Truckers should be encouraged by the latest action in the Colorado House to pursue the transfer of responsibility for the state’s Port of Entry, Land Line Magazine reports. The Colorado Department of Revenue now operates the Ports of Entry weigh stations throughout the state. The House Transportation and Energy Committee held a public hearing Thursday, March 4, and then voted to advance a bill that would hand over that responsibility to the State Patrol within the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

Hundreds of thousands of skiers and snowboarders could see congested down-mountain commutes eased next winter with legislation meant to nudge transportation officials toward a new-to-Colorado technology, The Denver Post reports. Movable concrete barriers would divide a section of westbound Interstate 70 on weekend afternoons, temporarily rededicating the inside lane to eastbound traffic along one of the roadway’s most snarled segments.

State Sen. Dan Gibbs wants to improve Interstate 70 mountain traffic flow by keeping large commercial trucks out of the fast lane on steeper grades, he tells The Summit Daily News. “My goal is to improve mobility and efficiency along the highway,” Gibbs said. He’s sponsoring a bill to be introduced this week that would require vehicles weighing more than 26,000 pounds to stay out of the left lane on grades of 6 percent or more.

Two Weld County commissioners are upset about losing out on a $3.5 million grant to four Western Slope government entities that they say may have benefited from favoritism. What bothered the commissioners was the selection process, The Greeley Tribune reports. The Energy Impact Advisory Committee was stacked with members who came from areas where the projects were selected.

A plan to let police pull over unbuckled drivers and charge them higher fees hit a dead end in committee Tuesday after lawmakers gutted the bill, likely forfeiting $12 million in federal transportation dollars in the process, The Denver Post reports. Lawmakers on the Senate Transportation Committee said they struggled to balance their constituents’ personal freedoms with public-safety concerns.

By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
Denver is reporting only six citations issued for texting while driving since the law took effect in December.
Law enforcement had originally said the law would be difficult to enforce. But the Denver Police Department does not attribute enforcement difficulty as the reasoning behind the low number of citations issued. They think people are just paying better attention.
Sonny Jackson, Denver Police spokesman, said his department is strictly enforcing the law, but that the violations can be difficult to prove in court. He said his officers are issuing citations based on what they believe they can prove in court.
“That’s what they’ve seen,” Jackson said of the six citations. “They clearly saw enough going on that they thought they could prove it in court, those are the cases they’ve seen and thought they could prove it in court.”
The law was pushed last year by Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, who originally also pushed for a ban on talking on handheld devices while driving. As a compromise, the law ended up banning texting while driving for all drivers, and made it illegal for drivers under the age of 18 to use any cell phone while driving.
A series of car-related accidents led lawmakers to consider placing more restrictions on drivers and cell phones.
Levy said she does not measure the effectiveness of her law based on the number of citations issued. Instead, she believes the law itself has simply raised public awareness of the dangers of texting while driving.
“It has raised public awareness of the danger of texting while driving. It is having beneficial effects. Whether it is a success or failure? Are speed limit laws success or failures if you judge them on how many people follow that law? asked Levy. “I think that’s not even the right framework in which to view the legislation.”
Levy said she has no intention this legislative session of attempting to ban talking on handheld devices while driving, but she did not rule the possibility out in the future.
“There hasn’t been enough data to say whether these laws are good or bad,” Levy said of banning talking while driving.
Rep. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, who opposed the component of Levy’s bill that would have banned talking on a handheld device while driving, said he has no problem with the ban on texting while driving. He hopes the low citation numbers indicate that people are listening.
“Hopefully, it means we have compliance with the law and safer drivers on the road,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Colorado State Patrol believes an accident last week in which a 23-year-old schoolteacher was killed in a single-vehicle crash west of Brush may be related to texting while driving. Records indicate that the woman was texting at 7:25 a.m. and 11 seconds, according to the Denver Post. The first 911 call came in at 7:25 a.m. and 59 seconds, by another motorist who witnessed the accident, according to the Post.
As a result, investigators are looking into whether the text was related to the accident.
Jackson said despite the difficulty in enforcing the law, the Denver Police Department is still taking the issue very seriously.
“At this point in time we know we’re taking it seriously and we are going to enforce it,” he said. “Our biggest concern is public safety, and if people aren’t paying attention when they’re driving, we don’t want accidents to happen because of that.”

