From Deseret News archives:
UDOT examines workings of 47-mile Colorado toll road
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.
