$5 billion, high-speed train seen as congestion solution

By Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Colorado Department of Transportation officials say it will take them another five to 10 years to start widening Interstate 70 or adding bus service to address weekend ski traffic.

And someone who has studied the issue says even that won't relieve congestion because the work isn't expected to include train service.

In May, CDOT hopes to wrap up what has become a seven-year study of the problem.

The study had whittled 27 alternatives down to nine before officials recently opened the process up again because the parties involved were not headed for consensus.

They expect by summer to arrive at a proposal involving widening the highway at some points and adding bus transit, CDOT spokeswoman Stacy Stegman said. But Miller Hudson, former executive director of the Intermountain Fixed Guideway Authority says that a $5 billion, high-speed train is the only way to unclog I-70.

Nothing else - from Sen. Chris Romer's congestion-based fee idea to a $4 billion plan to "six-lane" the highway - will come close to solving the problem, he said.

Lawmakers established the authority in 1998 in hopes of moving traffic faster up and down the mountain. The authority disbanded in 2004, and its written recommendations have collected dust on a shelf ever since.

The problem with Romer's plan is that even if it accomplishes its stated goal of thinning rush-hour traffic by 10 to 15 percent, skier traffic still will hover at about 2005 levels. That's because the rush-hour crunch has been snowballing at 6 percent to 7 percent per year, Hudson said.

"The problem is much, much more severe than people realize," Hudson said. "What's going to have to happen if we're going to solve this long term is we're going to have to bite the bullet and put a high-speed train on the corridor." The train's route would cover from Denver International Airport to Vail. It would depend on a 60 percent private investment and 40 percent public support.

To get started, the state would have to spend about $4.5 million on a "bond quality ridership study," which would prove its worth as a private investment.

Anne Callison, Rocky Mountain coordinator for American Maglev Transit, said her company is among 14 that have expressed interest in investing as much as $2 billion in such a project. Nonetheless, she said, public support has not coalesced in Colorado around a ski train to the resorts in and around Summit County. "I'm feeling some resistance to what I'm trying to bring to Colorado and it's just blowing my mind," she said. "What are we waiting on? Someone to do yet another study?"

• January 29, 2008

  6:13 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  larry2372 writes:

  Having been in the maglev business for the past twenty years, I agree with Anne Callison that more studies probably aren't needed to confirm the payoff of a high-speed transit system in the I-70 corridor. However, nothing will ever happen without a "bond quality ridership study," which would be needed to convince the feds in Washington that the corridor makes sense. Fact of life.

  Larry Blow
  http://www.maglevtransport.com

• January 29, 2008

  11:37 a.m.

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  Fishbear writes:

  It's simply ridiculous to think that widening the interstate will do anything. While the widening is being done, it will slow traffic and simply create more congestion. And by the time it's finished, years down the road, the extra lanes wouldn't even have addressed the congestion since it will have grown to clog even more lanes. And then Colorado will do more studies, and ultimately decide to widen the interstate again. The real waste of money would be to throw money at widening the interstate, since it wouldn't really fix anything and the maintenance costs of maintaining a wider interstate would be an even greater cost burden on CDOT.
  I completely support a high-speed train through the mountain corridor. Just think, you'd be able to zip up the mountain not worrying about traffic, weather, road conditions, or other idiots in their giant SUVs zooming through curves at 80mph while on the verge of losing control. I'd love it.

• February 11, 2008

  1:23 a.m.

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  prk166 writes:

  Wow, someone who makes a living off of trumpeting trains is claiming that trains are needed. Holy crap, what is going to be printed as news next? Priests that claim we need God in our lives? A cattle rancher telling us that we need to eat beef?

• March 20, 2008

  2:27 p.m.

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  marracci writes:

  Oh god, please don't turn I-70 into the SoCal nightmare. 3 lanes or 6-wide, forget about it. the only solution is mass-transit. Put in a carpool/Toll lane like I-25, and buy the right-of-way for a commuter/ski train. 6 lanes will destroy our playground.