Light rail rolling without guru

RTD's operations chief took another position last month

By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 26, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Liz Rao, RTD FasTracks' chief, will leave Sept. 26.

RTD's FasTracks boss is the second high-level manager to leave the agency in the past month.

While FasTracks' chief Liz Rao will leave Sept. 26, the RTD's manager of light-rail operations, Lloyd Mack, left the agency July 25 after 17 years.

Mack, considered in the agency to be the guru who kept light rail running from its first days, left for a position with LTK Engineering Services.

He is working on a rail transit program for Sound Transit in Seattle.

Mack was central in FasTracks planning for the new commuter- rail corridors - a different type of system from light rail - as well as the new FasTracks light-rail lines.

He has been assisting with specifications for both electric- and diesel-powered commuter rail cars RTD plans to use on four north metro FasTracks corridors.

Cal Shankster, who worked with Mack, has taken over the light-rail operations post on an acting basis.

Rao will leave RTD Sept. 26 to become national transit development director in the Denver office of HNTB Corp.

Mack started with RTD in 1991, when the first light-rail corridor from Five Points through downtown to Interstate 25 and Broadway was started. It opened in 1994.

Rao last week made the presentation to the RTD board on FasTracks' latest cost increase, to $7.9 billion.

At the same time, RTD's FasTracks revenues are below projections, leaving the transit agency with a project gap of more than $2.5 billion.

Rao has said her departure isn't related to the program's cost problems, but that she had been recruited by several companies in recent years and was made a lucrative offer she couldn't turn down.

Pauletta Tonilas, spokeswoman for FasTracks, said RTD General manager Cal Marsella will take time to appoint replacements.

His hiring decisions could include replacing Rao, who also had oversight of the agency's total planning and development projects outside of FasTracks, or dividing those duties among more than one person.

Tonilas called it a "crossroads" type of opportunity to re-structure the FasTracks team.

"Obviously these are two professionals whose reputations precede them," Tonilas said of Rao and Mack. "It's a big loss for us; they both accomplished a lot of milestones.

"But RTD has a tremendous staff here and we won't miss any markers along the way. We have people to pick up the ball and run with it."

flynnk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5247

• August 27, 2008

  6:41 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  SL10 writes:

  I wonder who be next to jump the sinking fasttracks ship?

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