Arvada Report: Beltway Q&A
The following questions and answers were offered by the City of Arvada in its August/September issue of the Arvada Report. Citizens Involved in the Northwest Quadrant (CINQ) offers these responses and comments.

Question: I keep hearing that studies prove that completing the link to the beltway isn’t really necessary. Is that true?
Arvada: The Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) has estimated that the Denver metropolitan area will grow by over one million people in the next 25 years. With that additional population we will see a corresponding increase in traffic. It is, therefore, imperative that we plan our road network now to avoid preclusion of possible road and transportation options. While many say that previous transportation studies for the western metropolitan area conclude the completion of the beltway is unnecessary, that simply is not true. Studies have indicated that up until the year 2015 the missing link is not necessary. However, the Denver metropolitan area will not stop growing by 2015. We must plan for the future beyond 2015 and be sure that we make decisions that our children can live with as they go about their daily travels.

CINQ RESPONSE:
The Northwest Quadrant Feasibility Study showed that the “missing link” will not be necessary through 2020, not 2015 as claimed by the city. The actual DRCOG estimates cited by the City show that population in the Northwest Corridor study area will actually DECREASE from 2025 through 2030, the forecast period in the Environmental Impact Statement study. (Check these facts on the CDOT web site). Arvada’s claim that the Denver metro area will have population growth is correct, but most of that growth will be in Aurora and east, along the E-470 corridor.

By spending all our transportation resources on a beltway link rather than arterial improvements, we who live in the corridor, Arvadans and Goldenites alike, will suffer with increased congestion and cost for the benefit of a few developers, cross-regional drivers and New York bond houses. The current EIS has completely removed local mobility and impact on local congestion from the purpose & need analysis.

Question: Golden residents are concerned that the proposed alignment down State Highway 93 (SH 93) will divide their City. Is that fair?
Arvada: No community wants additional traffic impacts. However, we must examine the facts. As early as 1983 Golden recognized the need to complete the beltway along the SH 93 corridor and made reference to it in their thoroughfare plan. They endorsed this concept in their 1992 thoroughfare plan. In fact, knowing that SH 93 was planned as a piece of the beltway, Golden worked hard to have it moved west off of Washington Street to its current intersection with US 6 and State Highway 58. It was only after that that they begin issuing building permits for home construction along the newly aligned corridor. Even knowing that SH 93 was planned as a link in the beltway, the City of Golden allowed for home construction along that corridor, as well as an elementary school and senior housing.

CINQ RESPONSE:
Golden’s thoroughfare plan cited from 1992 was not a high-speed beltway or tollway. But regardless of what may have been envisioned in 1992, many things have changed since then in Golden AND in Arvada, removing much of the demand for a major transportation facility:

1. In 1998, Arvada’s Jefferson Center, the cornerstone for its W-470 plans, was abandoned by Jefferson County
2. In 1999, thousands of acres of land at the north-east corner of SH-93 and SH-72 were placed into open space by Boulder County
3. In 2000, the City of Arvada joined with Golden and Westminster in an Inter-Governmental Agreement, in which each party agreed to accept the recommendations of the Northwest Quadrant Feasibility Study.
4. Later in 2000, the Feasibility Study found that a toll road across Arvada was not feasible and recommended 4-lane arterial improvements along Indiana and SH-93 rather than a beltway link. These studies were based on DRCOG population and employment forecasts for the year 2020.
5. The Feasibility Study recommendations included protection of right-of-way along Indiana as well as SH-93. In spite of its IGA to accept these recommendations, the City of Arvada has issued building permits along Indiana within this corridor. Both cities are guilty of protecting their own interests.
6. In 2001, more than 6,000 acres of land were designated as the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge by the federal government, making them undevelopable.

In summary, there have been many changes to the landscape since 1992, mostly west of Arvada. Had all of the development plans of the 80s come though, maybe a beltway would make sense by now. Instead, thousands of acres have been converted into open space and now it makes more sense to plan for reality: our own traffic problems, not someone else’s.

Question: I’ve heard that the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) made the decision to include only SH 93 beltway alignments in the final study in private. Is that true?
Arvada: Over the course of two years, CDOT’s Northwest Corridor Environmental Impact Statement has reviewed nearly 80 different alignments to complete the 470 beltway link. During that time CDOT sought public input and comments and conducted a reasonable, objective, and open process with over a dozen public meetings, numerous technical and policy meetings to which the public was invited, and opportunities to work on committees.

CINQ RESPONSE:
Yes, it is true that CDOT has decided to include only the SH-93 alignment for the beltway, but citizens would be interested to know that CDOT’s own EIS Technical Support Committee did not participate in the screening decisions made behind closed doors by CDOT and its engineering contractor. This process was so exclusionary that CDOT’s prime contractor for management and resolution of public involvement issues terminated its contract and quit the EIS. In addition, CDOT has not fully disclosed all their data to the public. After repeated requests by the City of Golden for the data, CDOT has finally responded by saying it will charge $22,000 for access to the information. Does this sound like an open and honest process?

