Rocky Mountain News
February 2, 2006
Letters to the Editor
Bill forces CDOT to justify need for tollway
I applaud Rep. Gwyn Green, D-Golden, for introducing House Bill 1116 ("CDOT's plan for toll roads hits resistance," Jan. 18). The Colorado Department of Transportation has built two unnecessary tollways and is planning a third. While toll roads make sense under certain circumstances, they're clearly not the answer for metro Denver. E-470 has promoted horrible sprawl and resulted in congestion on free roads. The Northwest Parkway was unnecessary, as its underutilization shows ("Northwest Parkway's bonds fall to junk status," Dec. 17, 2005).
CDOT's proposed tollway alternative to connect the Northwest Parkway with C-470 already has an informal noncompete agreement. In the minutes of CDOT's Northwest Corridor Consensus Committee/Technical Study Committee meeting on Oct. 14, 2005, it states, "No upgrades have been planned for SH 93 so as to avoid any competition for the proposed tollway alternative."
Green's bill addresses many of the problems with toll roads by prohibiting noncompete agreements. Without noncompete agreements, it will be much more difficult for CDOT to sell tollway bonds to investors. It puts the responsibility back on CDOT to prove to its investors and to the public that a tollway will be successful without artificially increasing traffic on the tollway using noncompete agreements.
Joe Schultz
Golden
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