Inside Politics: Merging the Best Solution for Traffic Issues
By Rebecca Boyle, (Bio) rboyle@fortcollinsnow.com
1:05 a.m. MT Mar 28, 2008
LOVELAND—Northern Colorado communities could benefit from following in the footsteps of the state’s two senators.
U.S. Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland, and Ken Salazar, D-Manassa, might disagree frequently and even fight strenuously to elect members of their own parties. But often, when it comes to crucial funding or oversight issues for Colorado, the two meet in the middle.
And Northern Colorado municipalities had better do the same, the senators said Wednesday.
More than 300 people filled an exhibition hall at The Ranch in Loveland for a meeting about regional transportation and transit issues, which many people agree are paramount among the area's challenges.
Allard said the municipalities have to work together.
“They're all in the same pot together,” he said. “They need to understand that what is good for one community is probably going to benefit the other communities as well.”
Other people have not necessarily seen it that way, however.
Last year, a months-long effort to form a regional transportation authority fizzled after municipalities couldn't agree on several key issues, including funding priorities or projects.
Fort Collins City Council was the first governing body to back out, and others followed suit; the effort collapsed by early summer.
City leaders had several concerns about the formation of a new tax authority, including transit improvements helping to siphon money to competing communities; sprawl; and disagreement about how and where the money should be spent.
But Salazar said the communities needed to get past all that.
“They need to transcend their parochialism, frankly, and understand the whole region is connected,” he said.
He compared transportation planning and collaboration to that of water, which brought the region together decades ago. Several Northern Colorado municipalities share water brought to the eastern side of the Continental Divide thanks to the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. Had community leaders not agreed on the water plan in the 1930s and 40s, the region might never have had the water resources that have allowed it to grow exponentially.
Transportation and transit are arguably the region's most pressing challenges, and they tie into all the others of water, growth, the economy and sprawl.
At The Ranch on Wednesday, a group of city council members, chambers of commerce members, business leaders and others answered a series of questions for a poll intended to garner opinions about the future of transportation and how to tackle it.
In a computer-run instant poll, 44 percent of people said it took them up to 15 minutes to get to work. A majority, about 42 percent, live and work in Fort Collins, with about 18 percent for Loveland and 10 percent for Greeley.
Such short commutes would seem ripe for transit, especially given that 45 percent of people in the region live within one-quarter mile of a bus stop.
But 86 percent of the attendees take their own cars, by themselves.
Given those numbers, it seems transportation and transit improvements face more hurdles than a lack of access.
But the good news was that most people agreed with Salazar and Allard: 84 percent of them said regional collaboration was of key importance.
Salazar told the group they had better act on it.
He praised Denver's Regional Transportation District, which has won hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for projects like the FasTracks light rail expansion.
“Unless you somehow get yourselves organized in a regional way, there are going to be huge opportunities that are going to be lost,” he said.
He even suggested the region join in RTD, noting that several Northern Colorado residents probably go shopping in Denver, where some of their sales tax dollars are being collected by RTD. Or, he added, the region could come up with its own plan.
Allard said he didn't necessarily favor additional layers of government—that has been a criticism of plans for a regional transportation authority, because it would be able to levy taxes—but he agreed the communities had to come together.
“You don't have to have more government to get things done,” he said. “(Communities) had better be prepared to work together, but it doesn't have to be a (RTA), it can be more informal.”
Either way, both senators agreed the region's leaders should start working together, and the sooner the better.
Just getting to the meeting itself illustrated the need for some kind of solution.
Several people were delayed by an accident on Interstate 25 south of the Harmony Road exit involving an overturned semitrailer, which snarled the highway for much of the morning commute.
For many residents coming from Fort Collins or Windsor, there was no alternate route.
