Colorado Springs voters are set to approve a 10-year extension for the sales tax that has helped the city funds road improvements.

Tuesday night’s initial election results from the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office at 8 p.m. showed that 73.18% of voters were in support of renewing the 2C sales and use tax. Unofficial results showed 106,077 votes in favor of the measure and 38,878 votes against.

The ballot measure will keep the sales and use tax rate of 0.57% in place through the end of 2035 — adding 5.7 cents for every $10 purchase. The tax would have expired at the end of 2025 without the voter extension.

The tax provides dedicated funding for the city’s road improvement program that preserves and upgrades streets across the city.

Speaking from a Republican watch party Tuesday night, Mayor Yemi Mobolade told reporters he was excited and thankful to see the support for the city to continue with its improvements.

“I am thankful for the opportunity to continue the good work that we have started. We can’t have a robust quality of life or a robust economy without a robust infrastructure, so good roads are the staple for everything,” Mobolade said.

This was the third time Colorado Springs residents have voted to extend the tax funding for the road program. The road tax was first approved at a 0.62% tax rate in 2015. The current tax rate handily passed during a 2019 election, with roughly two-thirds of voters in support.

The city website says the road improvements have repaved more than 1,600 lane miles of road and replaced more than 300 miles of curbs and gutters since it was first approved in 2015.

The ballot measure was prominently challenged before the election by Douglas Bruce, author of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights amendment in Colorado. Bruce claimed the ballot language violated TABOR requirements to specify how much the extension would increase taxes and lay out how much the city has made and spent annually from the sales tax.

A lawsuit by Bruce to pre-emptively declare the ballot measure invalid was dismissed by El Paso County District Court on Oct. 10.