The scenery is often breathtaking as you drive in Colorado, but state highways are in trouble, with 30 percent of our major roads classified as congested and 43 percent listed in poor or mediocre condition. As if that weren’t bad enough, nearly 20 percent of our bridges are structurally deficient.
Metro-area voters last year approved the 12-year, $4.7 billion FasTracks rapid transit project, but that barely nicked the Colorado Department of Transportation’s $167 billion shopping list of needs through 2030, including $125 billion for highways. Existing revenue sources, such as the 22 cents-per-gallon state fuel tax, are forecast to produce $64 billion for state and local governments over that time, leaving them $103 billion short of funding transportation needs.
Despite the widespread recognition that good transportation is vital to maintaining Colorado’s economy, our roads are getting worse, not better. There are two main reasons: The 2001-02 recession, coupled with restrictions imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, wiped out additional highway funding promised by a 2002 law known as Senate Bill 1. Meanwhile, federally assisted projects were slowed after the federal transportation law expired in 2003. Patchwork measures have kept some funds flowing, but state officials find it difficult to make long-term plans until their federal partners get their act together.
Two reasons for hope
As bleak as the highway picture is, two developments have given renewed hope for easing the mess on Colorado’s highways. At the federal level, both the House and Senate have passed a new transportation bill. Differences still need to be worked out between the two bodies, but the uncertainty in federal funding should end soon.
Equally important, state and local transportation planners are now working feverishly to finish plans to spend the $1.2 billion in new transportation funding that will go before state voters this fall as Referendum D. After extensive hearings, the state Transportation Commission will release a final list of projects June 16 – ensuring that voters on Nov. 1 will know exactly what they will get if they approve Referendum D and its precursor, Referendum C.
At the federal level, Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard, backed by Ken Salazar, played a key role in winning approval of a new funding formula that will mean the state gets at least 92 cents back for every dollar it sends to Washington. While that doesn’t seem like a great deal, it’s better than the 90 cents Colorado got back under the old formula and will increase this state’s share by about $156 million over the next six years.
The Senate plan is priced at $295 billion over six years while the House calls for $284 billion. The difference has caused some members of the Bush administration and a chorus of conservative pundits to attack the Senate version for “busting the budget.” Given the fact that the Bush administration ran up a $421 billion deficit last year, we find it ludicrous to assign the blame for so much red ink to a Senate transportation blueprint that spends less than $2 billion a year more than its House counterpart. More to the point, the Senate plan is fully funded from Highway Users Trust Fund revenues and other earmarked sources. Americans, who pay 18.4 cents in federal taxes on every gallon of gasoline they buy, deserve to know that the trust fund is indeed being used for its intended purpose, rather than being hijacked to finance the war in Iraq or underwrite yet another round of tax cuts for the wealthy.
Are Packards priorities?
The Post prefers the Senate bill primarily because it does away with 4,000 specific “earmarked” projects, totaling $12 billion, that were included in the House version – including such dubious ideas as $3 million for the National Packard Museum in Ohio.
Such earmarked projects are paid “off the top” from the highway trust fund before the remaining cash is distributed to the states by formula. That means Coloradans will get to pay for that museum in Ohio even as Ohio taxpayers underwrite the five projects earmarked for our Western Slope. That’s not only unfair, it’s inefficient. We suspect taxpayers in Ohio could find better use for their money than that Packard Museum if they were allowed to set their own priorities. Likewise, state and local officials in Colorado often find that the federally earmarked money, while welcome, doesn’t reflect their own assessment of the state’s most pressing needs.
As much as possible, the money collected by federal fuel taxes should be returned directly to the states where they are collected – and state and local officials, not log-rolling politicians in Washington, should decide how those funds are spent. The Senate transportation bill is a significant step in that direction and also treats Colorado and other “donor” states more fairly than past laws did. For those reasons, we hope it prevails over the House version and that President Bush signs the package.
