To understand House Bill 1242, the legislative’s signature legislation to raise billions for state transportation, you can’t do much better than to look over the working papers of Fix Colorado Roads.

The statewide coalition of business interests is the main cog driving the effort to find billions for the state’s long-underfunded transportation system.

Traffic jams on the interstates 25 and 70, along with the poor condition of the state’s roads and bridges, are the products of legislative neglect. This session, legislators have vowed to do something about it.

House Bill 1242 will be heard before the House Transportation and Energy Committee Wednesday afternoon. The deal on the table would ask voters in November to pass a 0.62 percent state sales tax to raise $677 million a year for transportation, including bike paths and transit.

Fix Colorado Roads is heavily invested in finding a solution, but it has some issues with the current proposal and seems to understand its complexity way better than the press.

“HB 17-1242 takes the critical first step in assembling a funding solution for the bonding package,” the organization says in the opening of an analysis.

“… Upon a thorough review of the measure, however, the proposal falls short in several key areas, specifically its failure to provide sufficient, significant and equitable resources to the state system from the new revenue source, failure to include a reasonable level of existing general funds (and instead a depletion of such resources) and failure to identify a list of projects from which the citizens of Colorado will benefit.”

This isn’t light reading for the everyday, ticked-off motorist, but if you follow transportation funding in this state or any, this comprehensive overview from Fix Colorado Roads is just for you:

Initial Observations Upon Review 

o  Local metro and multimodal appear primary.

o  FASTER reductions and Senate Bill 228 elimination.

o  Diminishes in value over time.

o  No benefit of future growth of sales and use tax.

o  CDOT is prevented to keep pace with state growth.

o  $50 million plus additional CDOT resources will be necessary.

o  Only $2.5 billion to $3 billion in proceeds possible with $205 to $255 million.

o  Need at least $300 million annually for $3.5 billion bond program.

o  No restoration of General Fund allocations.

o  No replacement formula for the flawed Senate Bill 228.

o  Polling consistently demonstrates taxpayers expect the legislature to make transportation a priority by committing some existing General Fund resources to transportation before/at least concurrent to asking for new money.

o  Local governments that have not “de-Bruced” may be unable to accept funds.

o  Multimodal Transportation Options Fund.

o  Local flexibility to use funds on multimodal.

o  Multimodal projects allowed to be included in the state’s bonding program.

o  Projects identified by Commission; potential for free-for-all

o  Current CDOT Tier 1 list is diluted with small projects.

o  Major corridors are not sufficiently funded under current CDOT Tier 1 list.

o  Expands eligible projects beyond STIP to include multimodal, maintenance and “priority list” (undefined) projects.

o  If not a list, at a minimum, specific criteria for choosing projects and funding levels should be included.

o  No reporting under current HUTF provisions, however

An Overview of the Provisions of House Bill 1242

General

Finance

o  Maximum repayment of $5 billion.

Funding

o  Increase existing rate of 2.9 percent to 3.52 percent.

o  20-year effective period.

o  Fee on small cars would drop from $23 to $9 and from $28 to $11 on larger passenger vehicles.

o  All reductions are taken only from state portion of FASTER revenues.

o  Reduction of $400 million+.

Funding Allocation

o  Fixed allocation.

o  Gross: $300 million or $6 billion over 20 Years.

o  Net: $205 million or $4.1 billion over 20 Years.

o  Repeals 10 percent for transit spending requirement.

CDOT portion to be spent as follows:

o  $402 million+/$8 billion+ over 20 years.

o  70 percent to local governments (cities and counties).

Total Net Percentage Allocations

Total percentage growth in allocations over current funding.

Projects

TRANS Bond Project List

o  CDOT shall provide a project list within 30 days of passage of act for inclusion in voter Blue Book.

Citizen Oversight Committee

Multimodal Transportation Options Fund

Bus and rail facilities, transportation services for seniors and persons with disabilities, transportation demand management programs, infrastructure designed for pedestrians and users of non-motorized mobility enhancing equipment., development and implementation of new transportation technology.

Creation of Multimodal Options Fund and Committee

Accountability