Increasing Cost of Driving:
Pay Parking, Tolls, Fuel and Vehicle Miles Traveled User Fees
Due to the great shortfall in available highway infrastructure dollars for most states (especially Colorado), the chance of any future additional free highway capacity in the mountain corridor is between slim and none. It is widely assumed that any additional highway capacity in the mountain corridor will be tolled in some capacity and possibly even a Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax will be created.
In addition, most resorts will convert all their parking lots to pay parking, due to the cost of parking lot maintenance and the value of parking as an additional revenue stream for resort operations.
The value of residential and commercial real estate at the mountain resorts will provide a huge disincentive for free parking, especially in the very limited and valuable flat pieces of land in and around the resorts. Lucrative base area development will continue to grow and compete with parking lots for valuable real estate. Parking lots will grow smaller in footprint with multilevel garages replacing open air lots. At a cost of construction between $30,000 and $50,000 per garage parking space, pay parking is not only desirable for mountain towns and resorts, it is absolutely necessary to pay for the capital investment.
Another by product of resort base area development is continuing the trend of pushing parking lots further and further away from the base area, so that some sort of transit will be necessary to get people and their gear from the parking lot to the base area. There will be little or no advantage to having a vehicle at the resort, since making trips from the resort to your vehicle will not be especially convenient. The benefit of having a vehicle at a resort will be lost and in fact, parking will become more of a nuisance than a convenience.
By 2010 there is a very good chance that most of the 50 states will be looking at some form of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Tax to fund highway maintenance and improvements. The current gas tax fund (Highway Users Trust Fund - HUTF) is projected to be insolvent by 2010, so politicians around the country are looking for another means to fund highway expansion and maintenance. A Federally mandated national VMT User Fee program (perhaps even under the Internal Revenue Service) is not out of the question and is even now being discussed at the USDOT level.
It is very clear that by 2010 we will see increases in motor vehicle fuel cost due to world peak oil production and continued political conflict in the Middle East over diminishing oil reserves. We will see increased parking fees and many more places in Colorado that charge for parking, especially in the I-70 Mountain Corridor. We will see an attempt to initiate a Vehicle Miles Traveled User Fee for all Colorado motorists, if not a national VMT User Fee program. We will also see at least a discussion of tolling in the I-70 corridor, if not outright tolls on the Eisenhower and Johnson Memorial Tunnels.
The basic concept is this: driving as inexpensively as we have enjoyed it in 2006 will not last forever. In fact, driving costs will be largely shifted to individual users in the next few years as new parking, tolling and VMT fees are implemented in addition to the rising cost of fuel. Mile per mile driving will become more expensive every year and provide huge incentives for carpooling and convenient and reasonably priced public transportation.
An elevated rail based transit system in the mountain corridor can be very cost competitive with driving and will attract more and more ridership as the cost of driving escalates. Rail transit marketing, including weekly, monthly or seasonal pricing combined with resort equipment storage, will make rail transit travel very attractive and convenient for recreationalists in the Front Range and throughout the mountain corridor. Mountain Resort work force commuters from the Denver Metro area and the Western Slope communities will have a reliable means of getting to work under all weather conditions.
Connectivity between the Denver area FasTracks rail and bus lines including DIA, the Front Range Commuter Rail north/south line and the mountain corridor rail system will provide greater and more convenient access to the mountain corridor than exists today by driving.
Rail transit will also provide an option to the Saturday morning I-70 congestion and resort parking crunch and the Sunday evening I-70 return home congestion crunch. Rail riders will be able to relax and enjoy the view, sleep, read, use their PC’s and perhaps have a drink. Mountain corridor rail transit ridership will draw from the entire Front Range and even from Wyoming and New Mexico. Clearly trains not lanes is a better solution!
