DENVER — Walking down an underground tunnel Thursday, Colorado transportation officials guided members of the Utah Department of Transportation into a new lifeline of Denver transportation — a toll booth on E-470.

An average of 150,000 toll transactions are handled every day on the 47-mile toll road spanning five counties, Colorado highway administrators report.

Some motorists stop to pay the $1.75 while others pass at full speed as the toll is electronically deducted from their pre-paid express account.

The operation in Denver is getting a firsthand look by Utah transportation administrators looking for innovative options in handling the critical transportation needs along the Wasatch Front over the next 30 years and the projected $23 billion shortfall in meeting them.

In the upcoming legislative session, Sen. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse, plans to sponsor a bill allowing UDOT to enter into partnerships with private companies to build toll roads. By allowing a private group to cover costs of construction in exchange for toll revenue, a road can be built in years rather than decades, he said.

UDOT is also studying whether the Mountain View Corridor, a proposed freeway that would run along the west side of Salt Lake County into Utah County, should be a toll road. As with most other "new capacity" road projects in Utah, no funding exists to build the freeway.

Colorado officials said Denver was Salt Lake 15 years ago: As they looked down Denver's roads they saw gridlock and nowhere near enough state funding for a new highway.

They decided to turn transportation into a business venture, creating the E-470 Public Highway Authority.

"Without private funding, it wouldn't have ever been built," said E-470 executive director Edward DeLozier. When asked how Denver's roads would be today without the toll road, DeLozier summed it up in one word: "Miserable."

With it, I-25 and I-225 are just congested.

During the whirlwind, one-day tour, UDOT administrators and several state transportation commissioners were shown how cash is collected and security is managed. They were also told that Utah made a big contribution to the toll road's snow removal program: 2002 Winter Games officials sold E-470 several barely used snowplows. "We got a great deal," DeLozier said.

While the road is managed by the authority, the purse strings are controlled by a board of directors made up of every elected official from every city and county through which E-470 passes.

When the road opened in June 1991, each city and county had to take out a portion of the total $1.23 billion loan.

Until three years ago, the E-470 authority managed to pay off all city and county debt and refinance the debt. The road will remain semi-private up until 2076 when it is completely paid off and will be turned over to the state.