‘Tis the season when Colorado highways are teeming with summer travelers, all confronted with the inescapable reality that state government has absolutely failed its responsibility to maintain our highways.

Last month, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) quantified this dismal state of affairs: barely one-third of our state roads are in “good” condition, far below the national average.

According to Colorado Department of Transportation’s own analysis, 71 percent of all highway miles under state maintenance have less than 10 years of “drivability” remaining, including more than 800 miles where the drivability life is completely exhausted.

Image

Drivers in my home of Kit Carson County know those “exhausted” lanes very well. Interstate 70 just inside the Kansas border is undergoing a slapdash repair – a couple inches of asphalt unfurled like a band-aid over a crumbling concrete base – to conceal countless “Polis potholes” long enough for our next governor to inherit the problem.

Meanwhile, two other local thoroughfares, Highways 385 and 24, are literally falling apart under the weight of heavy-duty oversized loads and commercial traffic that prolifically pass through our communities.

When I go for an early-morning bike ride on these roads, I see layers of roadway that documents the short life of previous band-aid repairs, most no more than five years old. Any cyclist trying to ride on the white line (because there is no shoulder) risks ruining a tire or losing control because the asphalt beneath often disintegrates for several yards at a time, exposing below it the older roadway which also was never properly repaired. Chunks of asphalt broken lose by countless tons of daily traffic litter these potholes and the mix with grass or weeds along the ditch.

Why can’t we have good roads? It’s simple: those in charge at the State Capitol would rather discourage us from driving than use the taxes we already pay to properly maintain our highways.

In 2021, the Democrat-controlled legislature passed a $5.4 billion package of new “fees” – including a yearly increase in fuel taxes plus that irritating 29-cent charge only Coloradans pay on orders from Amazon – to boost the transportation budget.

The problem is most of that money isn’t spent to build or repair our highways.

“The state now takes transportation-related fees and directs them toward environmental mitigation, mass transit, and demand management efforts rather than infrastructure,” according to a study by the Common Sense institute that pierced the thick veil of obfuscation that is Colorado’s transportation budget.

Bottom line: we pay more for fuel, license plates, home delivery and ride sharing, but the Colorado Transportation Commission uses that money to try to convince us to drive less, or ride busses, trains and bicycles, while they make driving in Colorado a miserable experience.

That’s not the only way in which government malfeasance drives up costs for Colorado drivers. The ASCE report says Colorado motorists pay nearly $2,000 per year “due to deteriorated and congested roads” – 35 percent more than the national average. That’s no surprise to drivers who have ruined tires – or worse – due to cavernous potholes that sometimes “feature” exposed pieces of rebar.

Highways aren’t rebuilt in a day. They didn’t fall into disrepair overnight, but while that 2021 funding package was advertised as a boon to transportation, the Transportation Commission has instead used it as a license to strangle spending on highway maintenance in favor of inconvenient, inefficient mass transit that benefits only a few Coloradans.

Fortunately, a group of citizens and business leaders has filed a constitutional amendment that would require our state government to spend taxes and fees collected on transportation-related purchases on construction, maintenance and operation of roads.

Rumor is Governor Polis is hopping mad about this effort.

Well, Governor, Colorado drivers who don’t get chauffeured around in electric SUVs are mad, too. With any luck, they will soon demand that you and your transportation commission #FixOurDamnRoads!

Mark Hillman served as Senate Majority Leader and Colorado Treasurer.