Claiming the state’s roads and bridges are desperately in need of repair, a bipartisan group of government leaders urged Coloradans to support a new bonding program that could raise up to $1.2 billion for about 50 transportation projects statewide.
“We’ve got to invest in Colorado’s aging infrastructure,” Gov. Bill Owens said Wednesday before signing a bill that, with voters’ OK, will allow the state to keep money for highways that otherwise might have returned to residents under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR.
Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Golden, House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, and bill sponsors Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, and Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, joined Owens in urging support for the bond measure.
The recent legislative session approved two TABOR reform measures that allow the state to keep money for critical needs. Coloradans will vote on the measures, Referendum C and Referendum D, in November.
Referendum C would allow the state to retain an extra $3.1 billion over five years. Referendum D would permit the state to sell the bonds.
The bond measure also includes money for education and for police and fire pensions.
The final list of road projects will be set June 16 by the Colorado Transportation Commission.
One project that is expected to get about $50 million would be highway widening and bridge improvements for Interstate 25 in Denver from Broadway to West Alameda Avenue.
In part, the $1.2 billion in road funds would be used to complete some highway projects that voters approved in an earlier highway bonding measure in 1999. When other sources of state road funding dried up, some of those projects were left uncompleted.
Penn Pfiffner, president of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, said voters should reject the two bond measures, which go “far beyond filling potholes.”
“It’s an 8 percent increase in the tax burden on Coloradans and is five or six times what is needed for transportation,” Pfiffner said.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-820-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.