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Basic Concepts for the I-70 Mountain Corridor
Highway expansion is extremely expensive and just encourages more Vehicle Miles Traveled, higher land values, more low density and auto-oriented development, and more traffic and congestion. Continued taxpayer investment in a self perpetuating land consumption and congestion machine is not exactly visionary.
Click here for the costs associated with sprawl
Colorado's transportation and land use planners need to develop strategies that discourage VMT and encourage compact mixed use and infill development, pedestrian, senior and child friendly development and transit oriented development. Compact mixed use and transit oriented development become increasingly more important as our senior population increases, fuel and energy costs rise and impacts from global climate change, world peak oil production and continued political conflicts over the world's remaining oil supplies increase.
Due to the rapidly rising cost of energy, motor vehicle fuels and highway construction, and the increasing number of babyboomer seniors living on fixed incomes; continued auto-oriented low density development will eventually run out of gas in the not so distant future. Colorado should begin planning for better transportation and land use alternatives today and stop throwing away tax dollars on highway expansion projects.
CDOT congestion projections are based on plotting Colorado's population and Vehicle Miles Traveled growth over the past 15 years and continuing this trend unabated for the next 15 to 30 years. There is an obvious flaw in this approach.
A number of factors will influence motor vehicle travel over the next 10 to 15 years that are deliberately ignored in CDOT's projections.
1. Any new fuel tax or VMT tax implemented to fill the huge gap in transportation funding as the Highway Users Trust Fund runs out of gas, will provide a big incentive for motorists (especially the Middle Class) to drive less.
2. The USDOT and FHWA's plan of increasing tolling, especially congestion pricing, will provide a big incentive for motorists (especially the Middle Class) to drive less.
3. World peak oil production and the increasing political instability in the Middle East will drive fuel costs up sharply and provide a big incentive for motorists (especially the Middle Class) to drive less.
4. Carbon caps, greenhouse gas emission and air quality regulations will require additional vehicle emission processing and make all motor vehicles more expensive.
5. Hydrogen powered vehicles and plug in electric vehicles that minimize harmful emissions will be very expensive and out of the price range of the Middle Class.
6. Aging Baby-boomers on fixed incomes will be driving less.
7. Only the most affluent motorists will be able to afford discresionary motor vehicle travel.
8. Toll roads will be reserved for the wealthy. The less affluent will be using public transit and local roads.
I-70 Mountain Corridor Priorities
1. NO 6-lane widening throughout Clear Creek County.
Construction, environmental, economic and community Impacts will be Catastrophic for CCC and jeopardize the future viability of the county. Increased highway capacity equals increased auto and truck VMT, increased greenhouse gas emissions and increased rural, dispersed, low density and auto-oriented development that will result in increased automobile and foreign oil dependencies.
Increased highway capacity will also increase rural land values, increase back country sprawl and congestion, increase unmanaged and overuse of our fragile public lands and Wilderness areas, increase congestion on all local and arterial roads throughout the high country, increase travel times overall, increase accidents, increase fatalities, increase vehicle-animal collisions, increase overall environmental degradation for the scenic Colorado high country and increase the financial burden to all State and local Public Safety agencies serving the high country.
2. The First Priority for any new funding should go to the maintenance, preservation and safety of the current four lane I-70 facility.
Maintenance & Preservation - includes adequate funding for annual maintenance and preservation activities, including traction sand mitigation and cleanup, pot hole repair, guardrail repair, pavement resurfacing and restriping, tunnel and bridge repair and maintenance activities and improved signage, travel, incident and weather information.
Safety - includes funding for adequate Public Safety, Courtesy Patrol and Truck Chain up Assistance Resources. Adequate funding must be provided for local and state agencies responsible for I-70 law enforcement, hazardous spill response, containment and mitigation, and accident response and mitigation. Local Fire Protection and Ambulance Services and Local and State Law Enforcement Resources are currently under-funded for the huge I-70 mountain corridor traffic volume.
