Regardless of whether you use it for work, play, or to catch a flight to Denver International Airport, driving the Interstate 70 mountain corridor can be an exercise in frustration.
Between the weather, the congestion and the ever-present accidents, the journey through the Eisenhower Tunnel from one part of our state to the other can take the better part of a day without any stretch of the imagination. Too often we see that corridor from the perspective of an immoveable line of brake lights in front of us.
For more than 20 years, people who live, work and enjoy the I-70 mountain corridor have been studying various methods to relieve the congestion problem. After all that time, the latest group, appropriately named the Collaborative Effort, will release its recommendation for a solution to the crisis in May.
This is terrific news. Unfortunately, there is no money set aside today to fund any solutions for I-70. There is simply no bank account marked “Payable to the I-70 Corridor” in Colorado’s treasury. Even more troubling, the federal government’s transportation resources are declining at a rate faster than Colorado’s.
That is why we must find new funding sources for this critical mountain corridor.
State Sen. Andy McElhany’s proposal — Senate Bill 213 — would ask the Colorado Department of Transportation to seek a federal waiver allowing the Colorado Tolling Enterprise (CTE) to develop a plan to toll a portion of the I-70 corridor between Floyd Hill and the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial Tunnel. The bill caps the toll at $5 for all vehicles, personal and commercial.
These tolling dollars could translate into more than a billion dollars in bond proceeds that will help to implement the Collaborative Effort’s plan. Additionally, these funds will enable the CTE to use evolving technology to account for the tolls in a manner that is least disruptive to drivers.
This proposal is pragmatic. It is bipartisan and it is fair. The drivers who use this corridor will be the same people who pay to maintain it, residents and visitors alike. It will provide the critical resources necessary to fund a plan developed by people who have spent decades working on the problem. These funds can be available within the next few years — not decades — and they will be expended solely to benefit that corridor.
And there is an important exception in this bill: residents living in Summit, Clear Creek and Gilpin counties, and those who have a vehicle registered at a local business, will be exempt.
SB 213 creates a viable funding option for this corridor by creating more than $1 billion focused on the I-70 mountain corridor.
Former U.S. Sen. Everett Dirkson once said, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.” This billion new dollars can create the opportunity for a better future for this mountain corridor.
The fate of this bill now resides with the Colorado Senate, and thereafter the House. The General Assembly can, and must, accomplish this important task prior to its adjournment in early May.
The days of the “freeway” are gone in Colorado. It would be a travesty to respond to the hard work of the Colorado’s citizens involved in the Collaborative Effort by saying we simply have no money to allow their recommendations to proceed and put yet another well-intentioned plan on the shelf.
Act now on Senate Bill 213, or look forward to the bleak prospect of brake lights forever.
Joe Blake is president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. He was a member of Gov. Bill Ritter’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Transportation Finance and Implementation, and is a former chairman of the Colorado Transportation Commission.
