Denver Post Thursday October 11, 1984

Photo by Damian Strohmeyer/Denver Post:
In a wide open plaza with almost no one in it, a lone person sits in a motorized wheelchair, back to the camera. In the distance at the other side of the plaza is a city bus, and behind it a group of people stand in a cluster. On the back of the wheelchair there are several bumper stickers, including "Disabled but able to vote", "Bill Armstrong", something with diagonal stripes that is unreadable, and "Build ramps not steps" with a picture of person in a wheelchair doing a wheelie.
Caption reads: Lee Jensen at the scene of the ribbon cutting that opened new RTD Broadway station. Eight disabled Denverites protested the opening.

Official contends transit funds scarce
by Judith Brimberg

If metropolitan Denver wants federal help for something like light rail, it must come up with a combined highway-transit plan for improving transportation in the region, the head of the federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration said Wednesday.

Even then, administrator Ralph Stanley acknowledged, officials would be better off to rely on local money and public/private partnerships to finance light rail or some other system of mass transit. In Denver for the opening of the turnaround facility at the Civic center shuttle station, Stanley said in the interview that the days of big federal money for such projects are past.

Because of tight federal budgets, cities must rely on the income from the 1982 gasoline tax increase for new projects. The 1 cent dedicated to public transit amounts to 1.2 billion a year, only 400 million is for new transit projects nationwide.

Noting that cities asking for $36 billion worth of projects are ahead of Denver, RTD board chairman Bryon Johnson said in a separate interview, “it’s clear we will have to do it with our own money. Waiting for federal money is like queuing up in a store that is running out of merchandise.”

Stanley said if gasoline tax were raised again, more money would be available for new projects. But noting that the 5 cent a gallon tax barely got through Congress two years ago, he said he thought waiting for another increase in the near future would be a waste of time.

There still is federal money available for construction projects, and Stanley announced Wednesday that RTD will get more than $6 million to plan and construct a new central shops facility.

Buses now are repaired and painted in shops at the Alameda and Platte garages. RTD General Manager Ed Colby said the new centralized facility would have more sophisticated repair equipment.

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Tags

buses, funding, Lee Jensen, light rail, Ralph Stanley, RTD, UMTA - Urban Mass Transit Admin.

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