Friends,

The Colorado House Finance Committee received testimony on the Multimodal Transportation Funding bill (HB-1329) on Thursday morning (2/15/01). The bill, sponsored by Representative Alice Madden (D-Boulder), proposes a statewide referendum be held in November asking voters if a portion of the Colorado's surplus tax funds should be spent on rail, bus, bike, and pedestrian projects across the state. Over the ten year life of the bill, $1.325 billion dollars could be raised.

After Rep. Madden explained the bill to committee members, a total of nine individuals representing a variety of transit, environmental, and governmental agencies testified in support of the bill. No one testified in opposition.

Those testifying in order of their appearance included Bert Melcher, Transportation Chair of the Sierra Club - Rocky Mountain Chapter; Joseph Simms, Colorado Mobility Coalition; Mary Blue, RTD Board Chair; Shelly Cook, Arvada City Councilwoman; Martha Roskowski, Bicycle Colorado; John Valerio, ColoRail; Ralph Power, Grand Valley Transit; Bill Jones, Amalgamated Transit Workers Union 101. (Another gentleman representing RTD's contracted private bus agency also spoke.)

Witnesses did an excellent job illustrating the economic and environmental advantages of multimodal forms of transportation as approaches to helping solve Colorado's growing traffic congestion problems. Mr. Melcher pointed out that creation of a state multimodal fund would put the "T" back into the Dept. of Transportation and could attract additional federal matching dollars to the state. RTD Chairwoman Blue praised the bill as a way of securing funds for deserving but unfunded transit projects. "When a bus cannot move, people come to rail," she declared referring to the statewide snow storm that paralyzed highways along the Front Range the previous day.

Mr. Valerio explained how Denver Metro residents pay about 15% of their gross yearly income on transportation compared to more transit friendly cities in Europe and Asia where yearly transportation expenditures are around 7% to 8%. Mr. Power said the funds would help his Grand Jct. transit agency build an intermodal transportation facility which would serve Amtrak, Greyhound, Grand Valley Transit, airport shuttles, and taxis. Mr. Simms, who is blind, got the biggest laugh of the morning when he said, "There are those who can't drive, those who don't want to drive, and people like me who should not drive!"

Besides technical questions about the bill, most of the comments made by committee members had to do with the priority of funding multimodal projects over other deserving activities such as education, low cost housing, foster child care, etc. Rep. Glenn Scott (R-Westminster) insisted that the title of the bill should somehow reflect that the voters are not only asked if they want transit or a tax refund, but how does the need for additional transit stack up against other important budget requests. On the other hand, Rep. Rosemary Marshall (D-Denver) declared, "We are going to have to address alternative transit needs and this bill does this. The Legislature has a responsibility to work with what the people want rather leaving these questions up to a citizen's initiative."

The committee will vote next week on whether or not to approve the bill and send it on to the House Appropriations Committee.

Jon Esty,
President, ColoRail