RTD takes taxpayers for a ride

The Regional Transportation District should have known better.

This criticism is, of course, easy to make after the fact, but it's certainly valid in this case.

The Denver metro area bus service will buy 300 acres of Weld County land it can't reasonably use.

This is the story of how RTD spent nearly $15 million for farmland near Fort Lupton it doesn't need.

» RTD wanted to use a Union Pacific switching yard in Denver for its FasTracks train to Denver International Airport and a commuter-rail maintenance center.

» Union Pacific bought the Fort Lupton land at RTD's prodding -- hoping to get a jump-start on the project -- with the RTD guarantee that it would reimburse the railroad for its costs.

» RTD will reimburse Union Pacific nearly $15 million for land the railroad company bought as part of that ill-fated plan. The $15 million is part of the agreement for the freight railroad to come up with a proposal to relocate its railyard to Fort Lupton. If UP had relocated its switching yard to Fort Lupton, RTD would then have had use of the Denver facility.

» The project, however, never materialized after the cost estimate to relocate the UP facility was too high for transportation district officials. RTD won't say what that cost was, but officials did say the Fort Lupton piece was the most cost-prohibitive.

This is where transportation district officials should have used better judgment. It is difficult to view this project, finally, as anything less than a blatant waste of money. RTD officials should have known that the project was too expensive before they agreed to pay UP's costs.

RTD will pay the nearly $15 million for the land that, to according to Fort Lupton Realtors, simply isn't worth that much. While this doesn't harm Weld residents, this kind of blatant government waste shouldn't go unnoticed.