Happy November everyone! This year has flown by so quickly!
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I have a long list to be thankful for especially in the transportation sector! There were so many bills introduced and approved this year to improve multimodal transportation in the northwest metro region.
Over the summer, a $5 billion transportation funding bill, SB 260, was signed by Gov. Jared Polis which is expected to raise about $5.4 billion over the next 10 years. The plan will build out the state’s roads and bridges, create more electric vehicle charging stations, boost mass transit and mitigate air pollution.
More than $230 million was approved for critical transportation projects statewide by the Colorado Transportation Commission, which included more than $89 million for the Denver metro region.
Earlier this month, Congress passed the federal infrastructure bill which will send an estimated $700 million to $850 million to the state for transportation projects over the next five years.
The Colorado Department of Transportation is working on adopting new standards for Greenhouse Gas emission reductions, which is always a great thing! This standard would require CDOT and the state’s five Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to determine the total GHG emissions expected from future transportation projects and take steps to ensure that GHG emission levels do not exceed set GHG reduction amounts.
With all these great things that happened, there’s so much to continue to look forward to improving transportation in the northwest metro region.
We thank all our local, regional and state leaders for making transportation a high priority in 2021. Without the support and hard work of everyone, we would not have had so many successes this year!