Correction: The original version of article misstated Joan Peck’s involvement with Sustainable Revolution Longmont. It has now been corrected.

A new organization spearheaded by two women well-known to Longmont residents is working to pressure the Regional Transportation District to make its FasTracks rail promise happen faster for Boulder County.

Joan Peck, who led the Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont petition drive to ban hydraulic fracturing, and Karen Benker, who previously served on both the Longmont City Council and the RTD board of directors, launched the organization Citizens for Finishing FasTracks and started a Change.org petition last week.

In 2004, voters approved of a 0.4 percent increase on sales tax to fund RTD’s FasTracks initiative, which was supposed to add 122 miles of light and commuter rail and 18 miles of bus rapid transit.

Part of the commuter rail promise was to build a line from Union Station in Denver northwest through Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, Boulder and Niwot, ending at a $17 million transit station in Longmont.

The northwest rail corridor, however, remains the largest FasTracks project without a definite start or finish date.

Peck said people in Boulder County feel that is especially unfair considering that RTD has received roughly $142.4 million in revenues from the increased sales tax over the 10 years between 2005 to 2014.

“We have one goal, and that is for RTD to come through on their promise and to bring rail to Longmont,” Peck said. “We paid for it and we want it and we feel it’s a bit of scam.”

‘Tell RTD to finish this’

The original proposed completion date for the northwest rail was in 2014, according to a 2004 Longmont City Council memo.

The Denver-to-Westminster part of the line is under construction and set to open next year, but an RTD study concluded that none of the $1.4 billion needed for the project to extend to Longmont could be committed until 2040.

Peck said waiting until 2040 is simply unacceptable.

“Enough. We’re done asking and now we’re going to tell RTD to finish this.”

Longmont Mayor Dennis Coombs said he fully supports pressuring RTD to finish the rail line and wishes Peck and Benker good luck.

“RTD does owe us that money back,” Coombs said. “Everybody in Longmont wants rail. I want rail. I don’t know if every citizen in Longmont started jumping up and down saying ‘We want rail!’ that it would happen.”

Neither Broomfield transportation manager Debra Baskett nor Mayor Randy Ahrens said they had heard of the new organization. Ahrens said the city has been working on better transit solutions for 20 years.

“That’s what the voters voted on, in 2004 … our portion of the rail,” Ahrens said. “It’s important to our companies who have located in Broomfield and to our residents to get our fair share of taxes we’ve expended.”

Tina Jaquez, an RTD spokeswoman, said the taxes that Boulder County paid into RTD were part of a regional plan.

“Our goal has been to always complete everything we can as fast as we can,” Jacques said, adding that what gets built has depended on additional funding from private-public partnerships and federal funding dollars.”

‘Continued public pressure’

Judy Lubow, who represents part of Boulder County on RTD’s board of directors, elaborated on that point, saying the northwest rail line, the most expensive FasTracks project, suffered a “perfect storm” of funding problems.

The Great Recession in 2008 meant a significant drop in sales tax revenues and caused the district to build what it could fund with other sources, like partnerships and grants.

“So instead of building it out equally, it was built in spurts according to what was funded,” said Lubow, who was elected in 2012.

Second, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway that RTD planned to buy or lease went up in value since 2004 due to its use in the oil and gas industry. While that cost went up over the years, so did costs associated with construction and an environmental study, Lubow said.

Lastly, federal grants wouldn’t fund such an expensive project that was perceived to serve a small number of riders.

“You have to be high density to get federal dollars, but we were never designed to be high density, and so there wasn’t high ridership potential,” Lubow said.

Peck disputed that point, saying that there is high ridership potential in Boulder County, if RTD invested in the rail or more bus routes.

Lubow said she supported the new organization.

“I think there has to be continued public pressure,” she said. “It’s a difficult problem that needs continued citizen concern and agitation to get funding.”

Karen Antonacci: 303-684-5226, antonaccik@times-call.com or twitter.com/ktonacci