Denver area residents will take no comfort from a new report by the Texas Transportation Institute that examines the traffic congestion of American cities. Travel times haven’t improved here – and drivers still suffer 51 hours a year in stop-and-go driving.
Still, a close look at the Texas study shows the prescience of developing such transportation projects as T-REX, which blends highway improvements and light rail. The study also underscores the vision of voters who approved the $4.7 billion FasTracks rapid transit plan – and the traffic study provides a powerful argument for voters to approve Referenda C and D on the Nov. 1 ballot to finance $1.3 billion in highway projects.
The institute’s latest study shows a trip in metro Denver during 2003 that took 20 minutes outside rush hour consumed about 28 minutes during peak morning and evening travel times. That eight-minute penalty during the misnamed “rush hour” is the same as it was in 2002, when the area ranked as the nation’s seventh most congested urban area. In short, our traffic isn’t moving any faster, but it hasn’t gotten any worse. (We did improve our rating relative to other cities where things got worse.)
The fact that things didn’t deteriorate despite the inevitable delays caused by T-REX construction is probably a result of the economic slowdown that kept out-of-work Coloradans off the road at rush hour. Even so, the Colorado Department of Transportation managers and local officials deserve credit for smart planning.
T-REX was one of 28 key projects throughout the state authorized by voters in 1999. Some projects were delayed when revenues fell in the 2001-2002 recession, but 13 have already been completed, and four more are fully funded. The COSMIX project in Colorado Springs will start soon – a boon to the Pikes Peak region, which had the nation’s second-worst “travel time index” in 2003 for urban areas of less than 500,000.
Now that the legislature has agreed to put Referenda C and D before the voters, CDOT leaders are meeting with local officials to draft a final list of the projects to be funded from the $1.3 billion in bonds that Referendum D will earmark for highway funds. Passage of Referendum C will also provide additional highway and transit funding as the economy improves under terms of the 2000 Senate Bill 1 supplemental transportation funding plan.
In a nutshell, state and local officials are working hard to ease the congestion on our highways. Voters can do their part by approving Referenda C and D on Nov. 1.
