Rocky Mountain News
November 15, 2005
Letters to the Editor

NW Parkway's flaws cropping up elsewhere

Recent articles in our newspapers have informed us that the Northwest Parkway Highway Authority's toll road is failing financially. Traffic and revenue on the tollway are less than half of projected figures, the bonds that backed its construction are in danger of being relegated to "junk" status and now Executive Director Steve Hogan and company are scrambling to restructure their debt ("NW Parkway to overhaul debt," Nov. 7).

The authority sold bonds on the basis of inflated promises about the toll road's success, and now they cannot meet their obligations. I submit that is because there is neither the need nor the demand in the northwest quadrant of the metro area for any large, new highway - much less a toll road.

Yet the same geniuses who dreamed up this financial failure are now trying to impose another unnecessary highway boondoggle through Golden and Arvada - the so-called beltway connection. They want to throw good money after bad and will ultimately place governments and taxpayers in the northwest part of town in jeopardy of having to bail out defaulted bonds or lose our good credit for future endeavors.

Just as problematic, the faulty projections of Northwest Parkway performance have provided just as faulty input to the traffic-demand modeling of the Northwest Corridor Environmental Impact Study, a study being conducted to justify the beltway connection through Arvada and Golden.

The Colorado Department of Transportation should learn two lessons from the financial failure of the Northwest Parkway: we don't need large new highways in the northwest quadrant of the metro area and toll roads don't work.

Elliot Brown
Golden

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