Outdoor enthusiasts, casino patrons and corridor truckers who frequent I-70 are often NOT the most thoughtful drivers. Maintaining an appropriate level of safety demands increased enforcement of Chain Laws, DUI/DWI Laws, Road Rage Laws, Speed Limits, and Reckless and Careless Driving Laws. Safety funding also includes better tunnel lighting, better signage, more current travel, incident and weather information, continued rockfall mitigation activities and increased snow removal.
3. The Second Priority for any new funding should be for Peak Spreading Programs that make better use of our existing I-70 highway infrastructure.
Highway capacity can be increased at a lower cost and without the environmental degradation and economic construction impacts of physical highway expansion by making more efficient use of our current highway infrastructure. Incentive programs need to be developed and implemented that expand the peak travel periods into currently off peak travel periods when the existing infrastructure provides more than adequate capacity. Peak spreading incentive programs that make better use of all seven days of the week and spread the weekend peak crunch period need to be developed.
Scheduling coordination between the Resort Communities and Front Range businesses and schools, could go a long way to increasing weekday resort visits, lowering weekend congestion and increasing resort visits overall. Peak spreading programs must be considered as a low cost priority early and meaningful action for the mountain corridor and Front Range.
4. I-70 mountain corridor capacity improvements need to be geared towards the travel experience and not just highway capacity.
Mountain corridor economic development results from increasing consumer spending in the resort communities. This can be accomplished by increasing overall visits and increasing the spending by each visitor. In both cases, a pleasant travel experience is just as important as a pleasant resort experience. The primary focus for travel improvement needs to be on improving the travel experience and not solely on improving highway capacity. For too long Colorado's transportation planners have been driven solely by the need to increase highway capacity instead of providing increased access and mobility through multiple transportation modes.
Travel capacity is broader than just highway capacity. Improving the travel experience in the mountain corridor for outdoor enthusiasts, tourists and casino patrons requires the investment in alternate transportation modes such as integrated fixed guideway and local transit systems and bike and pedestrian facility connectivity throughout the corridor. White knuckle driving experiences due to winter weather as well as sitting in traffic for hours waiting for a rockslide, snowslide or multi-vehicle accidents or truck spill accidents to be cleared, can ruin the entire resort experience for most visitors. A comfortable, scenic and relaxing rail transit experience on the other hand, enhances the overall resort experience for most visitors.
5. I-70 mountain corridor capacity improvements need to be coordinated with local land use plans that encourage economic development, support community quality of life values and promote environmental sensitivity without encouraging VMT, sprawl and environmental degradation.
The economies of the corridor communities are not dependent on bringing in more vehicles than the current I-70 facility allows, but are dependent on bringing in more visitors and employees than the current I-70 facility allows. The 21st Century travel philosophy in the mountain corridor needs to focus on the mobility of visitors and employees and not the mobility of motor vehicles.
The corridor economies need additional people, but not additional vehicles. In addition to the parking and local road congestion that additional vehicles will produce, there is considerable air and water pollution associated with more motor vehicle emissions and more traction sand and Magnesium Chloride used to de-ice additional paved roadway surfaces.
I-70 highway expansion cannot be considered as the primary capacity improvement strategy for the mountain corridor. The induced highway travel and auto and truck VMT that occurs as the result of highway expansion will negate any travel time benefits. Travel choice, travel times and traffic congestion hours will not improve with six laning of I-70. In addition, the construction impacts of tearing apart the existing four lane I-70 facility to squeeze in a six lane I-70 facility in the extremely confined mountain corridor environment throughout Clear Creek County will have a huge impact on the economies of the resort communities over what is likely to be a 15 year construction period.
Increasing the number of vehicles in the high country will spur rural, dispersed and low density, auto-oriented development as corridor visitors will build and purchase homes less expensively in areas that are within reasonable driving distance from the mountain resorts. Since many high country visitors will come from urbanized areas outside of Colorado and are used to multiple hour commutes, their concept of a reasonable commute may be vastly different from locals. The resulting back country sprawl will over burden local roads and I-70 connector highways throughout the high country and provide a level of congestion in rural areas that will be totally unexpected and totally unacceptable for the local communities.
