Initiative 175 is bad for transportation and bad for Coloradans
“Fix the roads, no new taxes” is a very appealing slogan. The appeal rests on both a deep dissatisfaction with the condition of Colorado’s transportation system and a feeling that working people are stretched so thin financially that they cannot, and should not, pay new taxes to fix it.
Those feelings are undoubtedly justified.
However, the ballot initiative presently wielding that slogan (Initiative 175) will neither fix Colorado’s transportation system nor will it improve the lives of working people. In fact, it would very likely hurt both.
What would 175 do?
The contractor industry (e.g., construction and asphalt companies) is funding a campaign to collect signatures from Coloradans to place Initiative 175 on November’s ballot. As of May 1, they have collected 75% of the required signatures. Should Initiative 175 make the ballot and pass, it would change Colorado’s constitution to require that any state revenue, taxes, or fees associated with motor vehicles (including sales taxes on motor vehicles and two-thirds of sales taxes collected on auto parts) be spent exclusively on transportation that serves primarily motor vehicle traffic. That would mean funds could not be used for transportation infrastructure and services that support walking, biking, or transit, and would also likely exclude any other uses of those revenue sources for other services or programs the state delivers.
Why would this change be bad for Colorado’s transportation system?
In short, the measure would defund exactly the types of transportation infrastructure and services that everyday people rely on, while doubling down on financially and environmentally unsustainable car dependency.
For one, it would appear to cut into the already meager funding dedicated toward explicitly multi-modal transportation infrastructure in Colorado – notably, 175 would seem to eliminate revenue to the Multimodal Transportation and Mitigation Options Fund, which would be a loss of roughly $15 million dollars per year. These investments (which have been cut in the last few years due to state budget woes) improve safety for all road users, contribute to vibrant communities, support the many Coloradans who rely on public and active transportation, and combat traffic congestion by giving people transportation options beyond driving. 175 would also seem to disrupt funding for EV charging stations, Motorcycle Operator Safety Training, and Emergency Medical Services, among other programs.
And two, 175 fails to address the root cause of Colorado’s transportation challenges. While restricting vehicle taxes and fees to road projects may sound like an outcome that would “fix the roads,” it would entrench a status quo of highway widening and new road construction that has gotten us into this mess in the first place.
It is surely true that we must invest in maintaining existing roads and bridges, especially in rural areas, where residents rely on driving and will continue to do so for years to come. Coloradans have made it clear that transportation options and the condition of our roads, not the width or capacity of our highways, are their top concerns.
According to a CDOT survey of Coloradans last year, respondents believed that 37% of funding should go to public and active transportation and 33% to roadway maintenance, while only 13% should go to highway expansion.
However, CDOT’s current spending does not come close to reflecting those values, with roughly 30-40% CDOT’s current budget being spent on roadway capacity projects, by far the largest category of spending, and less than 10% being spent on either rural paving or urban paving.
While it is laudable that CDOT names “fixing our roads” as one of its three guiding performance measures, and it is good to see “rural paving” as a project type in CDOT’s 10-year plan, spending on maintenance is currently dwarfed by road capacity spending, and there is nothing in 175 that would change that reality.
Under 175, the Colorado Department of Transportation will continue to invest in expensive highway widening projects that incentivize driving and worsen congestion. These capacity projects would create new maintenance liabilities for a DOT that is already struggling to maintain its existing system, thus creating demand for more public dollars. The costs of this hypercharged car investment would be externalized onto all of us: our towns and businesses would have to subsidize more parking, our healthcare system would have to care for more people harmed by poor air quality and traffic crashes, and all of us would deal with the worsening effects of climate change.
What is needed to improve our transportation system and fix our roads is a paradigm shift in the way we prioritize transportation dollars. 175 plainly does not do that. Instead, it keeps us going down the same financially and environmentally ruinous path of highway expansion and car dependency (a fact that the initiative’s road construction industry backers are presumably counting on).
Why would 175 be bad for Coloradans?
Beyond the fact that 175 would fail in its stated claim to fix Colorado’s transportation system, it would hurt everyday Coloradans by worsening the state’s already acute budget crisis. How so? The measure would redirect revenue going into the general fund without adding new dollars, effectively diverting funds from other programs–a fact that the contractors fail to mention on their website and or when asking Coloradans to sign a petition.
As a recent letter signed by over 40 organizations, including Bicycle Colorado, puts it, “Should Initiative 175 pass, balancing the budget without major reductions to Medicaid, K-12 education, and higher education would be impossible. Together, these three areas represent nearly 71 percent of the state’s General Fund.”
Colorado is already facing a series of tough budget years due to factors such as the end of Covid-era relief money, rapidly rising healthcare costs, and tax cuts from the Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill, which also affects Colorado’s revenue. What’s more, Colorado struggles to raise revenue to keep up with rising costs, given the constraints of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the perennial imprint of small-government libertarianism on the state’s constitution present since the 1990s.
Colorado faces a budget shortfall of over a billion dollars this year, forcing painful cuts to core government services like education and healthcare. And the state is projected to face a similar situation next year.
To put it bluntly, Initiative 175 could not be coming at a worse time. Obligating general revenue funds in such a context will have the direct effect of slashing programs that hardworking Coloradans rely on.
So what is to be done?
Coloradans should be aware of this initiative and decline to sign any petition to place it on the ballot. Should the measure make the November ballot, then vote NO.
The Colorado legislature should pass recently introduced legislation to counteract Initiative 175.
The people of Colorado deserve a transportation system that works for everyone and a state that supports the core services people need to thrive. Initiative 175 would be a disaster on both counts.
