Gubernatorial candidates Bob Beauprez and Bill Ritter agree that Colorado’s system for funding highway construction and maintenance is cracked and potholed.
They just differ on the way to fix it.
Gas taxes traditionally have paid for the bulk of road work, but better fuel economy, the growth of alternate-fuel vehicles and even the curtailment of driving because of high gas prices have reduced tax proceeds.
When final accounting is done, Colorado expects to collect about $514 million in taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel in the fiscal year that ended June 30. That would be down about 7.2 percent from the previous year.
Republican candidate Beauprez says he would replace the state’s 22 cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline by boosting the state sales tax by 0.77 percent.
He pegged the sales tax increase at that amount to make it “revenue neutral” and bring in the same amount of money as the current gas tax.
A huge funding shortfall
Linking transportation funding to the sales tax instead of the fixed, per-gallon gasoline tax would allow the state’s kitty for roads to increase as the economy grows, Beauprez said in a recent interview.
“We’ve got a declining funding mechanism and an increasing need” for highway money, he said.
Colorado officials estimate the state will need an extra $59 billion over the next 25 years just to maintain current transportation service levels.
Ritter, the Democratic candidate in the Nov. 7 election, pans Beauprez’s approach to transportation funding, saying the sales tax hike will not produce any substantial amount of new money for road construction and repair.
Ritter said he would appoint a blue-ribbon panel on transportation finance in the early days of his administration to recommend ways of closing the funding gap.
An earlier transportation finance committee established by Gov. Bill Owens whiffed in its effort because it would not consider ways to raise new money, Ritter said.
“We need a new funding stream,” Ritter said at a transportation forum in Denver on Wednesday. “How we fund transportation now is crucial to our quality of life.”
Ritter has other problems with Beauprez’s tax proposal.
Erasing the state gas tax will “encourage people to drive more” – an outcome that is not environmentally sound, he said.
“The sales tax is very regressive,” the Democrat added in a separate interview last week. “The reason we use the gas tax is that you can show a relationship between the gas tax and highway use.”
Low-income people and seniors, especially those who don’t drive, would bear an unfair burden of paying for highways if Beauprez’s tax substitution were to occur, Ritter added.
Beauprez counters that “the current system is enormously regressive,” with low-income drivers paying a “disproportionate” share of their income on the gas tax.
Continuing to exempt grocery and gasoline purchases from the sales tax would help “balance out that regressivity,” he said.
Multiple solutions required
A Denver Regional Council of Governments task force is exploring at least 10 options for raising money for roads, including boosting the gas tax, increasing the state income tax and hiking the severance tax on oil and gas production in Colorado.
The council also is looking at raising driver’s license and auto registration fees for road money, and forming regional transportation authorities, or RTAs, that could raise sales taxes locally to fund highway work.
Ritter said his transportation finance panel will consider all options as well. “Everything should be on the table,” he said, and after he sifts the group’s recommendations, “we will go to the voters.”
Beauprez acknowledged that his sales tax plan will not be enough to cure the highway funding shortfall.
Regional transportation authorities and other measures will be needed as well, he said. “There is going to have to be more than one bullet.”
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
Where they stand
Positions on road issues
TOLLING
Beauprez: Transportation planners should consider the “terrible T-word,” tolling, but its use as a funding solution for roads should be “locally driven.”
Ritter: Tolling proposals have not been well received lately in the Denver area because toll roads have “real impacts on local governments” as some motorists switch to neighborhood streets to avoid paying tolls. Tolling should be “one arrow in the quiver” of highway planners, but not “without significant input from local government.”
CONGESTION IN THE I-70 MOUNTAIN CORRIDOR
Beauprez: Expanding Interstate 70 at key points may not be the answer. “If you make the neck of the funnel bigger, you’re still pouring everything into one funnel.”
“It’s high time we get very serious about a second corridor (through the mountains),” possibly a westward highway expansion from El Paso County. Beauprez also said mass transit should be considered, especially a heavy-rail operation.
Ritter: Dealing with I-70 mountain congestion will be a top priority of his administration and its transportation finance panel.
“We will not bring in tourists if they sit in traffic (on I-70) for three to four hours” after flying into DIA. “I believe the I-70 corridor has to have a transit option.”
LINKING THE NORTHWEST PARKWAY AND C-470
Beauprez: Most cities have beltways around their metro areas, and they are a benefit to communities. The difficult part is deciding on the right alignment for the Northwest Corridor. “It needs to get done, but with the consensus of the local community.”
Ritter: Planners “should not complete the loop for the sake of completing it,” over the objections of officials and residents of Golden. A solution should “address local issues,” he said.
PRAIRIE FALCON PARKWAY EXPRESS (a.k.a. SUPER SLAB)
Beauprez: Private backers of the toll road erred by, in effect, “sneaking up on people in the middle of the night” to inform them their property might be seized by eminent domain. But the legislature recently passed a law ensuring that such private toll ventures must submit to public reviews conducted in the “light of day.”
Ritter: Plans add to the debate over “what is the appropriate use of eminent domain power.” Property should only be taken for a highly beneficial public use. He disapproves of the use of eminent domain for private purposes.
