Transportation

     Who hasn’t noticed the definite difference in the highway when you cross a state line into or out of Colorado? It’s obvious that we in HD 65 need more funding for our roads! Not only is our highway system vital to our ag and oil & gas sectors, but it’s an important part of each of our everyday lives. Improvement to our rural highways could benefit not only rural Colorado, but the entire state. If our rural highways were in better shape, it could keep a lot of heavy freight from traveling the interstate system and causing congestion along the Front Range when the only reason it is there is to avoid driving on our crappy rural highways. In many cases our rural highways are in dire need of basic safety upgrades and resurfacing. Having enough funding to address Colorado’s project backlog is an issue that needs serious attention. The legislature has tried to help direct some funding to CDOT to help, but with over 9 billion dollars in projects on the books, there needs to be a dedicated funding source that the legislature can’t hijack to address this. We all know that the current gas tax won’t even come close to addressing the issue.  As the Federal Government continues to mandate better gas mileage, electric cars and hybrid vehicles are becoming more popular and there isn’t as much fuel tax being collected. Combine that with the buying power of the dollar going down, increased energy production and an increase in our state’s population, and it’s easy to see that the fuel tax is and will always be insufficient to deal with all the needs that are being placed on our highway system.