Denver Daily News reporter Gene Davis contributed to this story.

Distributed by Colorado Capitol Reporters

The announcement of a $304 million federal loan Friday gave the green light to the redevelopment of Union Station as a major Front Range transportation hub, The Denver Post reports. After at least six years of planning, the loan, guaranteed by the city and county of Denver, will let the $480 million project begin.

By Debi Brazzale, COLORADO NEWS AGENCY

A pending bill to fund a streetcar line along Colfax Avenue in Denver and Aurora–using dollars drawn from a statewide hike in vehicle-registration fees under last year’s FASTER transportation plan–might not actually fit under the 2009 legislation, that measure’s author said today.

FASTER, championed and signed into law by Gov. Bill Ritter, raises registration fees an average of $40 per passenger car to fund upgrades to structurally deficient bridges as well as to pay for road maintenance. A portion of the funds going to road maintenance is allocated to local governments under the measure. Denver Democratic Sen. Chris Romer’s push for a streetcar line, reported in Monday’s Denver Post, would be funded in part by the local share of the FASTER fee hike, using revenue from vehicles registered within a special district surrounding the streetcar route.

Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, who sponsored FASTER and shepherded it through heated, partisan debate last spring, says he would be OK with Romer’s idea so long as the state’s revenue share isn’t touched and the streetcar project conforms to local government’s permissible use of the money–which he doubts.

“Were going to stay true to what we passed last year and I don’t think this falls under either category,” said Rice who noted he hasn’t seen the bill because it has yet to be introduced.

Both Romer and Sen. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, who will also sponsor the bill, believe that running a streetcar down Colfax will be a boon to the area in the long run and that it will help jump-start the local economy.

“I think it’s a very grand idea of reinstituting a way of transportation that we had in the past,” said Williams, adding that it would be an excellent way for people, especially employees, to get to the Fitzsimmons medical complex on East Colfax Avenue in Aurora.

Romer, thinks that his idea will spur further development and will put a dent in Colorado’s unemployment numbers.

“In places like Portland, where they have put in the streetcar, economic development has been spectacular,” said Romer.  “What the baseball stadium did for LODO, a streetcar would do for Colfax. Hopefully we can get things going rather quickly and put people to work.”

Minority Republicans, who almost unanimously opposed FASTER and have derided it as a $250 million “car tax” on Colorado motorists, say Romer’s proposal suggests the proceeds could be squandered, too.

“Those who represent Denver need to quit coming up with ideas that takes money from the rest of the state to support their initiatives,” said House Minority Leader Mike May, of Parker.  “To have them siphon off of a tax—FASTER–that I didn’t even support, I’m sorry, I can’t support that.”

Another consideration that would make the streetcar idea viable is whether or not the proposed streetcar district can obtain federal stimulus money for the project, and Romer says that time is running out to apply for those funds.

“If the feds are giving away money, I’d get to the candy store fast,” said Romer.

The Colorado Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would level the playing field for young drivers working to receive their drivers license, The Greeley Tribune reports. Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, who sponsored the bill, said that in 2007 when the state updated its graduated driver’s license standards, it created a system where two different 16 1/2-year-olds would have different standards for receiving a license.

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State Sen. Chris Romer plans to introduce a bill today that would take a portion of higher vehicle registration fees and flow the money to a special district that would coordinate financing, construction and operation of a streetcar line on Colfax Avenue in Denver and Aurora, The Denver Post reports. “It’s been a dream of mine to restore streetcars to Colfax; they change the way people live,” said the 50-year-old Romer, D-Denver, who grew up not far from the area’s longest street.