After 15 months in which the only contribution Gov. Bill Ritter and most state legislators have made to solving Colorado’s mounting traffic woes was a call for further study of previous studies, a plan to impose tolls on Interstate 70 offers the only remaining hope to unsnarl that vital east-west artery.
The tolling plan won a 5-2 approval in the Senate Transportation Committee last week and now faces a precarious future in Appropriations. The Post favors Senate Bill 213 as revised by its architects, Sen. Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, and Rep. Mike May, R-Parker.
The legislature’s excuse for dithering last year was that Ritter had named a bipartisan committee to study transportation and make recommendations to this year’s General Assembly. But when the committee reported this year, the governor didn’t endorse any of the four options it recommended — and lawmakers also ignored them with a vengeance.
After weeks of such deafening silence, Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, proposed a “congestion pricing” plan for I-70 that would have used tolls during weekend rush hours to encourage people to leave earlier or take alternative routes. Elegant in theory but politically unpopular, Romer’s plan was killed last week in favor of the notion of a $5 round-the- clock toll at the tunnel to raise about $60 million a year to ease congestion on I-70.
Initially, we were skeptical of SB 213 because it seemed to endorse more traffic lanes in each direction instead of the reversible bus and carpool lanes, which can be tolled for single- occupancy vehicles, known as HOT lanes, that serve Interstate 25 north from downtown Denver to U.S. 36. Such reversible lanes are the cheapest and most environmentally sound ways to solve the alternating one-way weekend congestion problem besetting I-70. Happily, McElhany and May now back just such a plan.
We also initially agreed with Ritter that legislation specific to I-70 should await the report of yet another study by the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration that is due this summer. But we now feel as Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, said to one witness who called for further delay, “You said you’ve been on committees that have studied this for 20 years? How many more years do we need to study?”
That’s a good question.
In fact, there is no conflict between SB 213 in its current form — which is only a funding mechanism — and the I-70 study, which is designed to propose specific projects to ease mountain corridor congestion. Obviously, whatever transportation modes are finally chosen, there will have to be a way to pay for them, and approving SB 213 now would create just such a financing mechanism.
We’d prefer a broad-based transportation financing plan to more toll roads, but until voters approve such a plan, tolls may be the only way to pay for key improvements.
