STANDARD BLADE B R I G H T O N
SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1903
75cI
VOLUME 118
Issue 26
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 2021
Fee increases will pay for highway projects Polis signs transportation bill that adds to costs of gasoline, rideshares BY JESSE PAUL THE COLORADO SUN
FLOYD HILL — Shaded by an Interstate 70 bridge that has fueled steering-wheel-pounding rage for generations, Gov. Jared Polis on June 17 signed a transportation fee and spending bill that seeks to inject more than $5 billion into Colorado road and transit projects over the next 11 years. “Everybody knows we need to fix it,” Polis said of Colorado’s road and highway system before signing Senate Bill 260 under the curved I-70 bridge at the bottom of Floyd Hill, a structure over Clear Creek that chokes traffic and ruins the best-laid plans of skiers, snowboarders, hikers and bikers every weekend. “If it was easy it would have been done already.” Colorado lawmakers have been
Gov. Jared Polis announces Colorado’s new transportation law while standing in the PHOTO BY JESSE PAUL/THE COLORADO SUN shadow of Interstate 70 on June 17.
trying to solve the problem of the state’s limited transportation funding for years, proposing tax hikes and bonding and committing more existing money from the state budget to the problem. But the efforts to find money in the couch cushions to supplement a 22-cent gasoline tax that hasn’t increased since 1992 have either not been successful or not been sufficient to tackle the breadth of the issue. Senate Bill 260 was Democrats’
solution to the funding gridlock, allowing them to raise money without voter approval. Fees under the measure begin next year. They include: • 2 cents per gallon on gasoline and diesel fuel starting in July 2022 that increases 1 cent every year up to 8 cents • 27 cents on deliveries, including those from Amazon, FedEx and Grubhub • 30 cents on Uber and Lyft rides
starting in 2022 that would increase based on the federal Consumer Price Index. The fee would be cut in half for people carpooling in a rideshare, or riding in an electric vehicle. In addition to the funding mechanisms in the measure, there are also requirements that the Colorado Department of Transportation take greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals into account when planning future projects. State officials also must consider the impact of transportation work on communities where low-income people, minorities or housing-cost-burdened families make up 40% of the population under the new law. Finally, the bill emphasizes — and spends money on — an electric-vehicle future, as well as mass transit, including a potential Front Range passenger rail system. This story is from The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. Used by permission. For more, and to support The Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com.
Colorado Spaceport teams up for spaceplane New Zealand maker inks deal for Colorado-based horizontal take-off spaceplane BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
A New Zealand aerospace company is joining the race to create a horizontal take-off and landing spaceplane that will fly from Colorado above the earth’s atmosphere and fly back down before landing on a runway. The Colorado Air and Spaceport signed a memorandum of understanding June 15 with Dawn Aerospace from Christchurch, New Zealand.
James Powell co-founder of Dawn Aerospace and who works in New Zealand, joined Adams County Manager Raymond Gonzales remotely via Zoom to sign copies of the agreement. The copies had been signed ahead of time The new agreement will create a working relationship bewteen Dawn and the Spaceport as well as an agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct test flights and spaceplane launches from the Spaceporti in Watkins, just southeast of Denver International Airport. Gonzalez praised the agreement. “It truly has been a collaborative effort, and we’ve enjoyed getting to know this innovative company, their products, and people,” Gonzalez said. “It’s not only a partnership between Colorado Air and Spaceport and Dawn Aerospace, we have the
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full support of the Colorado Space Coalition and the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade. “We look forward to furthering our place in the aerospace industry,” he added. “Partnering with extraordinary companies like Dawn Aerospace, their type of technology launching horizontally using a typical airport runway that will open up many options and opportunities at Colorado Air and Spaceport. We are completely on board with this partnership. And we are excited to see what the future holds.” Powell said it’s a game-changing agreement for his company and for the entire industry. “This represents a really important step for our company and expanding our capability globally and leveraging the flight heritage and the developments that we’ve
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been working on in New Zealand this week,” he said. “We do it as a paradigm shift in the spaceflight industry.We think that this will enable vastly more capability in spaceflight. Bringing this to a global market is important for us. We think it’s an important strategic difference in doing that we can to expand this and bring this to a global audience.” Milestones of spaceport Adams County began its pursuit for a spaceport site operator license through the FAA office of commercial space in 2011 and received an operator license in August 2018. The state renamed the sleepy Front Range Airport in Watkins and gave it new purpose as the Colorado Air and Spaceport. Adams Deputy County Manager SEE SPACEPLANE, P5
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