Lawmakers say policies must help cut driving

Dems react to panel’s call to spend $1.5 billion

By ED SEALOVER

THE GAZETTE

DENVER - An upcoming report proposing that Colorado spend $1.5 billion more a year on transportation has some lawmakers asking if something can be done to reduce the miles Coloradans drive.

The report by the governor appointed Blue Ribbon Transportation Panel will suggest putting $562 million more toward mobility needs, $538 million to maintenance and safety efforts, $293 million to local roads and $107 million to transit, bike, environmental and pedestrian needs. Compiled after eight months of study, it recommends raising several statewide taxes and greatly increasing fees on vehicle registrations to fund the needs.

Though the eye-popping number — the state spends about $1 billion a year on transportation — was the first thing that caught many legislators’ attention, a number of Democrats soon began to ask if there were other ways to cut congestion. Rep. Jack Pommer, a member of the powerful Joint Budget Committee, questioned last month whether the panel did any out-of-the box thinking, and Rep. Claire Levy proposed a bill this month to place a priority on sending road money to pedestrian- and transit-oriented communities.

I turns out that the transportation panel did look at ways to reduce the amount of driving we do. The report we got focused on the financial part of the proposal; a smaller plan to increase funding $500 million/year for highway repairs and maintenance and a larger plan to increase funding by $1.5 billion/year. That second plan is the one that the commission will probably recommend, and it includes better public transportation.

Outside of the money part of the plans, Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor tells me that the committee will recommend making it easier for us to get around without driving. Will is on the panel.

Though their approaches were different — Levy did not criticize the report directly — both reflected an underlying sentiment among the majority party: Transportation funding and environmental and growth concerns should be linked.

A September report by Smart Growth America and the Urban Land Institute stated that despite efforts to produce alternative-fuel or more fuel-efficient vehicles, carbon emissions from vehicles would continue to rise unless the number of vehicle miles traveled is reduced. With zoning policies encouraging low-density development farther from city cores and transportation policies putting money into roads rather than transit, that is unlikely to happen, the report said.

Policies must encourage inner-city development that allows people to work, shop and play without jumping into a car, said Michael Leccese, executive director of the Colorado District Council of the Urban Land Institute.

“Unfortunately, land use has not been part of the climate-change discussion at most levels of government,” Leccese said.

Transportation accounts for the second-largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and those numbers are growing faster than any other sector of greenhouse gas producers, according to the ULI report. Vehicle miles traveled increased three times faster than the U.S. population over the past 15 years, and in Colorado they grew 114 percent from 1980 to 2005, from 22 billion miles a year to 47 billion miles.

Even if fuel-efficiency standards are increased to 35 miles per gallon and fuel carbon content is reduced by 10 percent by 2030, according to the report, transportation emissions will be 40 percent above 1990 levels. Many scientists have called for cutting emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

The pollution problem is even more pressing here along the Front Range. We're creating so much ozone in our air that it's violating federal law. Poisoning ourselves is bad enough, but violating the Clean Air Act also brings down some harsh sanctions from the federal government.

Levy, D-Boulder, hasn’t determined the specific criteria she wants to use in her bill, but said she wants to reward good growth policies with transportation funding so cities and counties can’t get money for expansion without producing “smart growth” plans. She also has proposed a measure that would assess a fee on the least fuel-efficient vehicles and put the revenues to a state office of smart growth.

Pommer, also of Boulder, did not mention a specific plan to cut vehicle miles, but said any recommendation from the Blue Ribbon panel should include one.

The panel’s members, who are writing their final report after agreeing to the recommendations at a November meeting, maintain there are a number of efforts in their plans to move people out of single-occupancy vehicles.

Panel co-chairman Doug Aden noted that of the $562 million suggested for mobility projects, $251 million is for transit projects such as buses and trains that would run between cities. An additional $72 million is recommended for urban and rural transit within communities, and $10 million for bike and pedestrian improvements — areas on which the Department of Transportation has never focused, he said.

Also, a policy statement in the report will call for looking for ways to slow the increase in vehicle miles traveled, Aden said.

The problem is that the idea of cutting these miles while the state’s population grows is harder than just committing to do so, said Aden, who is also chairman of the Colorado Transportation Commission. It gets into the issue of the state determining land use allowances, which has been the prerogative of local cities and counties.

