What Is the Jefferson Beltway?
What Is The Jefferson Beltway?
The Jefferson Beltway is the next-to-last link connecting a beltway completely around the metropolitan Denver area. Its alignment will closely follow the preferred alignment in CDOT’s Northwest Corridor EIS, although it will not involve widening of Indiana Street. It’s exact southern limit in or near Golden is yet undetermined.
Why Is The Jefferson Beltway Needed?
It is our responsibility to our future residents to provide them an adequate infrastructure. This includes adequate, safe and reliable transportation corridors.
Colorado’s State demographer projects that Colorado will add a million new residents per decade for the next several decades and that a high percentage of those will be on the Front Range. The entire region already needs relief on many major highways including I-70 and I-25. The City of Arvada has borne the brunt of through- traffic in the western metro area on its local streets such as Wadsworth, Indiana and CH 93. These routes are not adequate now, for present, much less future, traffic loads.
How will the Jefferson Beltway be funded?
Due to non-availability of public financing, the Jefferson Beltway will be constructed entirely with private funds. No tax money will be used to build or operate the beltway. Beltway users will pay a toll. Toll road financing and projections are a private matter between a willing seller of bonds and willing, sophisticated investors. The much discussed shortfall of revenue vs. projections for the Northwest Parkway is not a valid indicator of financial performance for the Jefferson Beltway. In fact, it is the absence of the final link in the metro beltway system that negatively impacts usage on the Northwest Parkway.
Will Taxpayers Really Pay for the Beltway?
There is no taxpayer impact if the toll revenues do not meet projections. Projection shortfalls on other toll-financed highways are irrelevant. If a sophisticated investor is willing to advance the financing and assume the risk, there is no risk to taxpayers.
Environmental Issues:
An extensive Environmental Impact Statement has been undertaken by CDOT. Although the draft EIS has not yet been published, preliminary information indicates that impacts of the beltway portion of CDOT’s preferred alternative have been minimized – very little if any impacts to residences, wetlands, endangered species. Modest are that there are minimal environmental issues which can be easily remediated.
Process
Before removing itself from the planned beltway, CDOT conducted over one dozen public meetings, numerous public design meetings, and considered more than 80 possible alignments for the north-south link. This information, along with its public comments, will be available to the authority. The members of the authority must draft and approve an inter-governmental agreement binding them to the project. Once the authority is officially created, it will hire an executive director and staff, secure the right-of-way and publish a request-for-proposals for design and construction of the beltway.
Next Steps
CDOT has stated that local entities can proceed with their plans to construct the beltway given that CDOT has tried diligently to make the deadlines outlined in its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) but due to strong project opposition they have not be successful in doing so. See (link) to MOU with Jefferson County, Arvada, and Broomfield.
As of November 2007, Jefferson County, Arvada, and Broomfield are discussing methods to proceed with the project. The exact mechanism that will be used should be known sometime in early 2008.