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TRANSPORTATION TWISTS AND TURNS
Every Member Material - May 2006
League Study Committee: Edie Bryan, Betsy Marzonie, Harry Ledyard
The Colorado League of Women Voters position on Transportation: “Support a state Department of Transportation to plan and coordinate all transportation modes and inter-modal linkages. A balanced transportation system is one which includes a variety of modes in an appropriate mix for each area, and helps improve mobility and quality of life for all residents.”… “Public mass transportation should be improved immediately”… “New revenue sources as needed should be considered, including but not limited to user fees, appropriations from the General Fund, revenue bonds, and private funds."
The I-70 mountain corridor: The state League recently joined a coalition of 24 organizations calling for a supplement to the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the corridor from Golden to Eagle county airport. They ask for serious consideration of future train possibilities, integrating with the FASTRACKS transit package,and considering other routes so there is some option to driving an automobile on a crowded multi lane road that may not have a frontage road. They ask that the PEIS follow National Environmental Protection Act process to consider all factors, including changes in energy usage, economic effects on the affected towns, and long-range effects with new information now available. Tom Rader, maker of Colorado Railcar, at Fort Lupton, Colorado, says that he can engineer a type of rail car that would be suitable for the grades and conditions of the I-70 corridor. Another company,Stadler, has a vehicle that goes up our 7% grades at 65 mph.
The Colorado Dept of Transportation proposes adding additional highway lanes with two new tunnels and perhaps express bus service. Effects on towns in narrow valleys for 15 years of construction were not addressed; they concluded effects of 21 different technologies were equal because they were all on the same route.
U.S. high speed rail corridors: There are ten such corridors nation wide, and Colorado seeks designation as the eleventh. This requires at least 90 miles per hour over 75% of the route. Bob Briggs, President of Front Range Commuter Rail, seeks $1.2 million for preliminary analysis prior to an Environmental Impact Statement. Briggs says that electrifying a rail line increases the cost from $4 million per mile to $20 million per mile. “We have to be able to say I-70 needs to be reconstructed and it won’t be unless it’s part of the rail component for the Winter Olympics bid for the year 2018.”
A high-speed north-south line could run from Cheyenne, Wyoming south to Pueblo, Colorado or into New Mexico. New Mexico recently purchased an old railroad right-of-way from south of Albuquerque to the Colorado state line. New Mexico wanted to extend the line into Colorado, but could not spend public moneys out of state. This proposal also has an east-west segment from Denver International Airport west to Dotsero in Eagle County. Meanwhile, Amtrak increased its ridership every year for the past 5 years. Do you support a nation wide system of train service as part of a balanced system? Have you ever taken AMTRAK?
TOLL ROADS: “Road Funding Takes a Toll on States” is a headline from Stateline.org. It goes on, “The longer-term problem is that the largest source of funding for the nation’s roads and transit systems – state and federal gasoline taxes – can’t keep up with the demand for road construction and its spiraling costs. To fill the gap, states more than ever are turning to toll roads.” Colorado has the ‘Colorado Tolling Enterprise’ as an arm of the state Department of Transportation, and it seeks a Metro Area road to put tolls on. (Present state law prohibits adding tolls to existing lanes of a road.) The latest twist is to lease or sell the toll roads to a private entity, which can set the tolls and keep collecting them for years. An Australian toll way company bought the Pocahontas Parkway near Richmond, Virginia; a different company owns the toll road in Chesapeake, Virginia. The bonds on the “Northwest Parkway,” the toll road from US highway #36 near Flatirons Crossing shopping center, going north and east to E-470 to Denver International Airport, have been down graded to junk status and remain in this category. Bert Melcher of the Sierra Club says, “I am unenthused about the prospect of parts of our highway and transportation system being out of the hands of state and local governments.” Another source of funding proposed is a tax imposed at the pump based on number of miles driven. Technology is being developed for this which links the tax paid to the number of miles driven. Another alternative is to create a “Regional Transportation Authority” under existing state law to fund a package of highway improvements in the metro area. Such an RTA requires voter approval of some type of new tax.
C-470 proposal TO ADD TOLL LANES: The Colorado Tolling Enterprise, an arm of the Colorado Department of Transportation, wants to build a toll road somewhere in the metro area. “An environmental study approved in February by the Federal Highway Administration selected the addition of four toll lanes, two in each direction, over the option of adding four free lanes. In addition the short segment between Kipling to East of adsworth would be one toll lane in each direction.” (Rocky Mountain News 2/27/2006). The $385 million project would result in 12 ½ miles of pay-to-drive lanes (down the center of C-470 between Kipling Parkway and I-25.) Toll roads cost about 27 cents a mile; the gas tax generates about 4 cents per mile.
The toll lane option on C-470 does not include the cost of interest, but would require $140M as a subsidy from transportation funds. The General Purpose Lane option would cost $240M. Lakewood Mayor Steve Burkholder writes: “My constituents in Lakewood will probably be paying for a large portion of this project if it is to be built. I think they have a right to determine if they would rather pay more money through some form of tax and have free lanes forever at much less cost than toll lanes or pay less tax but high tolls for a very long period of time.” Is it appropriate to use general transportation dollars to build a toll road open only to those willing to pay tolls, and that would require the general-purpose road be congested, and that would have fewer access and exit points than the existing C-470?” There are no funds available for either option.
Northwest Corridor Environmental Impact Study: No recent news on this so-called ‘Complete the Beltway’ proposal. Rough cost is $1.25 Billion for a toll road (from end of C-470 near the Taj Mahal going north through the city of Golden, parallel to C-93 and then east parallel to C-72, then north near Indiana to the present terminus of the ‘Northwest Parkway’ just north of highway US-36). This results in eight-to-ten lanes with the toll lanes plus the general purpose lanes with a 300 foot right-of-way. Neither Broomfield nor Golden want a toll road going through their city. Traffic counts on C-93 are down because of the closure of Rocky Flats, while Arvada fears ‘pouring’ of traffic through their streets from the existing tolled Northwest Parkway. Present bonds on the existing Northwest Parkway are still ‘junk status.’
The design would need to induce traffic congestion on the free lanes to attract cars onto the toll portion. A bill to prohibit such “non compete agreements” was introduced as legislation, but killed. Eight governments did sign a “non-compete” agreement to help E-470 generate sufficient revenue.
Strong opposition exists for this project with not even any agreement on whether anything is needed, other than minor improvements to existing arterials and state highways, including highway C-93 going north from Golden. A record for number of attendees was set at the last round of public meetings. If the EIS comes out as expected for adding a toll road, then the original concept of building a short central segment of toll road in the middle, near the southeast corner of Rocky Flats could be revived by the coalition of Broomfield, Jefferson county and Arvada. This leaves the other components missing. There are no funds for any portion of this.
Superslab: A legislative bill killed the use of eminent domain by a private company to build a toll road with ten mile right-of-way. A new bill changes it to 3 miles with environmental review and mitigation but leaves other provisions. This private company could also build a railroad along the route plus utility lines and fiber optics. It could still be built in the future through the normal planning process getting onto regional plans, even without any bill. Also, there is the concept of a ‘Front Range Express’ to build new railroad tracks somewhere in the eastern part of the state. This would decrease but not eliminate coal trains going through the middle of the metro area. Rough cost $1-3 Billion.
“The mission of Colorado Department of Transportation is to provide the best multi modal transportation system for Colorado that most effectively moves people, goods, and information.” Are they reaching this goal?
