WHERE DOES ALL THE
HIGHWAY TAX MONEY GO?

Since Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor is a key member of Gov. Bill Ritter’s Blue Ribbon Transportation Panel which visited Longmont a while back, I’m wondering what sort of an ongoing program Boulder County has budgeted to closely monitor, maintain and replace, as appropriate, the county’s 643 miles of roadway and its 76 bridges of over 20 feet in length. Roadways and bridges just don’t fall apart overnight.

Construction costs have risen sharply, but so has the number of highway users who shell out tremendous amounts money to pay for vehicle fuel taxes, ownership taxes, licenses, fees and permits. Perhaps another dog-and-pony show should be organized by the governor and sent out to explain where all the money goes, in the foggy world of highway high-finance.

If our county commissioners are indeed unable to guarantee the public reasonably safe roads and bridges due to budget shortfall, I was about to recommend floating a bond issue for that purpose. After all, the majority of voters in Boulder County don’t seem to mind running up a huge debt on our children and grandchildren to buy land.

But on second thought, the 2007 financial report of Boulder County shows that its long-term debt already stands at around $198 million.

So maybe putting our descendants further in debt to fund our roads and bridges is not such a good idea. Oh well, why worry? Obama will take care of it.
P.