Colorado Legislature Considering I-70 Tolls

State Senate weighs lame-brained proposal to levy a $5 toll at the Eisenhower Tunnel

Western Slopers and Front Rangers who love the mountains are opposing it. Colorado resort officials are apoplectic. But a state Senate subcommittee is reportedly keeping the nightmare of a $5 peak period toll alive.

"Senate Bill 213, by Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, passed the Senate Transportation Committee 5-2 after about two hours of heated and lopsided testimony," the Denver Post reported. Colorado Springs residents don't customarily use I-70. Their route into the mountains and western Colorado is via toll-free US 24, so of course, Senator McElhany doesn't find shoving a toll down the throats of presumably more liberal skiers and other mountain recreationists from Denver, Boulder and elsewhere on the northern Front Range who do use I-70.

"McElhany said his bill would generate hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for a solution to congestion woes on I-70. But, he said, his bill would not circumvent the existing studies on I-70 because it would not specify what the solution would be," the Post report continued.

Hundreds io millions of dollars? It would take a long, long time. Last year, 11,775,017 vehicles traveled through the Eisenhower Tunnel. At $5 per vehicle, that would have grossed less than $60 million in 2007 -- if tolls were collected 24/7 every week of the year. Peak periods only would have brought in less. Add to that the cost of building and staffing toll plazas, and it would take years for these unpopular revenues to build up.

Furthermore, fiscal idiocy aside, as anyone who has lived or driven in states with highway tolls can tell you, the backups at each toll gate 1) cause delays; 2a) cause idling/crawling vehicles to burn more fuel and 2b) therefore cause more carbon emissions; 3) and 2b will probably further stress the trees and other vegetation growing along the roadside; and 4) delay snowplow that are stuck behind winter traffic at the tolls.

With representatives like Senator McElhany looking out for the interests of Coloradans and travelers to our state, we might as well throw in the towel on mountain recreation now. What an lame-brained idea.