Question: How will the beltway be funded? I’ve heard it can’t be funded by tolls, and CDOT certainly doesn’t have the money to pay for it.
Arvada: Funding for this project must be decided before the final project recommendation is forwarded to the Federal Highway Administration. Depending on the alternative selected and a host of other issues, such as Federal approval of the pending national highway funding bill, we can’t predict how this project will be funded. Tolling is one option and we know that tolls roads have a successful history in Colorado including the Boulder turnpike, E-470, and the Northwest Parkway in Broomfield. In the latter two cases, both are meeting their bond repayment obligations and traffic volumes are continuously rising to provide a steady stream of revenue for those authorities.

CINQ RESPONSE:

1. The City of Arvada has for years advocated a toll road across Arvada. In 2000, the City spent its own funds to try to justify it and to identify the best alignment from a toll revenue standpoint.
2. CDOT is many billions of dollars short of funding projects already in its Transportation Improvement Plans, which do not include the beltway. State and Federal funding for the Northwest Corridor beltway project, which by itself will cost upwards of a billion dollars, is highly unlikely without toll money.
3. Traffic and revenue on toll roads in the U.S. are notoriously over-estimated, by an average of 20% according to a 2004 report by Standard & Poors. A JP Morgan study found that only one of 14 toll roads exceeded their revenue forecast and that more than half “overestimated their forecasts by a substantial margin.”
4. Traffic from the Northwest Parkway in Broomfield has been cited often by Arvada City Council in justifying the need for a toll road to shunt that traffic west to SH-93. But traffic and revenue on the Northwest Parkway during its first full year of operation (through the end of 2004) averaged 67% below forecasts – about ONE THIRD of the projections given to bond purchasers. Despite what the City says, this project is headed for serious financial trouble unless they can dramatically increase traffic. That’s why they are giving away cars to attract drivers. These figures can be verified on the official Northwest Parkway web site.

Question: If the beltway is completed, will a bunch of development occur to the west?
Arvada: Absolutely not. In northwestern Jefferson County, the area where the beltway has been planned for over 40 years, there are over 12,000 acres of open space and land that cannot be developed. In northwest Arvada there is very little privately held, developable land. What land is available for development—approximately 1,500 acres at the northeast corner of State Highways 72 and 93, will develop with or without the completion of the beltway.

CINQ RESPONSE:
Of course it will. In fact, officials of Arvada, Jefferson County, and the State have always admitted openly that the beltway is intended to facilitate development along the corridor, especially near the Jefferson County Airport and Vauxmont, which the City admits will be developed in its answer to this question.

As to whether that land will develop “with or without a beltway”, Arvada City Council recently approved the Vauxmont Outline Development Plan conditional on completion of the beltway on their preferred route. Even an alignment change will require re-submission of the ODP.

The people of Golden have no objection to Arvada’s development plans in Vauxmont. But the fact that there is so little developable land, as cited above by the City of Arvada, combined with the serious under-performance of the Northwest Parkway, are the very reasons that traffic studies do not support the need for a beltway, and especially a toll road, in this corridor.

CINQ further offers these additional questions and answers:

Question: Does Golden want a beltway alignment through Arvada and Fairmount?
Answer: Absolutely not. Golden believes that if a beltway alignment is forced on us, then a fair and impartial study of all the alignments should be done. But Golden strongly believes that a beltway is unnecessary and is committed to the Inter-Governmental Agreement that it signed with Arvada in 2000 to adhere to the recommendations of the Northwest Quadrant Feasibility Study: 4-lane improvements on SH-93, SH-72, and Indiana/McIntire to SH-58. To demonstrate its commitment, Golden spent its own money to commission the design of a 4-lane arterial along SH-93 and US-6 with acceptable mitigation. If Arvada and Jefferson County would do the same for the Indiana/McIntire corridor, we could take a giant step toward amicably solving our transportation problems in the foreseeable future.

Question: Why is a toll road likely to increase congestion in Arvada, Fairmount, and neighboring communities?
Answer: Toll roads are all about revenue. In order to generate the revenue to pay off their bonds, the toll road must generate as much traffic as possible. One way this is done is to ensure that all of the free alternatives surrounding the toll road are as congested as possible.

To quote Douglas County in a recent letter to the Colorado Tolling Enterprise, “…when a new tollway or toll lanes are built, drivers look for free alternatives, diverting traffic to existing roads not capable of handling the added traffic.”

In a real-life example, it was recently revealed that E-470, when it was headed by Steve Hogan, now Executive Director of the Northwest Parkway Highway Authority, required that Commerce City slow down speed limits on Tower Road and add multiple traffic lights to maximize congestion and discourage drivers from using it as a free alternative to the tollway. In a “non-compete agreement”, they further prohibited the city and county from improving roads near the beltway. (“Colorado City Ruins Road to Boost Toll Revenue”, thenewspaper.com, August 2005).

Again quoting Douglas County, “Tolling as envisioned by the CTE is designed to generate revenue first and provide a transportation system second.” The result is that those who live and work in the area of the toll road must suffer both the added costs and the increased congestion that a toll road will create. So instead of our own government agencies working FOR us, they (and we) become slaves to the bond houses so that we can pay the interest on their bonds. Arvadans and Fairmount residents, who live closest to the proposed toll road, stand to lose the most. But Golden residents too will be subject to added traffic diverted onto the free SH-93 to avoid the toll road.

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