This past legislative session was pretty ugly for citizens. And especially ugly for energy ratepayers. But one of the few silver linings to emerge was a bill that could serve as a beacon of transparency for years to come. The bill is HB 1002 sponsored by Rep. BJ Nikkel and Sen. Mike Kopp. Rep. Nikkel worked with CDOT to “develop and maintain a publicly accessible, searchable, online database of its revenue and expenditure data.” Translation: taxpayers can see how CDOT is spending their money. Transparency must be in vogue again because the bill passed unanimously! Transparency Czarina Amy Oliver caught a sneak preview of the website and said that this new CDOT transparency website is what our state transparency website (TOPS) was supposed to look like – but TOPS failed miserably. Hopefully the success of the CDOT website will encourage reforms in the awful state transparency website and encourage other departments to take on the honorable task of showing us citizens where they spend OUR money.

Tune in to Devil’s Advocate this Friday night as I am joined by Rich Sokol of Legacy Capital Group and Tom Ryan of Analyst Strategy Group for an examination of how the 2009 FASTER legislation has allowed Colorado to issue $300 million of new debt without bothering to ask permission from Colorado voters as required by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). That’s Friday, May 27 at 8:30 PM on Colorado Public Television 12. Re-broadcast the following Monday at 1:30 PM.

What do public-sector unions, highway traffic jams and gun rights all have in common? These are all recent topics of Independence Institute writers in the news.

First, in Friday’s Denver Daily News, Independence Institute education policy analyst Ben DeGrow points out, among other things, that while private-sector unions organize against management, public-sector unions actually organize against their fellow citizens. Something that even as pro-labor a president as FDR warned against.

Then in the Sunday Denver Post, transportation research associate John Aldridge makes the case for the use of “hard shoulders” to address congestion problems on both C-470 and the I-70 Mountain Corridor.

Finally, get a double-dose of Independence Institute research director Dave Kopel in the March edition of America’s 1st Freedom magazine. First, Dave explains the “Dark secret of Jim Crow and the racist roots of gun control,” then Dave points out Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s recent misrepresentation of James Madison as part of Breyer’s anti-gun zealotry.

Over a the Denver Post, traffic operations engineer and Independence Institute research associate John Aldridge examines the proposed plan to build an elevated train along Colorado’s I-70 mountain corridor.

Unsurprisingly, he finds a few flaws in the idea:

First, it’s going to take 20 years or more to implement, and second, it will do nothing meaningful to relieve the worst area of congestion from east of Idaho Springs to west of Georgetown.
The plan proposes construction of a passenger train from Golden to the Eagle County Airport, about 118 miles. The plan envisions an electrically powered system running on an elevated track adjacent to the highway. The estimated cost is an astonishing $20 billion, or about 20 times CDOT’s annual budget to manage and maintain the entire state highway system. CDOT freely admits it does not have any money for the project.

Read the whole thing here.

If you were able to attend Randal O’Toole’s incredible transportation event a couple months ago, or you watched the event in this 5 part YouTube playlist, you might be interested in this follow up article written by Randal for the Wall Street Journal titled, “Taking the Driver Out of the Car.”

You’ll remember from Randal’s presentation that one of the free market solutions to gridlock, pollution, and our current array of dismal highways and roads requires a bit of a futuristic perspective. In other words, a little more Star Trek and a little less Am Trek, er, Amtrak. Never mind, you get it.

Anyway, as futuristic as driverless cars sound, the future is here! As Randal points out,

Consumers today can buy cars that steer themselves; accelerate and brake to maintain a safe driving distance from cars ahead; and detect and avoid collisions with other cars on all sides. Making them completely driverless will involve little more than a software upgrade.

“Robocars” as some call them have been in the making for years now and we are inching closer than ever before to having them as a legitimate option – if our elected officials deem it legal. And that is quite a big if. Futuristic geeks like Randal find themselves in the classic chicken-egg conundrum: these cars have little chance of gaining momentum with the public until we have the infrastructure built to use them properly. And we won’t have the proper infrastructure to use them until there is adequate public demand – and the legal okay.

