RTD had a $1B FasTracks rail funding problem. Then it didn’t. Here’s what happened.
The Regional Transportation District’s top financial staffers presented a dour budget forecast to their board of directors earlier this month.
The transit agency keeps two sets of books: one for its “base” system that details funding for the majority of the bus network and the oldest light rail lines, and a second for the FasTracks program that has built six new rail lines and one rapid bus line since voters approved it in 2004.
The problem, staffers said, was that FasTracks expenses were poised to grow so rapidly — fueled mainly by growing debt payments — that the base system would have to subsidize it to the tune of $1.05 billion through the end of the decade.
To cut to the end of this story, that is not the case. Updated forecasts that will be presented to the board in October will show that the FasTracks budget is indeed solvent through the end of the decade, officials said.