FasTracks at a crossroad: metro voters mull ticket to ride.

• Author: Graham, Sandy
• Position: Colorado department of transporation

Lakewood Brick Co. feels the effects of the Denver metro area's traffic woes every working day.

Each company truck manages one round trip a day between the company's Pueblo plant and its Lakewood plant or a Denver-area job site. Six or seven years ago, each truck could drive one-and-a-half Denver-Pueblo trips. About a decade ago, one truck completed two round trips.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see we're at 50 percent of the efficiency we had 10 or 12 years ago," said Tom Murray, Lakewood Brick's president. "When 'rush hour' lasts all day long, it's hard to get much efficiency out of transportation."

Many drivers who tackle Interstate 25 at 8 a.m. or South Santa Fe Drive at 5 p.m. share Murray's frustrations. But what should be done about Denver's crowded highways and byways? That question is at the bull's eye of the debate over a proposition to raise the metro-area sales tax by 0.4 cents and put the money into a 12-year-long, $4.7 billion transportation plan known as FasTracks. Voters, who must approve or reject the FasTracks proposal in November, are being bombarded by arguments, pro and con.

Proponents say FasTracks--which will build out the light-rail system, add diesel commuter trains and expand bus lines and parking areas--will give a needed boost to the state's construction and engineering industries; help attract new businesses; and make Denver a more livable place. Many civic and governmental groups have endorsed the proposal--Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is among its strongest supporters.

"The area will be more attractive and will be a better place to live and to work" if FasTracks is built, said Julie Bender, president and CEO of the DIA Partnership, the regional economic development organization for the northeast metro area. "And we're in a very competitive economic development environment."

Opponents counter that FasTracks is a massive waste of tax money that won't truly ease traffic congestion or pollution, will be expensive to operate and will only redistribute rather than generate economic development.

"FasTracks takes valuable limited resources that could be used to solve traffic problems and puts them into absolutely nothing," said Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, a think tank in Golden. Caldara is a former Regional Transportation District (RTD) chairman who opposes light rail and who helped defeat 1997's $5.9 billion Guide the Ride initiative to expand rail transit.

FasTracks has tried to...