Even before the deadly Minneapolis bridge collapse focused attention on America’s crumbling infrastructure, Coloradans knew their own road and bridge network was sadly inadequate.
Passage of Referendum C did provide a modest infusion of cash for transportation needs – but even today, 35 percent of Colorado road surfaces are in poor condition while 13 percent of our bridges are rated in fair or poor condition.
Fortunately, few structures are in such horrible shape as to pose a threat to the lives or limbs of motorists. But the economic costs of Colorado’s inadequate transportation system remain serious. Even after opening of the T-REX project, 30 percent of the state’s major roads are congested. The average daily delay per person on those overcrowded highways is 22 minutes – resulting in many millions of dollars of lost economic output every year and incalculable amounts of frustration for Colorado’s embattled motorists.
Referendum C’s passage plus a recovering economy did pour an extra $272 million into Colorado’s transportation budget this year. But that’s not a long-term solution to Colorado’s transportation needs because those funds could disappear when Ref C’s five-year timeout from the limits of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights ends in 2010 – or before then if the economy takes another downturn.
The problem is that these “now you see them, now you don’t” highway funds come from a pair of laws known as Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1310 that channel surplus general-fund revenues to transportation only after other needs, such as prisons, public schools and health care are funded. During the 2003-05 budget crisis, there was no such surplus and Colorado had to try to meet its transportation needs solely from the basic Highway Users Trust Fund, which is fed by earmarked user fees such as motor fuel taxes and automobile registration fees.
Because Colorado hasn’t increased its 22 cent per gallon gasoline tax since 1991, that fund collected just $805.6 million last year. About $102 million was skimmed off the top to pay for highway-related costs like the state patrol. The rest was divided by formulas that left $430.5 million for state highway needs, $162.5 million for counties and $106.6 million for municipal transportation budgets. That’s not nearly enough to meet state needs and only a small fraction of what local governments must spend to maintain their own road and bridge networks.
That’s why Gov. Bill Ritter appointed the current blue-ribbon panel on transportation to recommend long-term solutions to Colorado’s transportation needs to the 2008 legislature. Asked last week if he would rule out a gas tax increase for highways, Ritter wisely replied that he wouldn’t prejudge the panel’s work by rejecting proposals that haven’t even been written yet.
In that spirit, here’s our suggestion to the transportation panel. While gasoline in Colorado does pay the 22 cent per gallon tax, it is exempted from state and local sales taxes, which total about 8 percent in the metro area. How about asking voters to apply a smaller, 6 percent sales tax statewide on motor fuel and dividing the proceeds between state and local governments using the existing HUTF formula?
That would raise about $450 million a year for state and local transportation needs – and free up the unreliable SB 1 and HB 1310 funds for other needs, such as strengthening Colorado’s underfunded higher education system.
