It would be nice to think that Denver Regional Transit District (RTD) General Manager Cal Marsella is feeling pangs of guilt for lying to the public so often about the virtues of rail transit. That would explain why, even though he is one of the highest-paid public officials in Colorado, he just announced that he is quitting that job to take the “opportunity of a lifetime” by going to work for a private company that operates buses (update:and would like to operate trains) for public agencies including (by an amazing coincidence) RTD.
One reason why transit officials like trains is that the top officials of rail transit agencies get paid more than the leaders of agencies that only run buses.
In 1995, RTD paid Marsella $112,000 to run RTD, which was then mostly a bus system. He was picked for the job partly because he and the then-chair of RTD’s board of directors, Jon Caldara, agreed that rail transit was a waste of money.
Within a few years, he had changed his tune, overseeing construction of two new light-rail lines and pumping interest groups for their support for a 2004 measure to raise taxes to build six more.
“RTD always builds its rail lines on budget,” he told people. (In fact, it went nearly 30 percent over its original projected cost on its Southwest light-rail line, and nearly 60 percent over projections for the Southeast line.)
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“Our studies found that rail transit is the most cost-effective way of reducing congestion,” he claimed. (In fact, all of RTD’s studies found that highways and bus-rapid transit were far more cost-effective; in most cases, they both cost less and did more to reduce congestion than rails.)
“Rail transit reduces air pollution,” he insisted. (Since Denver’s light-rail trains are mostly powered by coal-fired electric plants, they emit more greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants per passenger mile than a typical SUV.)
One person who greatly benefitted from these lies was Cal Marsella. By 2008, RTD’s board had nearly tripled Marsella’s pay to $324,000. For 2009, when many other RTD employees were accepting pay cuts, Marsella magnanimously agreed to accept a 3 percent cut from his schedule pay increase.
Now Denver’s rail dreams have turned to nightmares. The latest projections are that the six new rail lines will cost about 50 percent more than promised in 2004, while the tax revenues needed to pay for them are falling billions of dollars short (and that’s based on the optimistic projection that 2009 revenues will be just 3 percent less than in 2008, even though the revenues for the first couple of months of the year were down 14 percent). RTD doesn’t have enough money to run the trains and buses it has, and is cutting service on many of its routes.
At age 58, it’s a little early for Marsella to retire. Given his poor record as a manager, it is hard for him to persuasively argue that he is being hired away because of his great talents. So is he leaving out of remorse that he persuaded Denver to support such a folly? Is he a rat jumping the sinking ship?
Or is he, like the bureaucrats who run Japan, “descending from heaven” to earn a few more million before he retires as a reward for funneling so much taxpayer money to transit contractors? Whatever the answer, it is hardly a testimonial to the integrity of America’s transit industry.
This is but another verse of the same song. Public sector officials leaving to help the private sector navigate through the hazards they created. It’s guaranteed easy employment when you foul up the system so bad people have to hire you to get anything done. I’ve seen it done here in Medford, Oregon many times.
This is a prime example of the soft corruption growing within the United States. It’s not an envelope full of cash but it damages our society none the less.
I wonder what the going rate is for mendacity.
Mendacity in, say, asserting that the housing bubble was created by planners/growth management/your favorite dog-whistle phrase.
DS
At age 58, it’s a little early for Marsella to retire. Given his poor record as a manager, it is hard for him to persuasively argue that he is being hired away because of his great talents. So is he leaving out of remorse that he persuaded Denver to support such a folly? Is he a rat jumping the sinking ship?
AP:
The news story says that Marsella is taking his new job because of better pay in his contract. Yes, the contractor he is going to is a bus company, but Marsella is supposed to be heading up a new division that is being set up to win commuter and light rail contracts.
Neal Meyer said: Marsella is supposed to be heading up a new division that is being set up to win commuter and light rail contracts.
THWM: So? http://www.publicpurpose.com/t4.htm
To put things in perspective, Marsella’s salary of about $280k is 3 times what Ritter gets paid to be the Governor of the entire state. I’m skeptical that Marsella is going to find a job in the private sector that will pay him a salary higher than the $280k+ he just made. Even if that’s the case, it’s very likely he’s jumping ship while he has a chance of trying to distance himself from the giant disaster Fastracks has become. It’s likely the costs are going to be a couple billion more than the $7.1 billion max allowed by the voters both because sales taxe collections will never be anything like they projected. No sane person would’ve used those projects, they were based on the 80s and 90s when metro Denver incurred population growth and more importantly salary growth that will likely never again increase a such high rates. Commodity prices are widely speculated to likely have bottomed out (keep in mind most of construction costs are due to other things than commodity prices). And it looks like there is a good chance that RTD won’t be allowed to go to the voters to ask for a sales tax hike let alone actually getting the voters to pass a sales tax increase. It was hard enough when they had a blank canvas to paint. While they have had some pluses along the way, at this point they’ve seen a 10-15% drop in LRT ridership and not only have a string of massive cost over runs but an example of actual delivery, the West corridor, that is unlikely to do anything but make people skeptical of how good the other 5 lines may be.
