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Guv extends panel's work on funding, road upkeep

Group figures at least $500 million to maintain roads

By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 12, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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A blue ribbon panel on transportation finance will continue its work for another year, Gov. Bill Ritter said Wednesday.

The panel was charged to develop a broad public awareness campaign about the state's transportation funding crisis and to craft specific legislative solutions to be presented to the General Assembly in 2009.

"This work will not be simple, and it will not be easy, but it is essential for the future of Colorado's economy and our overall quality of life," said Ritter at the summer conference of Colorado Counties Inc. in Vail.

The Blue Ribbon Transportation Finance and Implementation Panel was formed last January and was due to be dissolved on June 30.

It was co-chaired by state Treasurer Cary Kennedy, Colorado transportation commissioner Doug Aden and business and civic leader Bob Tointon, and met more than a dozen times around the state.

The panel determined that it would take $1.5 billion a year to fund the state's transportation needs and at least $500 million annually just to maintain existing roads.

Some of the panel's recommendations to increase revenues were never taken up by the legislature or placed before voters.

Those proposals included increasing car registration fees by $100, upping the gas tax by 13 cents per gallon, increasing the state sales tax by 0.35 percentage points, imposing a $6 daily lodging and car rental fee, and collecting 1.7 percent more in severance taxes paid by the oil and gas industry.

Earlier this year, Ritter approved a state budget that allocated $180 million for "strategic transportation projects" across the state.