The biggest point the blue ribbon committee will be making is that we don't have enough money to even maintain our current transportation system. Cities and counties fight hard to protect their prerogatives on local land use, then they fight hard to get state and federal tax money to clean up the transportation mess they make.

At some point, they're going to realize that there isn't enough money from the state or federal government to cover their costs. Then they'll have to ask their own taxpayers to pay the entire bill. At that point, I think the real cost of continual sprawl will sink in.

There is also the question of whether pushing growth away from suburbs and into urban areas will cause housing prices in the cities to skyrocket, as they have in some other parts of the country.

“I think the challenge you have in that scenario is for local governments to work with developers to find ways to make that housing affordable,” said Aden, a retired banker. “Development is taking place further and further north and further and further south (along the Front Range) because of affordability.”

The panel’s final report is expected to be published around Jan. 1

Ritter gives gas-tax talk little mileage

The governor is waiting to see what a panel will suggest to fund state road needs. But he's said all options are on the table.
By Mark P. Couch Denver Post Staff Writer

Gov. Bill Ritter declined Wednesday to say whether he would support increasing the state's gas tax to pay for improvements to roads and highways.

The Democratic governor said making any comment would pre-empt the work of the Blue Ribbon Transportation Panel he appointed this year.

"I'm not going to answer that," Ritter said. "The transportation panel is doing its work. Until it's finished, I'm not going to dilute what they're doing by offering my suggestions."

In appointing the panel, Ritter made it clear he wanted the group to consider all options for maintaining roads. In previous efforts, officials were prohibited from considering tax increases.

The Colorado Department of Transportation estimates it will cost $65 billion to sustain the existing system of roads and bridges through 2030. To expand the system to keep pace with population growth would cost another $40 billion.

The department's 2007-08 budget is $1 billion. The total state budget is more than $17 billion.

That total state budget figure is a little misleading. It includes federal funds and cash funds that pass through our budget, but w have little or no control over. We couldn't just divert them to transportation, or anything else.

The General Fund, which we can control in theory is about 7.6 billion. I say "in theory" because a lot of it is taken up with spending we can't really cut. Medicaid, schools, prisons and other items are huge expenses which are protected by federal law, the state constitution or practical considerations.

In addition to the gas tax, other funding proposals that have been discussed include raising taxes on sales, income, rental cars and lodging.

Another idea is a tax on vehicle miles traveled, charging motorists a penny for each mile traveled in the state.

The discussion about road funding has added urgency because of last week's bridge collapse in Minneapolis in which at least five people died.

During the past two years, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state's gas tax to pay for transportation needs.

In the wake of the disaster, Pawlenty, a Republican, has reconsidered his position.

Lawmakers on Colorado's Joint Budget Committee, which writes the annual spending plan, expressed mixed views about increasing the gas tax.

Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, said he would support an increase in the gas tax to pay for maintaining roads and bridges.


"For years, the department has been saying that we're underfunding them," Pommer said. "Who knows how many issues we have lurking out there."

In its 2005 report to the JBC, CDOT said a top priority was to: "Eliminate Backlog of Structurally Deficient Bridges." At that time it said 106 bridges across the state were in such bad condition they couldn't be repaired and had to be replaced

.

A year later, after finishing replacement of Colorado's worst bridge, CDOT Executive Director Tom Norton said: “...there are still numerous bridges that are nearing or past their design life and need to be replaced. We appreciate the support of our local, state and federal partners and hope we can continue to work together to secure funding so CDOT can make even more progress on replacing the state’s deteriorated bridges.”

Any tax increase would need to be approved by voters because of limits imposed by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, an amendment added to the state constitution in 1992.

"We can say it, but nobody has to pay it unless it's approved by voters," Pommer said.

Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Larimer County, said Colorado shouldn't rewrite its budget because of a disaster in Minnesota.

"I don't think a problem in Minnesota necessarily means we've got a problem in Colorado," Johnson said. "We ought to design our budget to meet the needs of our state."

That's true and the needs of our state are pretty clear and have been for some time. It's just that no one pays much attention to them until some disaster gets their attention.

We have a comprehensive, detailed report on our state's transportation needs and this is what says:

"The funds presently estimated to be available through 2030 fall far short of being able to meet the needs of the state’s transportation vision. Nor will they sustain the system’s present-day quality and performance levels.