It’s a coordination problem where someone on either side must first take a big risk in hopes that things catch on. Fortunately, public demonstrations like driverless car challenges, encourage the emerging field to reach greater innovation heights, while showing the public that these crazy things are out there – and they work!

The technology for driverless cars will be here sooner than later. Unfortunately, we just don’t know yet whether the law, infrastructure, and public support will. Lawmakers have the power to push us closer to Star Trek, but currently, all we’re getting is more and more Amtrak.

As Yogi Berra once said, “it’s deja vu all over again.”  Remember those FasTracks lies we’ve been told for 30 years?  Well, a new report from the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority makes RTD’s distortions look like child’s play.  The report claims that “high speed” rail lines between Fort Collins and Pueblo, and Denver International Airport and Eagle County – I-25 and I-70 respectively – would cost over $21 billion AND not need a dime of tax payer money.  I’ll let you finish laughing before I go on….

Further, the study claims, “for every dollar of capital and operating costs, the project creates economic benefits greater than one dollar.”  If true, that begs the question: why on earth would we need government to do it if the project is both economically feasible and profitable? The fact that entrepreneurs are not jumping all over this alleged gold mine is proof enough it’s a money loser.  Obviously I don’t even need to rely on any sort of theoretical argument here.  Look at the history!  Look at the empirical evidence right in front of our eyes!  We’ve got a FasTracks project underfunded, over-budget, and largely unbuilt that is already over 30 years in the making.

For your viewing pleasure, an additional assortment of unbelievable claims and interesting tidbits:

These great facts and figures were brought to my attention through this fantastic Denver Post editorial and Denver Daily News piece. The DDN article features our very own Senior Fellow in Transportation Randal O’Toole. Randal has been a waging a war on the bogus claims made by RTD over the years and pulled no punches on this outrageous report saying, “They’re using the most optimistic assumptions imaginable and then relying on compounded optimistic assumptions.” Yeah, kind of like compounded interest. Except with compounded optimism you don’t make money, you lose a ton and go deep into debt.

If the project gets off the ground and begins indebting our state and delivering nothing like all other ambitious transportation projects, the Independence Institute will be there once again to say, “I told you so.”  Randal will have the opportunity to say, “You should have listened to me.”  Again.

If you haven’t had the chance to hear Randal, take a few minutes and listen.  His recent appearance on my TV show Independent Thinking was an opportunity to say “I told you so” with Denver Post columnist Chuck Plunkett.  Randal also presented to an audience for an event here at the Institute a little while ago titled, “Mobility vs. Gridlock: Colorado’s Transportation Future.” You can view that event via “YouTube playlist here.

It’s a transportation policy wonk-fest on tonight’s Independent Thinking. I will be joined by Chuck Plunkett from the Denver Post, and Randal O’Toole, director of the Independence Institute’s Center for the American Dream and Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Tune in for a lively discussion about trains, buses and automobiles, and the future of transportation in Colorado. That’s tonight at 8:30 PM, re-broadcast the following Monday at 1:30 PM.

My web monkey just finished posting Randal’s fantastic presentation called “Mobility vs. Gridlock: Colorado’s Transportation Future” on YouTube in a playlist format. In the presentation, Randal points to the overwhelming evidence that rail transit in general, and FasTracks in particular, is a dead end in solving congestion, safety, and mobility issues. Instead, Randal offers a couple of his own solutions to these pressing problems.

Randal tackles these issues more in-depth in his book, “Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It.”

Senior fellow at Independence and the Cato Institute, Randal O’Toole, hit the big time the other day when he found his way onto the new John Stossel show on Fox Business Channel. He did a great job summarizing some major points against building infrastructure for rail, rather than more efficient and less costly means of transportation like buses. If you happen to be a “read” rather than “watch” kinda guy, then take a gander at Randal’s arsenal against light-rail here.