State and local officials seeking ways to pay for tens of billions of dollars in road improvements are looking at increases in sales or fuel taxes and hikes in driver’s license or vehicle- registration fees.
A task force established by the Denver Regional Council of Governments recently released a planning document that concluded yet another alternative – a “vehicle miles traveled” tax of 1 cent for every mile driven by area residents – could generate $4 billion to $5 billion for metro Denver roads over the next 25 years.
“We’re trying to get extremely creative about how we can start to fund these projects,” said Douglas County Commissioner Melanie Worley, who is leading the DRCOG task force.
The committee cited other possible long-term funding sources for metro-area transportation projects and the amount of money they might raise in the region over 25 years:
A 1 percent sales-and-use tax increase could generate between $13 billion and $17 billion.
A 1-cent-per-gallon increase in the state gas tax – to 23 cents – could raise $100 million to $150 million.
An annual registration fee of $10 a vehicle – $500 million to $600 million.
Adjusting the state gas tax to rise with inflation – $1 billion to $1.5 billion.
Adding a 2 percent lodging tax on visitors – $300 million to $400 million.
Continuation of the 0.1 percent metro football stadium district sales tax for 18 years past its planned 2012 expiration – $750 million to $1 billion.
All of the amounts are in current dollars. DRCOG represents the nine-county greater Denver area. The finance task force includes business officials and representatives from environmental groups.
The “vehicle miles traveled” tax is perhaps the most innovative financing tool under consideration. Oregon is conducting an experiment to see if it would be feasible to assess motorists fees for each mile they drive in lieu of paying the state gasoline tax.
As part of the experiment, vehicles are outfitted with Global Positioning System equipment to capture data on each mile driven.
To consider financing options, DRCOG officials are looking into the formation of a regional transportation authority, or RTA, for the Denver area. Such a collaboration of cities and counties would be the entity that could put a fee or tax increase on the ballot.
Some of the money-raising alternatives would require action by the Colorado General Assembly.
By January, the DRCOG committee hopes to have a transportation funding proposal to take to the group’s board of directors, said Rich Mauro, a senior policy analyst with the council.
On Tuesday, Gov. Bill Owens said the new state chief executive who will succeed him in January should consider tolling and new highway bonding programs as possible ways to pay for new roads.
“We’ve got to keep transportation a priority,” he said, after commemorating completion of the $800 million highway portion of the Transportation Expansion Project.
Yet the state’s efforts to promote tolling have hit roadblocks and the Colorado Department of Transportation does not have a reliable revenue stream to support additional highway bonding, officials say.
And local leaders in Douglas and Jefferson counties are vigorously opposing state- sponsored toll roads for their communities.
To help pay for the new T-REX lanes and bridges, and build 27 other “strategic” highway projects, Owens championed a state ballot measure that passed in 1999 and allowed Colorado to sell about $1.5 billion in transportation bonds.
Because other state highway funding sources dried up, only 19 of the priority projects were built or fully funded over the past seven years.
Now CDOT is weighed down by the payback of more than $2 billion in principal and interest on the 1999 bonds.
A decline in state gas tax collections and other factors have conspired to produce a “bleak” revenue forecast for the agency, said Heather Copp, CDOT’s chief financial officer.
Worley said voters ultimately will decide.
“We’re dealing with an educated populace,” she said. “What we want to do is lay out every one of our options.”
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-820-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
