The Regional Transportation District (RTD) will not allow Coloradans to have real transit solutions such as jitney service. A jitney is a privately owned minibus that carries passengers from point to point on a flexible schedule.
In 1989, the Florida legislature accidentally created a legal loophole that permitted competitive, unregulated services like jitneys. Within months, over 20 jitney firms had emerged to serve the accidentally created market. Before this loophole, certain regulated jitneys were allowed to operate in conjunction with the Miami version of RTD, Metrobus.
READ MOREUsually a terrorist is an extremist hijacking an airliner and holding innocent passengers hostage. Currently the FTA (Federal Transit Agency) is holding mobility hostage to extort Colorado citizens.
READ MOREColorado House Bill 1329 gives a new dimension of meaning to the old phrase fiddling while Rome burns. As the state of Colorado continues to grow, traffic congestion continues to worsen. There is no relief in sight, as current plans do not provide the capacity that will be required to even maintain, much less restore Colorados high quality lifestyle.
READ MOREMobility is power. In fact, mobility is empowerment. Show me a man who can travel only as far as his legs will take him and I will show you a man in despair. But, today there is a war against mobility and its politically incorrect components: cars, roads, and drivers. These tools of empowerment are routinely vilified, when in fact they should be celebrated.
READ MOREAmericans have moved to the suburbs: Over the past 50 years, Americas suburbs have grown to contain most urban residents. As the nation has become more affluent, people have chosen to live in single-family dwellings on individual lots and have also obtained automobiles to provide unprecedented mobility.
READ MOREResidents and public officials in urban areas around the world are concerned about traffic congestion and air pollution. Of the two problems, traffic congestion is the more intractable, because improved vehicle technologies are already having a dramatic effect on improving air quality.
READ MOREA century ago, with the exception of railroads, transportation in the United States was by dirt road. Similar to growing demand for mobility in today’s third world economies, the push to get America out of the mud in the early twentieth century was led by bicycle enthusiasts. Automobile ownership was a novelty. But when rising personal wealth met declining automobile costs–thanks to Henry Fords assembly line for the Model T–more and more people began to enjoy automobile ownership. The trend is irreversible.
READ MOREI can hardly wait for the day that RTDs dreams and promises come true. We will see a light rail system that carries hundreds of thousands of people briskly throughout the entire Denver metropolitan region each and every day.
READ MOREElementary school students learn the opposite of politics. The Scientific Method, both used in school and required in Science Fair projects, mandates that a proposition, idea, question or assertion be proven. The notion is that facts are verifiable and repeatable. That June 21 has more daylight than any other day of the year can be proven by observing, measuring, and verifying with other research. It is an indisputable scientific fact.
READ MORERTD is one of Colorado’s biggest, yet obscure, governments. Elections have failed to receive sufficient public scrutiny, making control of the RTD Board a target for special interests.
READ MORESome state legislators want to make Colorados seat belt law more restrictive, by allowing police officers to stop a car simply because someone in the car isnt wearing a seat best. Under current law, not wearing a seat belt is subject only to secondary enforcementmeaning that if youre stopped for some other reason, you can get a ticket for not wearing a seat belt, but you cant be stopped just because of the seat best. Supporters of restrictive seat belt laws in Colorado have been trying for over a decade to pass primary enforcement and have failed each time. Undaunted, the nannies keep coming back during each legislative session to force upon the motoring public something not wanted, nor even needed.
READ MOREThis bill is identical to HB 99-1212 which was voted down last year. It would make failing to wear a seat belt a more serious offense. At present, drivers are not cited for failure to wear a seat belt unless they are stopped for some other reason. This bill would make failing to wear seat belts a primary offense, meaning that police officers could stop vehicles and write citations whenever they see the seat belt law being violated. The bill makes the driver responsible for a Class B traffic infraction unless he, and all front seat passengers, are wearing seat belts.
READ MOREIt has been a while since Political Correctness suffered death by ridicule, and not a moment too soon. Unfortunately, remnants of it still lurk in Denver’s current urban transportation debate: Light rail is PC. Busses are PC. Freeways are not PC.
READ MOREI-25 between Broadway Street and Lincoln Avenue is the most congested highway in Colorado. Nearly all of Denver’s 2,3 million people are impacted by the traffic on this relatively small 16 mile stretch of freeway. Traveling the highway sometimes takes more that an hour during peak periods. Regular commuters are frustrated, and the “Mile High Salute” is often performed on I-25 with a single finger. Visitors to Denver have flashbacks of their travels on other parking-lot-like freeways in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New Jersey. Rural residents are afraid to visit simply because of the heavy traffic. Even motorists who try to avoid the freeways are faced with overcrowded arterial streets flooded by like-minded hoards. Everyone who drives in and through Denver knows that something has to be done with I-25.
READ MORELike here in Denver, the Orange County Transportation Authority in California has expressed an interest in constructing light rail. The conflict of interest is obvious. If OCTA finds in favor of LRT, it gets a bigger budget, more staff, more prestige, and more power.
Suspecting that the OCTA might be overstating the benefits, a Grand Jury was convened to investigate the claims being made by the local transit agency and to study the process by which this decision will be made.
READ MOREA few have called it “visionary.” For most taxpayers, however, the “Rail to Vail” proposal is best described as “wasteful and useless.” It will eat up billions of our scarce tax dollars and provide literally no benefits to most Coloradoans.
Anyone who has driven I-70 into the mountains knows that traffic congestion is a problem at certain times and that the problem is getting worse. The issue is how to solve the problem in the most cost-effective manner. There are better, proven technologies to solve traffic congestion on I-70. The last unproven technology we bought was the DIA baggage system, and now some people want to build one that you can stick people into and launch them over the Continental Divide!
Amy Oliver Cooke, Director
Email: Amy@i2i.org
Phone: 303-279-6536, ext 107
Amy Oliver Cooke, Director
Email: Amy@i2i.org
Phone: 303-279-6536, ext 107
After a lot of recent attention, it seems to have grown awfully quiet this month in the Adams 12 school district. Two of four scheduled negotiation sessions with teachers union officials already have taken place, but beyond that it’s left to the open-ended curiosity of a perpetually precocious 5-year-old to try to guess what’s taking […]
READ MOREIn 1993 Colorado became the third state to adopt charter school legislation. Born out of frustration with lackluster school performance and limited options, the Charter Schools Act resulted from the hard work and dedication of many parents, educators, and political leaders. Careful and colorful recollections from many active, influential figures combine with other original sources to highlight the foundation and origins of the Act.
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Merit Academy: A Story of Perseverance tells the eventful story of how citizens in the small community of Woodland Park realized a gap in educational options. Determined to meet the needs of families, they worked against all odds so that families wouldn’t have to drive their children long distances to other communities. Read about Merit
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