Let's ignore the fact that because of our oil addiction, we are at War in Iraq to gain access to Iraq's oil reserves.

Let's ignore the immense cost of funding our military presence in the Middle East to insure the flow of oil to the US.

Let's ignore the cost of our foreign oil purchases which indirectly fund the enemies that we are fighting not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world.

Let's ignore the fact that we are determining a transportation solution for the I-70 mountain corridor that will take between 10 and 20 years to implement (if not longer if the funds cannot be made available). 

Let's ignore the fact that the I-70 mountain corridor solution will be implemented in the 2020 to 2025 timeframe, not tomorrow.

Let's design our future to accommodate more cars and trucks instead of designing our future to accommodate more people.

Let's focus our transportation efforts on moving cars and trucks instead of moving people.

Let's make cars and trucks more important than people in our land use and transportation planning processes.

Let's prioritize car and truck facilities over over bicycle, public transportation and pedestrian facilities that comprise "Complete Street" programs. 

Let's ignore mountain corridor resort overcrowding and congestion that occurs today during peak periods and invite even more vehicles through I-70 highway expansion.

Let's ignore the residents of mountain communities that do not want any more vehicles in their towns during peak periods.

Let's ignore the overuse of Colorado's public lands and the environmental degradation that comes with it.

Let's design a highway widening solution that envisions automobile travel behavior in the year 2025 to be identicial or greater than today without regard for climate change, peak oil, rising fuels cost, tolling, VMT fees, geopolitical instability in the Middle East, our changing demographics and lack of highway maintenance funds.

Let’s ignore the fact that we cannot afford to even maintain the highway infrastructure that we already have, let alone maintain any new highway infrastructure that we might create.

Let's dump the enormous maintenance debt of taking care of our existing roads and bridges on our children and grandchildren while at the same time prioritizing spending for highway expansion projects that will create even more maintenance debt.

Let's allow the same 1950's/1960's interstate highway era transportation philosophy and those who support this philosophy (CDOT Region 1, highway contractors, highway engineers, oil companies, automobile manufacturers, automobile dependent development interests and all politicians with a vested interest in keeping the status quo of highway expansion as our primary transportation solution) to dominate the transportation planning and funding discussion for the 21st Century.

Let's expect that the same 1950's/1960's interstate highway era transportation philosophy that created the congestion and transportation infrastructure mess that we have today, to provide our transportation solutions for the 21st Century.

Let's ignore the sustainable transportation and land use vision of the Environmental and Smart Growth organizations because they don't support the empowered financial interests vested in continued highway expansion, continued auto-dependent development, continued US reliance on foreign oil and continued US military presence in the Middle East.

Let's ignore the fact that our transportation planning and funding process is not about making the best decisions and selecting the best transportation and land use alternatives, but rewarding a select and very powerful group of special interest groups regardless of the national and international political and environmental consequences of these decisions. 

Let’s ignore the fact that all the easy and inexpensive highways have already been built.

Let's ignore the fact that very little economic benefit occurs by expanding existing highways.

Let’s ignore the costly and intrusive private property acquisition necessary to expand highways in developed areas.

Let’s ignore the incredible expense of highway construction today, but at the same time continue to stigmatize energy efficient public transportation solutions as too costly.

Let’s ignore the increased accidents, injuries and fatalities associated with highway expansion and increased motor vehicle travel.

Let’s ignore the air quality degradation as a direct result of vehicle emissions and fugitive dust associated with highway expansion and increased motor vehicle travel.

Let’s ignore the water quality degradation associated with highway expansion and increased motor vehicle travel.

Let's ignore the increased use of traction sand and Mag Chloride that occurs with highway expansion and increased motor vehicle travel along with the air and water pollution that results.

Let’s ignore the ridiculous noise level associated with the current I-70 highway and its impact to the mountain corridor communities.

Let's ignore the noise associated with highway expansion and increased motor vehicle travel.

Let’s ignore the health and community impacts associated with highway expansion and increased motor vehicle travel.

Let’s ignore the obesity problems associated with auto-dependent and auto-priority development fueled by highway expansion and at the same time discourage pedestrian, bicycle and public transportation facilities.

Let’s ignore the increased demand for State Patrol Resources, Incident Management, Emergency Communications, Law Enforcement, Fire Protection and Ambulance, Emergency Medical and Trauma Care services associated with highway expansion and increased motor vehicle travel.

Let’s ignore the increased greenhouse gas emissions associated with highway expansion and increased motor vehicle travel.

Let’s ignore the US transportation’s automobile and truck dependency and its contribution to global climate change. 

