June 24, 2021
FREE
DOUGLAS COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
HighlandsRanchHerald.net
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 17 | SPORTS: PAGE 20
VOLUME 34 | ISSUE 29
Fee increases will pay for highway projects Polis signs transportation bill that adds to costs of gasoline, rideshares BY JESSE PAUL THE COLORADO SUN
The FAA released an official final word — a “finding of no significant impact” and “record of decision” — which enabled the agency to move forward with the Metroplex project. The decision was announced in January 2020. The finding meant the FAA determined that a further review, called an environmental impact statement, wasn’t necessary before the plan was put into action, according to the FAA’s website. Despite the court challenge, the project went into effect as scheduled on March 26, 2020, nearly four years after the FAA put the plan in motion, according to Centennial Airport. Local officials in the south Denver metro area and
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 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
SEE FLIGHT PATHS, P4
SEE PROJECTS, P5
Planes stand at Centennial Airport in 2018.
FILE PHOTO BY ELLIS ARNOLD
Court dismisses airport’s challenge on flight paths Centennial Airport opposed FAA’s Denver Metroplex plan, fearing noise, effect on safety BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
In what may serve as an anticlimactic end to a years-long dispute between metro Denver governments and the Federal Aviation Administration, a federal court has dismissed Centennial Airport’s challenge to the FAA’s approval of a plan to reroute metro Denver airplane traffic. “I think frankly the court punted
on this — didn’t want to touch this with a 10-foot pole,” Robert Olislagers, the airport’s director, said at a June 17 meeting of the airport’s board of leaders. The FAA’s plan to optimize arrival and departure at local airports is called the Denver Metroplex project, and it includes Denver International Airport, Centennial Airport and some others. An FAA environmental-assessment study had looked at impacts the project could have on noise, air quality, wildlife, and historic and cultural resources. It said the proposed change in flight paths was expected to have “no significant impacts” on those aspects of the project’s area, including metro Denver and the Greeley area.
REEL CHANGES
Movie theaters open but the pandemic changed viewing modes P14
TREADING THE TURF Prep sports action fills the fields P23