EDITORIAL: RTD-CU commuter train naming rights decision has gone way off track

RTD and the University of Colorado are jumping the tracks when it comes to an odd agreement between them regarding the metro area’s future “A” Line commuter rail.

This week, RTD board directors approved a genuinely bad idea that takes 5 million CU dollars in exchange for branding rights for a yet-to-open commuter-rail line between Denver’s Union Station and Denver International Airport.

Essentially, the pact gives CU naming rights for the airport rail-line, which does not go through or is even relatively near any CU campuses or facilities.

The move raises serious questions of judgment and finances of the University of Colorado. This is a public, taxpayer-funded, public school run by elected government officials. Officials there argue that snagging the naming rights for a mass transit line will elevate the university’s brand awareness and make it a better school. This isn’t a $50,000 infomercial, but $5 million that, apparently, CU officials believe they don’t have another use for.

While the logic draws concerns that the university is drinking too much PR agency Kool-Aid these days, it raises more serious questions of university priorities. This is a school that is moving fast at pricing itself out of the reach of most Colorado residents. There seems to be no end in sight for relentless and hefty tuition hikes, which arguably pay for dubious projects like these, even if the school shows on paper the funds come from special buckets of money. Moves like these are indicative of a problem here and across the country where university presidents and administrators are increasingly paid obscene sums of money, always alongside the argument that the school must remain competitive for the best students and the best instructors.

Such arguments are insulting to a public seriously beginning to question such schemes. Quality education, value, affordability and credibility draw the best students and teachers. Branding rights for universities on mass transit primarily draw escalating marketing budgets, which could be used for meaningful educational efforts.

CU regents should pull the plug on this boondoggle, allowing RTD time to find a suitable, private-interest entity that has valid reasons for linking a ride to the airport with their company and $5 million. If CU regents don’t see reason here, then state lawmakers need to intercede to force public institutions funded with taxpayer dollars to use better sense.

That aside, RTD and CU invite little but confusion for riders thinking the “CU train” goes to CU Denver, Aurora’s CU Anschutz or CU’s Boulder campus. It does not. The A-Line does make a stop on the way to and from DIA at another line — the R-Line, which runs right through the Anschutz Campus.

Selling naming rights for trains, lines, ticket-dispensing machines or even bus stops is a good idea if it helps keep ticket prices low or improves service. But someone has to be the voice of reason in making these deals, and those voices are silent at RTD and CU right now.