The FasTrack to gridlock.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: Rundles Wrap-Up

AS ANYONE WHO KNOWS ME WILL ATTEST, I LOVE MASS TRANSIT. I HAVE been arguing for a comprehensive mass-transit plan, with a heavy emphasis on rail service, for the Denver area since the 1970s. Now--25 years late, for my money--the Regional Transportation District finally has such a comprehensive plan, called FasTracks, and many of us along the Front Range will be asked in November to approve an RTD tax increase to provide much of the funding. The governor likes it. The mayor likes it. The chamber of commerce likes it.

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And since I love mass transit, I love it too. Right?

No. I don't. I don't like it for several reasons.

On its face, FasTracks is, actually, a nice plan. It involves 119 miles of new light rail and commuter rail moving people to and from Longmont and Boulder on the northwest, to 160th Avenue on the north, to DIA on the east, to Golden on the west, and all the way down south past Lincoln Avenue along Interstate 25. In between there are 18 miles of new bus rapid-transit corridors, 21,000 new parking spaces for Park-n-Rides, expanded bus service all over the area, and, importantly, suburb-to-suburb transit connections. This all begins to come into use between 2013 and 2015.

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Cool.

A few weeks ago, I saw an unrelated story in the newspaper about how some people believe that C-470 is inadequate and that the highway serving the southern end of the metro area needs a few more lanes in each direction to meet the capacity demands of growth. I say "unrelated" because that's what it is. Highway planning and rapid transit via rail and bus are planned by different entities in different vacuums.

I have said this a hundred times: It makes no sense to me whatsoever to have transportation planning done by separate entities. It seems to me that if RTD pushes down the bubble it sees in the transit carpet, there's bound to be a bubble pop up in the area of the rug controlled by the Colorado Department of Transportation, the ill-named authority that essentially oversees...