WW, BBW, Cheryl, NW Pkwy
WW - Most cities are allowed a percentage of operating capital wherein monies may be infused into projects without a vote of the people.
BBW - The corridors you are talking about appear to be relatively protected. However, if you would go to the BF library and read the study about the 96th Street and Hwy 36 corridors, you may feel differently about how thesestudies are conducted. Particularly environmental and air quality impacts.
One part of the reports states that all the animals have been relocated with a 100% survival rate. This statement is blatantly false. Having been been involved with CDOW, I know that if 30% survived they would have been lucky.
Relocating wildlife is a sensitive matter and people should not be misled into believing wildlife can simply be relocated and everything is okay. These council members and those professionals doing the EA should have seriously scrutinized this statement. I will bet nobody even went to the wildlife relocation site and checked on the health of these animals!
In fact, I recently found out that CDOW revoked the license of those people that did the relocation.
I have lived in this state for a very long time and I cannot even express to you all the animals that have been killed, or moved out because of this aggressive growth mode being driven by DIA.
Also, you will question the Clean Air Act and how that was implemented. Why wasn't enough testing done for "hot spots?"
Okay, so my version of the Public Highway Authority Act. Yes, it was created because the state does not have the monies to build these roads to bring in more of these businesses which allegedly help my health, safety and general welfare (what a joke that is). So, does that mean the state should pass the buck to an entity in which the people have no control over? I believe the legislature wanted to be assured that by granting this power of eminent domain and requiring that elected officials be the voting board that they had covered themselves to certain abuses. I am also sure it was argued by lobbyist that there should not be a vote by the population in general because they incur no debt. However, in actually the state has created a situation where the public has little control over politicians which are influenced by monies from corporations.
The Act is seriously flawed and it will create many more problems in the future.
Cheryl, I agree, the parkway will not solve the Hwy 36 and Hwy 287 problem. For one, the parkway is being principally designed for traffic to DIA. The people communiting on those roads mentioned above are commuting to and from home, not to DIA. In fact these federal highways will worsen because I believe that many politicians were talking to CDOT trying to convince them that the NW Parkway will resolve all of these problems, when it will not. This hurt everyone already, looking at REF A, which I do not support, there is no specific mention of widening or fixing the problem on on Federal highways 287 and 36. Now, since they are Federal highways, who will pay for it if the feds do not?
There are other roads that people can drive on to easily circumvent paying a toll. If we continue banking so much on the parkway and ignoring these other roads, we will have even more serious problems.
If Coloradoans had been a little sharper about all of this, we would have learned from what happened with C470 and E470 which will create massive sprawl because now the roads are there. I would like to revoke the 1987 Act, boy you talk about a task!
Well, we can become involved by editorials, getting some reporters in here and really question whether this is all necessary. What about this process, who has power of over the Authority? Why won't these board members place a stipulation before the Authority that they want a vote from their people to find out where their own constituency really stands. What a horrible system we have here.
By Joan