The language of TABOR belies it, but my experience in the past decade leads me to believe that Coloradans not only believe transportation to be free, they subscribe to what I’ve come to refer to as “the free lunch syndrome.” Transportation, education and health care are only three important items on a longer list that, collectively, is largely what makes “civilization” possible, and that the current right wing insists is either not necessary, or can be paid for through mythical “efficiencies” in state and local government operations.

There ain’t no free lunch. Schools have to be paid for. Transportation has to be paid for. Health care (as someone without health insurance, I’m intimately acquainted with this) has to be paid for. Police, fire protection, higher education, water treatment, sewage treatment, and a host of other things necessary to our well-being have to be paid for.

I once heard a right-wing state representative say at a public meeting that “taxes are a form of legalized theft from the people.” He couldn’t be more wrong. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization, and in this century, in this country, in this state, “civilization” includes — relies upon, really — a safe, reliable, and increasingly environmentally-friendly transportation system. It can’t be had for free.

Choosing the state’s spending priorities is the proper role of the legislature and the electorate. While I might prefer that more money go to transportation, I accept the society’s right to decide otherwise (listening Hammond?)

The entire U.S. is facing a transportation crisis. That is, infrastructure has not been properly maintained (must be other TABORs out there,) much less expanded to keep up with economic growth. The result? Increasing amounts of time spent in traffic, higher costs of getting goods to store shelves, waste of scarce resources like diesel fuel and gasoline. After the collapse of the I35W bridge in Minneapolis, Ms. Clinton called for a 10-year, $10 billion fund just to repair and rebuild bridges. One wag of my acquaintance asked: Which two would you fix each year? Neither she nor many other politicians have the foggiest idea what the real costs are. Even the commission here in Colorado is only nibbling around the margins of the problem, throwing a little here and a little there in hopes that people will buy the package.

I predict this issue will not be resolved until Wal-Mart management starts telling people that prices are going up because it costs more to get the merchandise to the retail stores. Meanwhile, politicians will posture and voters likely will say “Hell, no.”

A gas tax won’t fly right now with the price of gas being so high. At least, keep it to large front range cities, people in remote rural areas have to drive 60 mi. for medical care, 20 or 30 for groceries.They have a hard enough time as it is.

0.35 sales tax wouldn’t hurt me.I rarely buy goods or merchandise anyway. But that would be approx. $1,000 for an average priced house sale wouldn’t it? Make the out-of-staters pay to live in Colorado? Hmmm
$100 extra on the car license seems a little steep. How about limiting it to one car per household?
The light rail is terrific, anything that gets people out of their cars in this metro area where we’re choking on fumes deserves funding. But get more parking spaces at the park’n'rides. You can’t even park at the Yale station during the weekdays. Also you have to circle the lot for 20 min. to find one at the Colo. station.(kind of defeats the purpose of riding the light rail downtown). I’m sure more people would use them if they could just park.

I think they have ordered more lt. rail cars, which they need after Rockies’ games.We were jammed into the E train once,standing room only,when it had extra cars,( we were in the last car) and I thought my 5′2 90 something lbs would be crushed to death.Every time the train swayed, the bodies swayed and bumped into you. All the pople surrounding me seemed like giants.It was terrifying. Pictures of soccer games in other countries came to mind. Some people standing in the door stairs were flung into the glass.After that, when there was a mob at the train station, I hopped on the mall bus to the 16th St. tracks to catch a less crowded train. Never will I be in a situation like that again.
Sorry Lhkman my mind has drifted off the main topic.

No wonder Johnny can’t read, he’s been lead-poisoned. And he can’t play with his dog named Spot even if he didn’t have 3 hrs. of homework everyday…. because Spot died last spring, after he ate the dog food from China…

But I am glad they have federally-mandated hours for truckers. it’s better than popping little white pills like they used to do.
I’ve only taken 2 roadtrips this year and my budget says no more this year. But Dave Dudley’s “Six Days on the Road” is humming through my mind now and so is Willie’s “On the Road Again.”
Just can’t keep my mind on the subject at hand.

Fortunately, we have a growing economy. Just the growth in population is a driver of that economy. Unfortunately, the national infrastructure has not kept up with growth, which is what happens when too many members of Congress are more focused on pork barrel spending than on good public policy. The result is bridges that collapse, highways and bridges that have load limits, rerouting via longer routes. Transportation never has been a partisan issue, which is good, but because it is not, you cannot get candidates for public office to pay any serious attention to one of the issues that really affects the lives of millions of people.

You’re right about Doug Bruce and his ilk. They have such paranoia about not paying taxes that they would see our society slip back into the stone age if given the opportunity (Hammond included.) A classic case of “I’ve got mine, now you don’t get yours,” if ever there was one.

I realize this is long, and I hope this doesn’t put you all the way to sleep, but this seems to be a serious discussion, so I’ll continue. Transportation has nothing to do with lead paint on toys, national industrial policy on imports, etc. It’s all about moving people and goods from where they are to where they are supposed to be. When it works properly, we all prosper. When it does not, we all suffer. I’m glad you vote for Fastracks and road improvements, but I’m sorry you sound like Doug Bruce when you object to lumping several things in at once. That’s because transportation is intertwined and really cannot be treated as a series of separate and distinct projects — that’s what leads to pork barrel spending instead of rational public policy. Limit trucking and you might drive more freight to the railroads, which own and maintain their own rights of way, and get to pay property taxes for the privilege. Charge truckers their proper allocation for beating up the roads (ever notice how there are more pot holes in the right lane than the left? Truckers tend to drive in the right lane.) and other users of highways might not have to pay more than their share as they do now.

I could go on because this happens to be my field, but I figure you’ve already nodded off so I’ll end here for now.

I merely said look at your calculator to find out how much we each pay in taxes. Each of you extrapolated that statement into Douglas Bruce, traffic jams, mental retardation, and last (but not least, amongst others) lead paint. Talk about talking points. Who is like Dennis?

John