That’s not to say it wouldn’t be passed. The original vote passed with 3 votes for for every 2 against. But it looks as though those that would campaign against doubling the sales tax increase would have plenty of ammunition to get that ratio closer to 1:1. And RTD has more riding on such a vote than Fastracks itself. A big risk of not getting a 2nd increase passed to complete the original plan is that it wouldn’t be just a big set back for Fastracks but for future rail plans. RTD and DRCOG (?) has plans for several lines beyond fast tracks. If they can’t get Fastracks built for what they said & voters won’t give them more, surely they’ll fear that a public no vote would embolden people to even further disfavor equating transit with just rail and to pass funding for those further lines. But without getting a vote for further funding passed next year, it’s all the more likely that the sales tax shortfalls will look even worse. Plus it’s unlikely they can get the lines built on time without having to make big cuts in them. Those of which would also make it seem likely to cause it to be much harder to get further funding for further lines funded.
Maybe it things will turn out better than that. But from Marsella’s point of view at this point, one would think that it’s unlikely to look any better for his reputation with a decent amount of risk of his reputation taking even a larger hit. It’d make a lot of sense for him to exit now and not take those risks.
One certainly wonders how RTD is going to do the job voters want with this crew in charge – heck, they are running their show like a private company in Detroit or New York or so many other places (not a good sign). RTD is popular and the trains are often full and people want more. And the weak mayors want it too. Everyone but the silly ideologues want it, but how can they deliver with this hand they dealt themselves?
DS
Despite the sniping of The Antiplanner, Cal Marsella has a lot of class, THANKING Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute (one of The Antiplanner’s major allies) for holding his feet to the fire. From his good-bye letter to RTD staff:
Surprising to many may be the heartfelt thanks I must extend to John Caldara, rail critic and President of the Independence Institute. John led RTD in its recruitment for a new General Manager when I was hired in 1995. John advocated for a GM that would manage the agency as a business that would embrace the use of the private sector where it made business and service sense, and he knew I would do that. At a time when the RTD Board ran the real risk of descending into an all too common transit agency trend to become a social service organization that focused on building an organizational empire instead of focusing on providing the greatest quantity of mobility to the public, John lead the way to keep this agency on track.
I have posted the entire letter at http://www.publictransit.us/ptlibrary/MarsellaLeavesRTD.pdf.
ROT: “Rail transit reduces air pollution,†he insisted. (Since Denver’s light-rail trains are mostly powered by coal-fired electric plants, they emit more greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants per passenger mile than a typical SUV.)
THWM: As for the going rate of lying, how much are you being paid a year O’Toole?
http://www.re-energy.ca/ridethewind/backgrounder.shtml
“RTD is popular and the trains are often full and people want more. ”
Dan, I’m curious why you’d claim they are often full when more often than not they’re relatively empty. Yes, there are many trains going to downtown in the morning and leaving downtown for afternoon rush hour that are relatively full. But outside of a couple hours of peak time, rarely does anything need to stand on those routes. Not needing to stand means the car isn’t more than 50% full. As for the trains on the reverse commutes, they’re even more sparsely used. It’s not uncommon for me to grab a train after six and have no more than 5 or 10 people on it during the entire ride. Then again, those rides are much more uncommon now that it costs me more to take the train than to drive & that I can bike to/from work just as fast.
I don’t know when you ride but we ride often and on different lines. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Try going somewhere on the weekend and get back to us. This sounds familiar, BTW.
DS
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3099/3125561721_5c6b510efc_b.jpg
Southbound to Lincoln at Alameda Station a bit after 8am on Friday morning in December from the front. How often is “often full”? Wasn’t this day even thought it was morning rush hour.
prk166, some how I don’t think you would complain about a lack of traffic on road at a certain time of day or in a certain direction.
Wow. That one picture of one car on the reverse commute dee-stuh-roiiiiiiiiiid my assertion.
I don’t know how often is often. I stand a lot so the women can sit when I ride. At all different times.
DS
“I don’t know how often is often. I stand a lot so the women can sit when I ride. At all different times. ” –DS
Funny enough I have a tendency to ride at different times too. Yet I’d rarely describe the cars I ride in as “full”. Maybe we should be turning to RTD’s statistics on this one instead of our own personal observations?
“prk166, some how I don’t think you would complain about a lack of traffic on road at a certain time of day or in a certain direction.” –Highwayman
I wasn’t necessarily complaining. In fact, if it was normally full I wouldn’t ride it at all. It’s a pain in the rear when there are too many people on the car. There’s nothing quite so non-lovely as having to actually have 4 people sitting in a section as a grown man finding your knee rubbing up against some strangers leg. Kinda nice if you’re feeling lonely but not exactly high on most people’s list of things to do. 🙂
It’s a pain in the rear when there are too many people on the car. There’s nothing quite so non-lovely as having to actually have 4 people sitting in a section as a grown man finding your knee rubbing up against some strangers leg.
And some ideologues want to worsen this by forcing people on jostly buses rather than full trains.
DS
Jostly bus? Dan, have you rode the SE line? There’s a “nice” stretch, IIRC south of Yale, where the train really gets scootin forward and we all get to swing side to side.
Myabe this is a case of some ideologues trying to make the train ride into something more lovely than it is?