Let’s ignore the induced travel impacts of highway expansion that encourage vehicle miles traveled and even more congestion.

Let’s ignore the fact that highway expansion breeds auto-dependent sprawl, increased vehicle miles traveled and more congestion.

Let’s ignore the cost of government service delivery to the dispersed auto-dependent development and sprawl that highway expansion fuels.

Let’s ignore the needs of our increasing senior population for pedestrian friendly and livable communities.

Let’s ignore the fact that as Baby-boomers retire in massive numbers, they will be driving less.

Let’s exaggerate the economic benefits of highway expansion by not taking into account the harmful economic impacts of highway construction, increased foreign fuel consumption and US agricultural land consumption for auto-dependent development and sprawl.

Let’s ignore big business and economic development association’s GREED for more customers and more profits regardless of the environmental and community impacts and consequences to future generations.

Let's ignore the fact that increasing fuel prices, fuel taxes, Vehicle Miles Traveled taxes and tolls will literally drive the middle class away from discretionary travel.

Let’s ignore the legacy of highway maintenance funding deficits we are passing on to our children and grandchildren.

Let's ignore the legacy of environmental, energy and political problems we are passing on to our future generations by our selfish demand for highway expansion and our selfish demand for the right to drive when and where we want to, regardless of cost or impacts.

Let's ignore the fact that highways and independent private motor vehicles as the United State's primary means of transportation are NOT sustainable. 

Click here for the I-70 mountain corridor basics 

There are lots of highway contractors, engineering firms and highway proponents out there looking for highway construction work, regardless of what the people of Colorado want or really need.

Most traffic jams on I-70 relate to construction activities, accidents caused by careless or reckless drivers, bad weather and natural hazards such as rock, snow or mudslides.  Additional highway capacity isn’t going to solve these problems.

 We all know that there is greater peak period travel demand in the I-70 corridor than can be accommodated by the current I-70 facility.  When the cost in terms of travel time (congestion), cost in terms of vehicle operation, (vehicle cost, insurance, fuel, maintenance, tolls, taxes), cost in terms of the travel experience (accidents, natural hazards and dangerous driving conditions) or cost in terms of the destination experience (resort overcrowding, overuse of public lands, environmental degradation, long waiting lines), reaches our personal threshold, we stop making peak period corridor trips, but do not stop making trips altogether.

When the cost of peak period travel becomes too great, we move our trips to non-peak periods.  This can be observed today by the increase in corridor travel on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and throughout the entire day on Saturdays and Sundays.  We may also choose closer corridor destinations during peak periods that require a shorter trip, but still provide a valuable recreational experience and produce corridor revenue.

For the I-70 Corridor, expanding capacity either in terms of highway expansion or new public transportation capacity, will most certainly allow more travel during peak periods.  It may also provide for less travel during non-peak periods, since a larger portion of overall trips are being satisfied by peak period capacity.  Of course resort crowding, public land overuse, long lines at restaurants and other attractions or other overcrowding that diminishes the destination experience, will again force corridor visitors to go back to non peak period trips. 

How crowded are resort communities currently during peak periods and how much greater capacity do they wish to accommodate during peak periods?  Has anyone asked the current residents of the resort communities how they feel about additional peak period visits and was this a consideration in either the CDOT/BBC/FHU or Denver Chamber studies?

Expanding highway capacity may not generate a significantly lower level of peak period congestion.  Traffic studies from all over the country point out that once additional highway capacity is made available in a previously congested corridor, many motorists simply change their travel behavior. 

A significant number of those motorists that had been avoiding the corridor during peak periods by taking an alternate route or by using public transportation simply switch back to driving in the expanded highway corridor, until it very quickly reaches the same congestion level as it had before the expansion.  The alternate routes and public transportation will likely see a decrease in use as more motorists use the primary highway corridor, until the highway corridor reaches previous congestion levels. The I-25 TREX expansion is following this pattern.  This pattern facilitates a form of peak period traffic congestion equilibrium that suggests that traffic congestion in high demand corridors is relatively permanent even when capacity is increased.

At a projected cost of $800,000 per hour for I-70 highway closures, imagine the impact of 15 years of I-70 highway expansion construction to corridor resorts and businesses with no effective alternate mode or alternate route in place.  Highway construction itself, without first establishing an alternate mode or alternate route, poses the single biggest threat to corridor commerce and economic growth in the next 20 years, yet is missing from the recent CDOT/BBC/FHU and Denver Chamber studies.  Could this have been done intentionally so as not to discourage future highway construction in the corridor?