Hoping to turn corner on funds
Agency will pursue ballot initiative next year to boost state transportation outlay
The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce will pursue a ballot initiative next year to boost state transportation funding after the state legislature failed to send voters a measure to raise $3.5 billion for roads and transit this year.
“We ask everyone to help get this done,” president and CEO Kelly Brough told a crowd of more than 1,000 members gathered Wednesday for the chamber’s annual meeting at the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center.
Brough, in an interview after the announcement, said specifics are still being worked on with several other groups, but she hinted that the size and scope of the hard-fought but failed House Bill 1242 offers a starting point.
“We will wrestle with the question of how much revenue,” she said.
The bill, sponsored by Democratic House Speaker Crisanta Duran and Republican Senate President Kevin Grantham, sought to increase the statewide sales tax to 3.52 percent from 2.9 percent for 20 years to raise $3.5 billion for transportation funding.
But Senate conservatives, opposed in principle to tax increases and state spending priorities, contributed to the bill’s demise late in the session, ending what backers had hailed as a grand bargain between Republicans and Democrats to address a critical need.
Brough told chamber members that poor and inadequate roads cost citizens in the state $2,000 a year in added fuel costs, suspension repairs and other items. That figure doesn’t include the 49 hours that the average motorist loses annually to congested roads and traffic jams.
In total, the lack of transportation capacity costs the state’s economy $6.8 billion a year and could put Colorado’s quality-of-life advantage at risk to states that have invested more into infrastructure, Brough said.
The chamber formed 150 years ago to lobby for a railroad spur connecting Denver to the main railroad line running through Wyoming. That successful push is what allowed the city to become the dominant player in the Rocky Mountain region.
“Transportation is what built this chamber,” she said. “It will again define our future.”
Several developments have come together to allow the chamber to pour more resources into any new transportation funding measure. Chief among them is the passage last November of the Raise the Bar initiative, which makes it more difficult to put measures on the ballot.
The chamber and its allies have the option to either take the measure directly to voters under the new, more stringent rules that include petitioning for signatures from across the state, or attempt to lobby the legislature to refer it to the ballot.
“We can go on the offense instead of being on the defense all the time,” said Brough, noting that a lot of time and money were spent on fighting measures that the group considered harmful to the economy.
The passage of construction-defects legislation this year, a key goal of the chamber, also gives it some flexibility to divert some of its focus from housing to transportation.
And the two issues aren’t disconnected. When commuting is difficult, people push to live closer, driving up land prices and housing costs. A good transportation network would allow development of areas further out, where land is cheaper.
“You need to have housing where people can live, so people can put down roots,” said Denise Burgess, who Wednesday took over as the chair of the chamber’s board.