Ask not for whom Colorado’s roads toll. If the Denver Regional Council of Governments approves, they may soon toll for thee.
Perhaps John Donne’s poetic vision is too lofty to apply to our growing transportation problems. But unless Colorado finds a new source of highway financing, motorists will have to choose between toll roads or gridlock. One such proposal, to add express toll lanes on C-470 between Kipling and Interstate 25, is now before DRCOG for that regional planning agency’s approval. That plan, like four others now being studied by the Colorado Tolling Authority along C-470, I-225, U.S. 36, I-70 east and I-270, would shoehorn for-pay express lanes alongside existing free lanes. Only the sixth possibility, completing the metro beltway by linking the Northwest Parkway to C-470 near Golden, would be a pure toll road.
Local transportation experts like Duane Fellhauer, director of public works for Douglas County, argue cogently that such hybrid toll-lane/free-lane plans will cause motorists wishing to avoid either tolls or delays in the remaining free lanes to shift to surface streets that aren’t designed to move heavy volumes of traffic. The tolling authority’s regional director, Pam Hutton, agrees that hybrid plans can clog local streets – but adds that doing nothing at all in these congested corridors will shift even more motorists onto local streets. Conceding that point, Douglas County leaders parry by proposing adding one free lane in each direction of C-470 for about $150 million instead of the two-lane-each-way, $385 million toll road. Unfortunately, state plans through 2030 don’t foresee funds for any such improvements along C-470 without the additional revenue provided by tolls.
There is, however, one other alternative, organizing a Regional Transportation Authority within the seven-county metro area now served by the Regional Transportation District. For example, if voters approved extending the current 0.1 percent sales tax that finances Invesco Field at Mile High when those bonds are paid off and redirecting the money to local transportation needs, a regional agency might issue nearly $1 billion in new bonds. That would provide one project like the one-lane-each-way C-470 plan in each of the seven metro counties.
We urge the council of governments to consider whether such a regional taxing authority would provide a better alternative to toll roads or might supplement the existing tolling proposals.
