Transportation and infrastructure

How do we pay for it?

BY RICHARD CHAMPION COLORADO STATE REPRESENTATIVE

I am Colorado House District 38, Representative Richard Champion. If you live in Littleton, the west side of Centennial, Bow Mar, or Columbine Valley, I am your State Representative. Our former Representative, Susan Beckman resigned in January and I was honored to have been selected by the Republican Party vacancy committee to replace her.

As I sit “safer at home”, thinking about the other issues besides the COVID-19 virus, my thoughts drifted to our crumbling infrastructure.

The condition of Colorado’s infrastructure (which includes roads, highways, bridges, and transit systems) is bad and getting worse. We pretty well know what needs to be done, but the big question is: “How do we pay for it?” This past January, the Colorado Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers released its 2020 Report Card for Colorado’s Infrastructure. Covering 14 categories, roads, bridges, and transit all received a grade of C-, which also happened to be the average for the entire group. Colorado should not be happy with a C-!

Mayors of many of Colorado’s largest cities met for a week in late January to discuss the state’s infrastructure shortfalls, especially in the area of transportation. Most of them felt partisan politics have brought near-total paralysis in terms of constructive suggestions, let alone lasting solutions. Lone Tree Mayor

Jackie Millet summarized recent history well: “We’ve gone to the ballot. We’ve asked the voters to fix our roads without increasing taxes. We’ve asked the voters to fix our roads with an increase in taxes. And we asked voters to let us keep the money we’ve already paid in taxes to address our roads.”

All ballot proposals failed – the Legislature should have gotten the message: “Find the money to fix our roads!” So where is that money? In the current FY 2019-20 Operating Budget of $32.5 billion (we believe it will be subject to significant downward revision-but we will know more about revisions after the May 12th Revenue Forecast) is allocated as follows: Human Services and Health Care – 40.1%; Higher Education and K-12 Education – 34%; Corrections and Judicial – 5.6%; Transportation – 6.5%; Other – 13.8%. The only category that must be funded by constitutional mandate is K-12 Education. All other categories have flexibility.

Transportation’s share of that fiscal-year budget (once again, subject to downward revision), is $2.1 billion. Somewhat more than half of that figure is funded by Colorado’s excise tax on gasoline and diesel. With the Governor’s current war on fossil fuels, excise taxes are in a downward spiral. Most of the balance of Colorado’s transportation dollars is comprised of federal funds.

To put that in context, consider the following from the Colorado Department of Transportation’s 2040 Statewide Transportation Plan:

“CDOT requires approximately $46 billion (in 2016 dollars) in funding over the next 25 years. $20.7 billion in needs have been identified in the next 10 years to reach the plan’s goals and objectives. Projected revenues will only cover approximately 46 percent of the projected needs for the next 25 years, with projected needs exceeding revenues by $24.9 billion. For the next 10 years alone the funding gap is $8.77 billion (roughly $877 million per year). CDOT needs a long-term, sustainable source of revenue.”