Under the current revenue forecast, today’s approximately 60 percent good/fair rating for roadway surfaces on the state highway system will fall to 32 percent. Local roads will deteriorate.

A growing number of the 8,413 bridges statewide will require load restrictions, increased maintenance or other special management measures to ensure safe conditions for people and goods.

Load-restricted bridges also may force trucks to find longer delivery routes, thereby increasing consumer prices.Efforts to reduce traffic fatalities and crashes will be diminished.

Without increasing capacity or the use of alternative modes of transportation, the percentage of congested miles on the state highway system will rise from 10 percent in 2000 to 25 percent in 2030.

People will pay more for vehicle repairs due to potholes and ruts. In urban areas, motorists will have to leave home earlier to avoid longer and more congested routes. The increased demand for service in 2030 for transit, aviation and local roads will not be met."

There you have it. An assessment of Colorado's transportation system, written by Colorado's former transportation director (a Republican, by the way).

Johnson said he fought with statehouse Democrats this year to prevent deeper cuts in transportation funding. He said some Democratic proposals shifted money from roads to building construction, health care and the judicial department.

We didn't cut transportation funding, we just didn't increase it as much as some people wanted.

"I'd rather see us spend more of the money we've got on transportation rather than raising taxes," Johnson said.

Still, he acknowledged that the state's pool of money falls short of the needs identified by the Transportation Department.

Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.

Official: Add staff at DMV facilities

By John Fryar

The Daily Times-Call

DENVER — Adding staff to Colorado’s busiest driver’s licensing offices would reduce long waits more efficiently than reopening closed offices, Department of Revenue director M. Michael Cooke said Wednesday.

Cooke proposes to spend $1 million to add 25 new workers to existing driver’s license offices rather than reopen any of the more than 30 offices the state closed over the past five years when budgets were lean.

But Larimer County Republican Steve Johnson, who represents a Senate district where the state shut down licensing offices in Estes Park and Loveland about four years ago, isn’t on board with the proposal.

“I don’t think it’s going to fix the problem created by the closure of those (other) offices,” said Johnson, a member of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee.

But Cooke said reopening offices would come with increased overhead costs. By comparison, she said, many of the busiest existing offices have enough space to accommodate additional employees without incurring that extra overhead.

“We’ve looked at the cost of reopening offices,” Cooke told the budget panel.

Johnson, a Fort Collins-area resident, has noted that his wife spent several hours this fall waiting to renew her license at the Division of Motor Vehicles office there.

Cooke acknowledged that the Fort Collins office has been understaffed and that the DMV sometimes has shifted staffers from Greeley to handle the crowds in Fort Collins.

Johnson said the state should make licensing offices accessible to as many people as possible and not just worry about shortening the lines at existing offices.

Johnson said it’s “not acceptable” that his Estes Park- and Loveland-area constituents still have to travel to Fort Collins or Longmont to get driver’s licenses.

“It’s not going to help by just putting a couple more people in the Fort Collins office,” Johnson said in an interview after Wednesday’s JBC hearing.

Cooke said the DMV has taken steps to trim wait times, but she said some offices still fall short of the goal of processing at least 75 percent of customers’ applications within 35 minutes.

Under the Revenue Department proposal, three of the 25 new employees would be assigned to one-person offices: one serving Craig, Meeker and Rangely; the second for Trinidad and Walsenberg; and the third for Steamboat Springs.

The other 22 would be distributed among the state’s busiest licensing offices. Cooke said those offices would be identified before July 1, when the 2007-08 budget year starts.

Boulder Democratic Rep. Jack Pommer, another JBC member, said in an interview that he hasn’t had many constituent calls about long waits to get driver’s licenses at the Longmont and Boulder offices.

But Pommer added that he’s heard about long waits at licensing offices.

Pueblo Democratic Sen. Abel Tapia, chairman of the budget panel, said long waits might be exacerbated by Revenue Department identification requirements.

JBC members did not indicate Wednesday whether they’d accept, reject or modify the Revenue Department’s staffing increase request. The panel is to present its own multibillion-dollar spending recommendations to the full Legislature in late March.

John Fryar can be reached by e-mail at jfryar@times-call.com.

Last edited February 26, 2007 - Note created January 5, 2007

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