Now that a Portugese company, Brisa Auto-Estradas, has bailed out the failed Northwest Parkway and put another $60 million on the table to extend the toll road to SH-93 and 64th Avenue and $43 million more if the toll road is extended to I-70, Golden is under the wire more than ever before.
Whoops. I meant to say under the beltway. Read on and you’ll see why..
CDOT’s toll road option calls for 12 paved lanes through Golden.
You read that correctly. 12 paved lanes. There would be 2 paved lanes for shoulders on each side, two paved lanes for a median, and six lanes of traffic for a total width of 162 feet. That’s half the length of a football field.
One option CDOT is exploring would elevate half of this 12 lane monstrosity over Golden, just as I-25 is over Trinidad. You know, where you can look down and see the rooftops of buildings as you drive over them.
That’s the toll road option, which will kick in if Brisa and Broomfield gets their way. ..or the Broomfield Bandits, as I like to call them.
If the plan CDOT seems to have been leaning toward, the Modified Combined (MC) option, goes through, Golden can look forward to a four lane arterial on SH-93 and four lanes on McIntyre-Indiana. The four lanes on SH-93 will have six lanes of overly-wide 12” shoulders, so of course the four lanes is ten lanes.
Just remember this: in CDOT math, six lanes = twelve lanes.
In CDOT math, four lanes = ten lanes.
Even though these are not all traffic lanes, the plan is obviously that they will become ones soon.
Of course, this will destroy Golden.
Not to mention the wildlife.
Not to mention the T-Rex track at Fossil Trace – one of only two in the world.
This plan will drastically increase the ozone in the metro area. You know, the ozone level which we already have violated to the extent that we are facing sanctions.
But the people who will pay the most are the citizens of Colorado. And will we pay!
First, we will pay in increased congestion and sprawl on the SH-93 corridor and increased congestion and poor transportation maintenance of our bridges and roads due to using short regional money for this vanity billion dollar boondoggle That’s CDOT goes to the ten free lanes.
If CDOT announces an edict of a toll road, we really pay. You see, toll revenues are not enough to pay for the toll road. There are only 25,000 cars on SH-93, and just a modest increase estimated until 2030. Such little traffic cannot pay for a toll road which would cost $2 billion. .
Studies by CDOT estimated the toll revenue would be so minor that the Colorado Tolling Enterprise refused to authorize building a toll road to complete the beltway.
So the taxpayers will be paying most of the costs of building and maintaining this monstrosity, all the while subsidizing a foreign company.
The Denver Business Daily reported August 29, 2007 that the $2 toll on the Northwest Parkway would be increased $1 through 2009, then by the greatest of the inflation rate, 2%; or the rate of increase in per-capita gross domestic product.
Sock it to ‘em, sock it to ‘em, the poor taxpayer not only subsidizes this foreign company but also pays them for the privilege.
So I thought, why in the world would anyone want to build such a thing?
Who could be so crass as to harm the taxpayer this way – not to mention a small town of 17,700 men, women and children?
The Northwest Parkway’s board is composed of representatives from Broomfield, Lafayette, Arvada and Jefferson County. How could they approve something so inherently unsound financially, so destructive to the environment and Open Space, so damaging to the Mountain Backdrop, and which will dismantle a thriving small town?
Hmm. Could it be….money?
Yes. I have heard the mantra of economic development over and over at the planning meetings for this beltway. Jefferson County and Arvada want economic development.
When companies move into a community and bring jobs and increase city or county revenues and improve the quality of life for a community – as one can easily see in Belmar or in downtown Golden – that’s economic development.
When companies move into a community and destroy that community, and its leaders insist upon it, that’s greed.
My friends, that’s what I see here. The leaders proposing such a destructive solution for Colorado are more interested in money than they are in the well being of our citizens. They are more interested in money than they are in the environment or Open Space or our economic wellbeing or in communities.
They are the barbarians at the door.
As the poet Ferlinghetti wrote:
“I have noted the close identification of the United States and the Promised Land
Where every coin is marked
In God We Trust
But the dollar bills do not have it
Being gods unto themselves.”
I will soon be meeting with the Governor on this situation, and have already met with CDOT. I believe Golden has a lot of options before it to use. I also think there are six ways to Sunday for them to sue although I do not know the city’s strategy for opposing these options. I just know, and I am absolutely certain, that Golden will continue to fight for our city and our citizens and our way of life.
I know that I will.
State Representative Gwyn Green gwyngreen@yahoo.com 303-866-2951