By Dick Wadhams

The silence is deafening within the Democratic primary for governor on the need to build and improve roads in Colorado after 20 years of neglect.

The Democratic contestants, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser, talk about liberal touchstones such as mass transit and bike lanes that few Coloradans find practical to use.  

Try to find their solutions to deteriorating roads and highways, and it is as if those problems don’t exist.

Not only do roads and highways not exist in the Democratic debate, legislative Democrats try to take credit for highway projects that their elected leaders from years ago actually opposed.

Republican Gov. Bill Owens, who served from 1999 to 2007, was the last governor who prioritized, built, and improved Colorado’s roads and highways. They were largely neglected under the past two decades of Democratic governors, Bill Ritter (2007-2011), John Hickenlooper (2011-2019) and Jared Polis (2019-2026). 

The state legislature recently honored former Gov. Roy Romer, who served from 1987 to 1999, by naming a section of Interstate 25 in central Denver the Gov. Roy Romer Memorial Highway although the former governor is very much alive.

Romer was a formidable figure in Colorado politics for 40 years, having been elected to the state legislature, twice as state treasurer and three times as governor, and he left office with very high approval ratings. During his 12 years he never had a Democratic majority in either house of the legislature.

The Denver Gazette reported the sponsor of the resolution, Democratic state Rep. Alex Valdez of Denver, chose I-25 “because at his heart, Romer was a builder.” Valdez pointed out it was under Romer’s leadership that Denver International Airport was built, as well as the T-Rex project on I-25 that made the highway just a bit more usable.”

Gov. Romer does deserve much credit, in addition to Denver Mayors Federico Pena and Wellington Webb, for getting DIA built.

But Gov. Romer had nothing to do with building T-Rex. Absolutely nothing. In fact, he opposed expanding I-25.

During the 1998 campaign for governor to succeed Romer, state Treasurer Bill Owens ran on an aggressive agenda to accelerate construction of 26 high priority highway projects identified by the Colorado Department of Transportation which included widening I-25 in the southeast Denver corridor.  

Gov. Romer and Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler both strongly opposed widening I-25, claiming it could not be done. Schoettler was also the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for governor in 1998.

Schoettler derisively called Owens “Ten Lane Bill,” which the Owens campaign willingly embraced on his way to being the first Republican governor to be elected in 28 years.

After Owens was elected, he asked the Republican-controlled state legislature to approve TRANS bonds, Transportation Revenue Anticipation Notes, to bond against future federal highway funds. The TRANS bonds would allow the state to accelerate construction of the 26 projects, thereby reducing the costs of the projects.

But the minority Democratic leadership took the issue to the Colorado Supreme Court to force Owens to get statewide approval of the TRANS bonds. The court unanimously agreed.

Colorado Democrats and most political pundits predicted Owens would lose the statewide referendum but he threw himself into the 1999 campaign and won a dominant statewide victory of 62% to 38%.  

Owens also supported the successful RTD proposal to build light rail as part of the T-Rex project.

Unlike so many big project boondoggles in Denver, the T-Rex project to expand I-25 in the southeast corridor in conjunction with light rail was built under budget and on time.

And the notion that T-Rex made I-25 “a bit more usable” is an understatement. Before T-Rex, it was not only too narrow, there were sections that would be underwater during a hard thunderstorm that would shut the interstate down for hours.

As lacking as the Democratic gubernatorial candidates are on highways, only one Republican candidate, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, has articulated a real agenda to build and maintain highways.

The other two Republicans, evangelical pastors Scott Bottoms and Victor Marx, are too busy making outlandish claims about pedophile rings in the Capitol or running a cloistered campaign that refuses to answer questions about his hazy personal and professional backgrounds.

Kirkmeyer’s plan would increase funding for roads and highways by $6 billion without raising taxes by using unspent project dollars and refocusing the Colorado Department of Transportation on its core mission of roads and highways, something it has lacked for the past 20 years.

Colorado needs a new governor who will prioritize roads and highways after years of Democratic neglect.

Dick Wadhams was campaign manager for Gov. Bill Owens in 1998 when he became the first Republican governor to be elected in 28 years and Owens is the only Republican governor in the past 52 years. He managed the campaign to pass the Owens highway bonding proposal in 1999.