While a Democratic effort to restore marijuana tax money to special districts was underway, Colorado state Sen. Matt Jones was pitching a different idea to fund a commuter rail Tuesday.

The Democrat from Louisville would like to see marijuana tax money directed to metro Denver’s Regional Transportation District to keep the special district’s promises to its northwest constituents.

RTD was once scheduled to complete the Northwest commuter rail line by this year under the multi-billion-dollar FasTracks measure. Voters in 2004 approved 0.4 sales tax to cover a myriad of transit projects.

Today, RTD lists the line to Longmont as a “future project,” and Jones said it’s decades away from being a reality for a region eager to use transit to and from Denver.

The 41-mile corridor someday will operate between Denver’s Union Station with stops in Westminster, Church Ranch, Flatiron, Louisville and Boulder. The line, so far, has made it only to Westminster.

“RTD FasTracks will begin construction on the line between Westminster and Longmont when funding becomes available,” RTD states on its status sheet for the project.

Jones said folks in Boulder and Adams counties have been paying the extra sales tax since 2004, and “they have been left holding the bag while FasTracks has been built for everyone but them. It is unacceptable, and something needs to change”

The line ran into several problems, including the recession and RTD’s inability to acquire rail line anywhere close to the 2004 estimated cost.

Jones’ plan?

“If RTD is going to receive additional marijuana tax funds, they need to designate all those dollars for the construction of a commuter rail in the Northwest Corridor,” he said. “The people in my district, and across Boulder and Adams county, have paid for FasTracks. They should get what they were promised, paid for and are continuing to pay for.”

Jones wasn’t sure how much extra revenue the marijuana taxes would bring in to build the line, if his proposal gains traction, but every dollar would help.

“It’s liking saving in your piggy bank to pay for what you said you’d do,” he told Colorado Politics Tuesday.

He acknowledged the cost and economic strains on the metro transit authority, “but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep your promise to the voters.”