Lawmaker pushes bill to fix bridges
By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published April 28, 2008 at midnight
State Rep. Joe Rice stood next to a crumbling bridge pillar Sunday at Interstate 25 and Santa Fe Drive and pointed to the narrow metal rings designed to hold off future decay.
"Is this the best we can do . . . to maintain our transportation infrastructure?" the Littleton Democrat asked. "It's like paying to constantly buy Band- Aids and never making the investment to go see a doctor."
Rice held a news conference Sunday afternoon under the bridge to emphasize what he says is a need to increase motorist fees to repair that bridge and 121 others in Colorado that are deemed structurally deficient by the federal government.
But he conceded that the last-minute bill, scheduled to be debated in the Senate State Affairs Committee today, faces an uncertain future. The legislative session is scheduled to end in less than two weeks.
"I think it's tenuous," Rice said.
He said Gov. Bill Ritter and the Colorado Department of Transportation support the bill, but he expects resistance from both Republicans and Democrats.
Senate Bill 244 would increase the cost of vehicle registration by $25 to pay for bridge repairs and also would create another fee ranging from zero to $72, plus a $6 daily fee on car rentals, to pay for road fixes.
Together, the fees would generate about $125 million annually for bridge repairs and up to $172 million for roadway repaving, maintenance and construction. Rice said the proposal was introduced late because of ongoing discussions with lawmakers, citizens and interest groups.
He said this plan takes one of the most conservative recommendations made by the governor's transportation advisory committee and scales it down.
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Art writes:
This is a great way to make sure that the economy of Colorado stays bad. When all of us who are not millionaires cannot afford anything other than our cars and gas and maybe a little bit of food then and only then will the politicians be happy. This bill affects the poor and middle classes and does not affect the upper classes. When we have a car that just makes it to work and back and to the grocery store once a week we keep making do with it because we cannot afford a new car. Now they want to tax us a total of $97.00 more per year for this car. Read it all carfully, it is not just $25.00 it comes out to $97.00 for most of us. Of course it is even more if god forbid our car needs repair and we have to get a rental for a few days. Then we can add yet still another $6.00 a day onto the cost of the rental. Don't talk to me about mass transit either. I have to drive to get to the RTD, it is far too far away from home to walk every day, about three miles each way. Of course we are told this is a fee, not a tax. This means that we cannot vote on it. We have no voice in the say about how we are taxed or maybe we should say how we are assessed fees.