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Paying for "Texas leaguer" roads
3/25/2006
Bob Ewegen
The Denver Post
Copyright 2006
In baseball, a "Texas leaguer" is a fly ball that lands halfway between the infield and outfield, where there's nobody to field it.
Denver metropolitan area transportation planners have their own Texas leaguers - highway projects too big for individual cities and counties but out of the budgetary reach of the cash-strapped Colorado Department of Transportation.
Now, metro counties and cities are working to create a Regional Transportation Authority to build some of those projects to ease the area's worsening congestion.
The effort is being spearheaded by Douglas County, which is also leading opposition to CDOT's proposal to add toll lanes to the existing "free" C-470 section of the emerging beltway that now circumnavigates about three-fourths of the Denver area.
The 2005 legislature, spurred by Gov. Bill Owens, passed a law allowing the metro area to form such a multi-jurisdictional transportation authority. Every other region of the state already had that power.
Douglas County Commissioner Melanie Worley on Friday said the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) "has formed a subcommittee to move fairly quickly in the next six months to see what the options are." The Pikes Peak region already has a working regional transportation authority and recently briefed metro-area leaders about its operations.
Douglas County and other local governments in or near the C-470 southwest freeway oppose adding express toll lanes because they fear such "Lexus lanes" won't relieve congestion in the free lanes.
Incidentally, the more pedantic toll road advocates object to the term "free" highways because those roads are actually paid for by fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees. That's true, but motorists still have to pay those other taxes when they take a toll road as well - in addition to paying a third time at the toll booth.
Duane Fellhauer, director of public works for Douglas County, fears that many motorists won't pay that toll and, if the remaining free lanes are congested, will then shift to local residential streets that aren't designed to handle the overload.
Fellhauer agrees that toll-only expressways such as E-470 have their place. But he fears that the hybrid toll-lane/free-lane proposal virtually requires that the tolls be kept high enough to ensure that the free lanes are still congested.
No one, after all, would willingly pay a toll to take an express lane if the adjacent free lane was moving just as swiftly.
As an alternative to the proposed two toll lanes in each direction, a consultant hired by Douglas County recently recommended adding one free lane each way, at a cost of up to $100 million. That's much cheaper than the $350 million the toll-lane plan would cost. But CDOT argues the state doesn't have an extra $100 million for such a project - while it hopes it could raise the much higher cost of the toll lanes from private investors.
That's where a regional transportation authority could come in. There are seven counties in the metro area. If such an authority could raise about $1 billion, it could pay for a vital regional project such as the C-470 widening in each county. And local officials think they might have a way to get that $1 billion - by persuading voters to extend the existing 0.1 percent sales tax that now pays off bonds on Invesco Field at Mile High when it expires, probably in 2010.
The revenue from that sales tax would support about $1 billion in transportation bonds - more than last fall's failed Referendum D would have allocated to metro Denver. Best of all, it wouldn't require an increase in the sales taxes already paid by metro area voters - only to forego the eventual 0.1 percent cut in the existing sales tax they would otherwise receive.
Adams County voters in 2001 agreed to just such an extension, continuing the 0.5 percent sales tax originally passed to build a new county justice center and earmarking the further proceeds to transportation needs.
The stadium tax, originally passed to build Coors Field, has already been extended once to build a new home for the Broncos. Now it may fund local transportation needs, joining the voter-approved FasTracks rapid transit lines as part of a coordinated effort to ease the gridlock on our highways.
Bob Ewegen is The Denver Post's deputy editorial page editor. He has written on state and local government since 1963.
© 2006 The Denver Post denverpost
The Denver Broncos returned to the practice field Monday morning with their first string offense intact, CBS4 Broncos Insider Gary Miller reports.
Rod Smith practiced for the second straight day after missing a week with a strained hamstring. Javon Walker, who like Smith didn't play in Detroit, will join Smith in the starting lineup Saturday night against the Tennessee Titans at Invesco Field at Mile High.
Highlights of practice included Darrent Williams picking off a Jake Plummer pass. Louis Green and Sam Brandon combined to strip the ball from Kyle Johnson after the fullback caught a screen pass and was running in the open field.
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