katz, have also suggested in the past that the train plans should be dropped. But legislative champions say the bill is meant to protect voters who’ve been paying RTD’s FasTracks taxes for nearly two decades without seeing a mile of rail in their communities. “We think it's important that if you go to the voters and you ask for a tax increase, that you produce the results of what voters said yes to,” said Senate President Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder. A spokesperson for Polis echoed Fenberg, pointing out that RTD would likely be the biggest financial beneficiary of the bill. “It’s critical, and clear to Coloradans, that if [RTD is] to receive new state investments they expand service, do better, and improve on delivering transit services that people can rely on by fulfilling the commitment they made to voters and instilling transparency and accountability measures to drive better outcomes like increased ridership,” Shelby Wieman wrote in a statement. In a statement, an RTD spokesperson said the prospect of new state funding was “very welcome news,” and said the agency would work with the governor’s office and the legislature on the bill.
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