Everyone stands to gain if the 40-year-old metro Denver beltway is finally finished in the near future and finally gets rolling as originally planned. For 40 years, regional leaders have worked to stall sprawl in metro Denver by creating a multi-modal transportation. Right now, our regional transportation system looks like a bicycle tire without 25% of its spokes and rim.

What's a multi-modal transportation system?

It's a system of sensible choices ,including a regional beltway, that leads to a ring of interchanges that lead into our communities that provide safe transportation for those who walk, ride or drive. Instead, in northern Jefferson County we now have a dangerous grid of overloaded streets. Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink says that in his opinion completing the beltway will significantly improve the safety of motorists traveling in and through the county.

Jefferson County, the City of Arvada and the City and County of Broomfield are moving toward the formation of a public highway authority that finally will get the beltway rolling as it should. Likewise, we are working with those jurisdictions and the region to communicate the clear benefits of the beltway - one of which is to stall sprawl. After 40 years, they believe the time to complete the metro Denver beltway has arrived.Otherwise the region will trade sustainable community development and safer travel options for what could become the biggest road to nowhere in the nation.

To learn the facts about the benefits associated with completing the metro beltway visit BWayNow.Com, a website created by Jefferson Economic Council, as part of its Beltway to Tomorrow public information campaign.Theweb site has useful info that you may share with family, friends and associates.Thus far, the campaign has more than 25 formal organizational supporters from throughout the region, representing a wide cross-section of our community.

We believe that the public will be best served in knowing the facts about the benefits of completing the beltway,the main benefit of which is a more sensible and sustainable approach tocommunity development for everyone in metro Denver and our millions of worldwide visitors.

Here are the facts:

1. Up to one-half of the planned economic and fiscal potential of the northwest corridor of metro Denver is at stake over the next 20 years.That will translate into 17,000 new jobs over the next 20 years that can be made available to Jefferson County and other area citizens who would rather work closer to home, if the beltway is completed soon.In the future, people in Jefferson County can look forward to trimming their commute times and family budgets as a result, while improving their quality of life - if the beltway is finally completed.Major employers will happily provide training for reliable local talented people interested in working closer to home.

2. For 40 years, the Denver Regional Council of Governments - DRCOG -- and a wide array of jurisdictions and organizations have envisioned the completed beltway as key to smart and sustainable regional development. Jefferson County is depending on the revenues associated with that sustainable approach to development to fund schools, open space, public safety and infrastructure improvements.

3. Currently, there is $100 million in incentives offered by Northwest Parkway, LLC, to complete the beltway in a timely manner.Jefferson County, the City of Arvada and the City and County of Broomfield believe the beltway is vital to their citizens; that is why they are considering forming a public highway authority to complete the job.With rapidly rising worldwide resource costs, now is the time to act, before the cost of completing the beltway is pushed out of reach forever through unnecessary delays.

4. Over the course of several years, a total of 73 possible solutions have been considered for the proposed final beltway connection, and the time for action has come!The regional community - including the city of Golden- worked together for years to plan the completion of the beltway.Great progress has been made, and the community is willing to slow speeds and make the beltway a parkway through Golden.Then, the caravan of large commercial trucks that travel through Golden will be able to do so more safely when parkway traffic lights are removed and safer and easier to use interchanges are introduced.Also, bicyclist safety along the road will improve greatly.

5. The interests of any one community must not trump the long-range needs of our entire region.Many communities have been affected by the development of the metro Denver beltway; those same communities have derived a variety of benefits from it, including a healthier mix of jobs, homes and needed services for their citizens.Likewise, traffic moves more efficiently and safely.That is why Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink and many other responsible area leaders are calling for the completion of the beltway - it's a matter of improving public safety and sustaining metro Denver for generations to come.

6. A completed beltway also will allow people across the region to circumvent the center of the metro area in their travels.In the foreseeable future, the completed beltway will become vital to reliable regional travel as numerous major highway improvements get underway.A completed beltway will prove as important to the region in the future as E-470 did during the T-REX/I-25 reconstruction, and the recent I-25 sinkhole incident.

It's important to note that 30,000 acres of open space in the northwest corridor of metro Denver already has been set aside within close proximity to the proposed final connection of thebeltway.The area includes some ofthe best views in the region, and while the area must be respected, it also should be made accessible to be enjoyed by those of who live here and the people who visit our state. Open space is for the enjoyment of people.While people must care for our open spaces, they should be able to enjoy what they have made possible through the investment of the community.

When you consider the facts, the sustainable opportunities associated with a completed beltway are substantial.Without it, northern Jefferson County will be lopsided in its development for a long while, because high-quality major employers require modern and safe roads.

Without the beltway, residential development will continue to occur in the area; in fact, it will largely becomea sea of houses.

Without a completed beltway, the people living in northern Jefferson County will look forward to longer, more frustrating and dangerous commutes as growing regional traffic tries to find its way through what is becoming a woefully inadequate network of overloaded roads in northern Jefferson County.