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CO 103, the highway from Idaho Springs to the Mount Evans Road and over Squaw Pass, would be on the list of resurfacing projects to be done in the next fiscal year with FASTER revenues.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

CDOT is drafting a list of potential projects to be funded with the next three years’ worth of FASTER revenues, in part to be prepared to answer lawmakers’ anticipated questions during the current session about how the controversial funds would be spent.

The Colorado Department of Transportation is circulating the draft list among transportation planning agencies around that state and through its own six state regional directors. The list concerns the road safety portion of the FASTER program, in which funds are spent to repair poor roadways or improve safety on them.

The list doesn’t deal with the separate bridge replacement fee portion of FASTER, which CDOT is handling under a new enterprise fund.

But it does represent projects that, without FASTER funding, either wouldn’t get done or would end up using funds that otherwise would be spent on other projects.

The draft list for fiscal year 2010-11, which begins in July, has $100.5 million worth of projects on it; $61.1 million are in the nine-county area covered by the Denver Regional Council of Governments.

For fiscal year 2011-12, the draft list contains $95.1 million in projects, with $45.3 in the DRCOG area; the 2012-13 fiscal year list has $77.2 million in projects with $32.6 in the DRCOG area.

The list is by no means final, but it is being circulated to planners throughout the state for their review, comment and collaboration in coming up with the final list. Transportation officials hope to have a final list approved in February.

Among the larger projects on the draft list:
• $10 million for widening and resurfacing 22 miles of CO 103, from Idaho Springs up and around Echo Lake and over to Squaw Pass in Clear Creek County.
• $8 million for work on about two miles of CO 9 in Summit County north of Breckenridge to continue widening to four lanes, build new approaches, drainage, raised median, curb and gutter, and intersection improvements, and relocate the bike path.
• $7 million for a full reconstruction of four miles of U.S. 50 in Gunnison County to add eight-foot shoulders and passing lanes; this is a high-accident segment with many head-on collisions.
• $5.5 million to build passing lanes on 1.5 miles of U.S. 550 between Ridgway and Colona in Ouray County.
• $5 million for safety shoulders on CO 93 to address high accident rate on the highway between Golden and Boulder in Jefferson County.
• $3.9 million to widen both inside and outside shoulders on Interstate 70 between Tower Road and Colfax Avenue in Adams County, due to high truck traffic, and also correct the currently substandard “superelevation,” or banking of the highway, at curves.
• $3.5 million to resurface nearly 10 miles of CO 86 from the city of Kiowa east to Calhan Road in Elbert County.
• $3.1 million for intersection improvements at the high-accident location of U.S. 287 and Lowell Boulevard in Broomfield; will add double-left turns and new signal timing.
• $3 million to install fiber optic lines along U.S. 50 from Cañon City to LaJunta, or on Interstate 25 from Pueblo to Trinidad, to expand the “Smart Highways” network and improve communication with travelers through Variable Message Signs and improve coordination of traffic signals.
• $2.7 million to widen the bridge on Jordan Road over Newlin Gulch in Parker, Douglas County, to fix substandard left turns, as well as the right-turn deceleration and acceleration lanes.
• $2.25 million for intersection improvements at the high-accident location of CO 52 and Weld County Road 11.
• $2.1 million to provide lighting at four I-70 chain-up stations in Clear Creek and Summit counties, and to double-post 12 Variable Message Signs in the median at the approaches to those stations.

You can look at the entire draft list of projects over the next three fiscal years here.

The state estimates it will collect $201 million in the current fiscal year from FASTER; $126.9 million would go to the Road Safety program and $50.2 million to the Bridge Enterprise Fund. The remaining $24.3 million comes from a flat $2 daily fee on car rentals and is divided among the two programs.

The bridge fee increases over three years, and the state estimates by 2012 FASTER will raise $250 million a year in new funds for road safety and replacement of poor-rated bridges.

FASTER, which stands for the Funding Advancements for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery Act, represents the first new revenue to be plugged into Colorado’s transportation infrastructure financing plan since the last time the state gas tax was raised in 1992.

Even so, and even though a statewide panel identified the need for a minimum of $500 million additional per year just for the state to catch up to deferred transportation maintenance, a number of critics want to scale back the fee. And a citizen initiative seeks not only to eliminate it, but to reduce the long-standing auto registration fee – the second-largest source of highway funding in the state – to a cap of $10 per vehicle.

One certain bill in the legislature is a proposal from Sen. Al White, R-Hayden, to scale back the late fees in the FASTER bill, which have been a source of many complaints from people who have had to pay up to $100 for being late registering such things as seasonal-use trailers and other non-motorized vehicles.

State officials were surprised when late fees, raised from $10 to $25 per month for up to four months, amounted to a much higher total figure than projected – but not as surprised as the people who ended up having to pay them. White’s proposal would reduce the fee back to $10 flat and reinstate the authority of county clerks to waive them.