The debate on how to improve the traffic situation on I-70 from Denver into the mountains continues in the Senate Transportation Committee meeting room today as bills from opposite sides of the legislative aisle get consideration.

Although the two bills are sponsored by Sens. Chris Romer, D-Denver, and Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, it is worth noting that they are both proposing road or congestion pricing for the I-70 corridor. They disagree on the details of how such a framework would operate and how revenues might be re-invested, but the foundation of their proposals seem to cross political ideology — use market forces to manage an increasingly scare resource (otherwise known as road capacity).

There may be a number of reasons these proposals are on the committee table now rather than after groups such as the I-70 Coalition have made their recommendations, but that’s a reality of the legislative process. Nevertheless, the combination of successful congestion pricing programs in London and Stockholm and the proposals for similar programs in New York City and San Francisco make the idea a powerful one that will likely become a part of the package for I-70 regardless of the outcome of the Romer and McElhany bills this year.

The reality of decreasing transportation funding from gas taxes, increasing construction costs, and limited geography is making congestion pricing an increasingly viable tool to manage traffic and congestion in communities and on highways.

As Gordon Price, transportation Planner and former City Councilor in Vancouver, has commented, “congestion turns out to be an inevitable consequence when the private sector produces and unlimited number of vehicles and expects the public sector to spend limited resources to build an unlimited amount of space for them to run on.”

Put another way, the age of “freeways” is drawing to a close in the Mountain West.

The natural resource based economy that dominated the Western Slope of Colorado for so many years is making a come back.

As Jason Blevins writes in the Sunday Denver Post, mining is coming back to a number of communities due to increasing demand and prices for precious minerals like molybdenum.

If the recent natural gas boom in Garfield County offers any crystal ball, more Western Slope communities are due increasing revenues, stressed infrastructure, a quick disappearance of affordable housing, and a shortage of workers.

The natural amenity and natural resource economy are colliding and the only thing they have in common is a reliance on nature.

Rising construction costs and lower-than-projected sales-tax revenues have the The Regional Transportation District (RTD) in Denver seeking federal support for a plan to contract with private firms to finance, design, build, operate and maintain as many as four commuter rail lines. The north metro, northwest, Gold and DIA rail lines will cost more than $2 billion.

RTD applied late last month to join the Federal Transit Administration’s public-private partnership pilot program, which promotes more extensive links between public transit agencies and private businesses.

Read the full article . . .

Text version of FTA Public-Private Partnership Program

The Grand River Medical Center, based in Rifle, recently told the Garfield County commissioners that employees are leaving because they can’t find a place to live or rent, and that could affect the organization’s ability to provide quality care.

The district, which employs 300 people in the Grand River Medical Center and E. Dene Moore Nursing Home, has between a 5 and 15 percent vacancy rate at a given time, Human Resources Director Michael Weerts said.

“I have to hire temporary employees who travel 100 miles each way each day,” because of the housing problems, he said.

He called on the commissioners “to look at borderline outrageous solutions” to the housing problem in the valley, “because we have an outrageous housing problem.”

Read the full article . . .

The national housing market may be stagnant, but housing in the mountains continues on an upward trajectory. According to a recent article in the Aspen Times, the average price for a three-bedroom home jumped, often substainally, throughout the region in 2006.

Basalt: $694,880 (up 21%)

Carbondale: $476,000 (up 4%)

Glenwood Springs: $383,932 (up 21%)

Rifle: $231,851 (up 14%)

The median income for a four person household in Garfield County was $62,300 in 2005.

Garfield County joined the billionaires club in 2006 as the volume of all real estate sales in the county topped $1 billion for the first time last year. The $1.04 billion in total sales for 2006 was an increase of 22 percent over the 2005 mark and growth of 137 percent from 2003.

The oil and gas boom in western Garfield County is driving the real estate development boom in western Garfield County. An estimated $75 million of the $1 billion in commercial and residential sales in Garfield County occurred in Rifle last year.

Meanwhile, Pitkin County has remained above the $1 billion level in annual sales volume for each of the last four years. Sales volume topped $2 billion in 2005 and soared to $2.64 billion last year.

Read Scott Condon’s full article …

Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute has just released a report on transportation programs and policy reforms that can support environmental, social, and economic goals - a triple bottom line. As he comments in the introduction,

People often assume that environmental, social and economic goals conflict. For example, policies to reduce climate change emissions and programs to improve accessibility for disadvantaged people are often opposed on grounds that they are costly and harmful to the economy. But such conflicts can be avoided. Some strategies that support environmental and social objectives also benefit the economy.

This paper identifies more than a dozen such strategies, which we call Win-Win Transportation Solutions. These are cost-effective, technically feasible policy reforms and programs that help solve transport problems by improving transport options and correcting market distortions that result in economically excessive motor vehicle travel. These are considered “no regrets” strategies because they are justified even if the severity of environmental and social risks is uncertain.

Read the full report . . .

There doesn’t seem to be any commodity that people’s pay can keep up with these days. Add Health care to the list. Although the rate of increase has slip to less than double digits increases over the last few years, health costs have still almost doubled (82.2%) since since 2000. Workers wages increased a paltry 15%.

Anyway you count the numbers, the results ain’t pretty for workers. Read Will Shanley’s article in the Denver Post . . .

Health care costs in Colorado have jumped 82.2 percent since 2000, more than five times the earnings increase for workers.

For family health coverage, the average annual premium paid by workers and employers rose to $12,386 in 2006, up from $6,797 in 2000.

Meanwhile, worker wages statewide grew by 15 percent, or $3,947, to a median of $30,337 per year.

Those findings were reported Monday in the study “Premiums Versus Paychecks: A Growing Burden for Colorado’s Workers.” Families USA, a health care advocacy group based in New York, prepared the report.

While the western portion of Garfield County is booming with oil and gas development, and the associated environmental impacts, the eastern end of the county is looking in a different direction for energy production.

Carbondale Question 2F on the Nov. 7 ballot will ask voters to allow the town of Carbondale to issue up to $1.8 million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) to construct and operate two large-scale solar systems.

The proposed systems would provide about 250 kilowatts (KW) of power. One of the systems would be the largest solar system in western Colorado.

Voting “yes” on 2F will increase the town’s debt, but will not raise local taxes. Revenue from the solar systems will pay off the bonds over the next 20 years. And, under a provision of the 2005 Energy Incentives Tax Act, the interest on the CREBs will be paid by the U.S. Government.

Carbondale trustees unanimously decided to pursue the CREBs after the town’s advisory environmental board produced the Carbondale Energy Plan earlier this year. The plan outlines specific ways Carbondale can reduce its contribution to global warming.

The CREBs will fund two separate solar projects, one for 50 kilowatts (KW) and one for 200 KW. The 50 KW system will be located at the Carbondale Elementary School (the town is in negotiations with the school district to purchase the property) or the new recreation center and the larger system will be located either at Colorado Rocky Mountain School or at the town’s Roaring Fork water plant.

Read full article by Gina Guarascio . . .

Meanwhile Boulder considers a Carbon Tax . . .

Fox Creek is a new development in Steamboat Springs containing 30 deed-restricted, affordable housing condominiums, designed for families and homeowners with low to moderate incomes.

The ribbon-cutting marked the culmination of three years of work by the Yampa Valley Housing Authority, which planned, managed and spearheaded funding for the $6 million development.

Most Fox Creek residents will close on the purchase of their new homes later this month. Most of the units at Fox Creek have two bedrooms and two bathrooms. With grant assistance, all homebuyers will pay less than $200,000.

Read the full article in the Steamboat Pilot . . .