I attended the quarterly meeting of the Interstate 70 Collaborative Effort (CE) last week in Frisco. The Aspens surrounding Lake Dillon are magnificent this year, apparently extra vivid because of a wetter than average summer. Next week will bring the quarterly conclave of the I-70 Coalition. The older of the pair and having weathered several iterations, this organization can be traced back to the Corridor Alliance for a Rapid Transit Solution (CARTS), formed in response to the 1995 Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Major Investment Study (MIS) of projected congestion along the central mountain corridor. The coalition is comprised primarily of elected and civic officials from communities along I-70, while the CE recruits representatives from agencies like the U. S. Forest Service (USFS) with a stake in the specifics of infrastructure interventions.

Aside from generating a mouthful of acronyms, five taxpayer supported studies have each determined some form of high-speed fixed guideway technology is required to relieve an approaching 24-7 gridlock threatening the economic viability of recreational access from the Front Range. These investigations have followed a desultory path as congestion has grown. Interventions have included the Mountain Express lanes from the Veterans Tunnel at the east end of Idaho Springs to Empire, where a sizable slice of traffic departs on U.S. 40 for Winter Park and Granby. Although just 10 miles in length, these narrow, inside-shoulder lanes have worked fairly well to forestall constant traffic bottlenecks on weekends. It should be remembered this relief was presumed a temporary solution.

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The express lanes are administered by the Colorado Transportation Investment Office (CTIO) at CDOT, which manages most of the tolled segments on state highways. They have been examining the impact of the Peak Period Shoulder Lanes (PPSLs). Surprisingly, though concerns about their safety overshadowed their deployment, it has turned out accidents and fatalities have not been adversely affected by these narrower lanes. CTIO is proposing to renegotiate the terms of its agreement with the FHWA, which limits the number of days they may operate each year. They are proposing to migrate to a more flexible hours-of-operation schedule to permit a more sensitive response to traffic volumes.

It was this scheme Gov. Jared Polis referred to recently, suggesting the PPSLs may open earlier on Fridays and remain open into Mondays. In fact, only Mondays and Tuesdays offer a relatively rapid trip to Colorado’s mountain resorts. Slowdowns and capacity saturation are now appearing as early as Wednesday and remain a problem through most weekends. It appears likely this tweaking of the PPSL management protocols will squeeze another few years out of the admittedly inadequate highway, stretching the agreements reached in the 2011 I-70 Mountain Corridor Record of Decision (ROD), the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) and the incorporation of Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) as part of the CE. Stick with me, this contrasts with the currently ongoing rebuild of Managed Express Lanes on Floyd Hill which we will contend with for several more years — these improvements are MEXLs.

The current agreement with FHWA to manage the PPSLs is intended to expire in 2035. It was always presumed this would be a temporary intervention awaiting the construction of an HSR (high-speed rail) element along the corridor. The technology is available. Malaysia is seeking World Bank Funds to connect its commercial corridor with Singapore using HSR. How to fund a Colorado system is caught up in the Byzantine realities of TABOR and public expenditures. Consequently, attention has shifted to Front Range Passenger Rail (FRPR) which can utilize existing rail lines and conventional technology at a fraction of the cost of building an elevated and uniquely demanding fixed guideway system through the central mountain corridor. The problem with the 2035 date is even if there were agreement on financing, it would require a decade before passengers were riding a sleek, fast monorail.

The governor had hoped to put the FRPR plan to a vote this November, but his appointees to its board determined they simply weren’t ready to present a service plan to voters — not to mention coordination with the nearly two dozen separate jurisdictions through which the rail line will pass. Perhaps in 2026, as Polis heads to the exit. It appears modifications to the existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with FHWA will be entertained positively. This is a bandage applied atop an existing bandage. The utility and ridership of FRPR would be greatly enhanced if it connected to an East-West HSR technology serving Colorado’s world-class recreational assets. Whether coordination between these projects can be engineered remains unknown.

While I served as executive director of the Colorado Intermountain Fixed Guideway Authority (CIFGA) 25 years ago, the marketing manager for the Canadian constructor of the Las Vegas monorail, Bombardier, flew to Denver to explain why they wouldn’t respond to our RFI (Request for Information). He pointed out four of every five transit projects proposed in the United States are never built. “When the political pain gets high enough that you elect a governor committed to solving the problem, give us another call,” he suggested. Perhaps 2026 could be that election. Until then, we will keep cranking out more acronyms that help us talk knowledgeably about our congestion problems without actually solving them.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.