In addition, increased VMT in the high country will increase greenhouse gas emissions, increase our dependency on foreign oil, increase rural land values, increase unmanaged and overuse of our fragile public lands and Wilderness areas, increase congestion on all local and arterial roads throughout the high country, increase travel times overall, increase accidents, increase fatalities, increase vehicle-animal collisions, increase overall environmental degradation for the scenic Colorado high country and increase the financial burden to all State and local Public Safety agencies serving the high country.
6. The long term I-70 fixed guideway transit vision must be developed NOW and not held hostage by the outdated CDOT standard of highway only transportation planning or the lack of highway improvement dollars.
The existing four lane I-70 capacity with peak spreading incentive programs is more than adequate for the desired level of motor vehicle traffic in the mountain corridor. It is not however, adequate for the number of visits and economic development that the resort communities envision for their future economic development.
Transportation planners must begin to think about the development of complimentary travel modes and not just on the single highway mode to increase mountain corridor visits.
Fixed guideway transit must be the priority for mountain corridor travel capacity improvement.
The corridor communities depend on a diverse transportation infrastructure to accommodate employee and visitor travel and provide a travel choice. As a State, we have already placed all our eggs in the I-70 highway basket. It is now time to put some eggs into a more safe and reliable alternate mode for corridor travel.
Funding is not guaranteed for either I-70 corridor highway improvements or fixed guideway transit improvements. In fact, there is relatively no money for either. Any I-70 corridor capacity improvements will require a vote of the people of Colorado to tax themselves to pay for the improvements. Is it more likely that Colorado voters will vote to tax themselves to create a 15 year highway construction disaster in the mountain corridor that will result in even more congestion, traffic and longer travel times overall or tax themselves to build a new, more convenient and more reliable rail transit alternative?
7. An I-70 fixed guideway transit solution must use proven technologies that can operate reliably in all weather conditions.
There are trains today operating in reliable revenue service in mountain environments similar to the Colorado Rockies. These trains operate primarily in Switzerland and Germany. The Stadler Rail company manufacturers a Fast Light Innovative Regional Train and a GTW train that would operate reliably in the mountain corridor. There are a number of other rail manufactures including Bombardier and Colorado Railcar that also produce rail vehicles that can operate in the mountain corridor. These are steel wheel on steel rail technologies that have been working reliably in revenue service for many years.
Bombardier also produces a linear induction driven steel wheel on steel rail vehicle that is in revenue service today in New York (Airtrain) and Vancouver (Skytrain). This is another rail technology with great potential for the mountain corridor. Colorado Railcar and Stadler have both expressed an interest in pursuing this technology for the mountain corridor and other similar applications.
8. An I-70 fixed guideway transit solution cannot be held hostage by a single source proprietary technology and a single vendor.
It is imperative that maglev vehicle manufacturers agree on a standard guideway configuration that will accommodate each of their vehicles. Without a guideway specific standard, ninety to ninety-five percent of the overall transit system investment (the guideway structure) will only work with a single vendor's vehicle. Any reputable transit provider would not accept the risk of a single source provider for what amounts to a multi-billion dollar overall investment.
It is however likely that a maglev design will eventually surpass the performance of a steel wheel on steel rail vehicle in the mountain corridor. Any fixed guideway plan must consider a migration path to a higher performing technology, once that technology is standardized and proved to be reliable in a mountain environment.
There are today multiple vendors for standardized steel wheel on steel rail vehicles. A fixed guideway investment for a conventional rail configuration would accommodate a range of vendors vehicles, which negates the risk of a single source technology. It is also possible that in the near future there will be a range of vendors producing a linear induction motor propelled vehicles suitable for the mountain corridor that will operate on standard gage tracks.
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