The bad news first: Broomfield City Council on Aug. 28 formalized an agreement that promises a $40 million payoff to the Northwest Parkway Authority if the Billion Dollar Boondoggle is built.
Rep.
Gwyn Green,
Mayor Baroch, Councilor
Diane Chesbro, a CINQ representative, and myself all spoke during their public comment period asking Broomfield to turn down the contract, but to no avail.
In addition to the usual pro-beltway suspects, the new player is a foreign corporate consortium led by a Portuguese company called Brisa. Brisa wants to try and salvage the failing Northwest Parkway and thinks they'll make more money on their investment if the superhighway through Golden is built.
I think selling off major portions of our infrastructure to corporate conglomerates is a hazardous move (a move made more disconcerting because the corporations in questions aren't even U.S. companies). And now Brisa, which really wants to ram a superhighway through Golden as part of their long-term business plan, is dangling a $40 million incentive to the Northwest Parkway Authority. The Northwest Parkway Authority Board of Directors, incidentally, includes the mayor of Broomfield and one of their city councilors, Transportation Commissioner
Joe Jehn (a longtime proponent of the Billion Dollar Boondoggle), and an Arvada city councilor. I'm happy to send anyone a copy of the Broomfield city council resolution and agreement.
One crazy thing about the Billion Dollar Boondoggle is that - even as a privately funded toll road - it will cost the taxpayers many hundreds of millions of dollars (and maybe more than one billion dollars).
But the really crazy thing is that study after study concluded that building a high-speed superhighway will do little to improve transportation, and that the best solution is to improve the existing roads. Improving the existing roads will cost the taxpayers much less than a new high-speed tollway (even if Brisa helps to pay for it) and will do a great deal to reduce congestion.
If you support wasting taxpayer dollars on a boondoggle that benefits a few developers and doesn't do much for transportation, then this proposal might make sense. If you support spending our very limited transportation dollars on cost-effective projects that actually work, then you'll probably support the recommendation to improve the existing roads without building a new superhighway.
And, by the way, Broomfield's agreement appears to include a non-compete clause, meaning Broomfield is promising to keep some of their own roads in poor condition to help drive more traffic onto the toll road. If I lived in Broomfield I might be bothered by that.
The good news: the Golden City Council continues to stand strong despite repeated attempts by CDOT to persuade us to cut bad deals. In fact, representatives of Golden have been part of two meetings in recent weeks that included Arvada, Jefferson County, and CDOT.
In both instances, Golden continued to say "absolutely not" to any kind of deal. And I believe the momentum is beginning to shift. The current governor is not obsessed with building the Billion Dollar Boondoggle through Golden like the previous governor was, the financial projections for their proposed toll superhighway keep looking worse and worse and transportation funding is getting increasingly scarce, making it that much more difficult to build projects that don't actually improve transportation.
I have always been and will always be against the beltway. I support making appropriate improvements through Golden and on Highway 93 but I fiercely oppose anything with six or eight lanes, anything with speeds in excess of 45 mph, and anything that doesn't fully address the needs of the nearby neighborhoods.
If we do these things, we can meet all the conceivable traffic needs as far out into the future as we can project and actually improve the quality of life for everyone living near U. S. 6 and Highway 93 - less noise, less pollution, fewer car accidents, safer bike and pedestrian access between neighborhoods like Beverly Heights and Mountain Ridge and the rest of the community.
I also strongly support protecting as much of the open space north of Golden as possible. I not only oppose the beltway because of its impacts to Golden but also because it would cut through what is one of the Denver region's largest open space areas (sometimes called the Front Range Foothills), extending through northern Jefferson County, the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, and the open space of southern Boulder County.
Although Mayor Baroch and I are opponents in the mayoral election, this is one issue on which we agree. We not only oppose the beltway but we've both been willing to work really hard to make sure it never comes through Golden.
Jacob Smith is a Golden city councilor. He is running for mayor of Golden.