More Issues In the News

They've been working on the railroad.

CU students made major contributions to a new 82-page report on the benefits of public transportation published today by the Colorado Public Interest Research Group (CoPIRG) titled “A Better Way to Go: Meeting America's 21st Century Transportation Challenges with Mass Transit.”

The report not only outlines the problems with modern commuting and transportation issues including traffic congestion, gas consumption and CO2 emissions, but also determines in precise detail the number of reductions that could be created in each of these categories if certain mass-transit projects that have already been proposed are completed.

“Our student interns and volunteers have really put a lot of effort into making people aware of the information in this report,” said Cory Nadler, Student Organizer for the CU Boulder chapter of CoPIRG. Given the speed in which many Colorado communities, such as Boulder, are growing, Nadler said that CU students represent an ever-increasing segment of the population that is ready and willing to use mass transit.

“The most important thing is putting on the table that transit is going to be critical in meeting the needs of such a fast-growing area like the Front Range and Boulder,” said Nadler. “The more that students, faculty, and staff are commuting, the higher the need to lower the amount of time we spend in traffic, the amount of money we spend on gas, and the amount of oil we burn to create global warming pollution. Mass transit is really the best way to do that.”

According to a press document released in conjunction with the report, the newest numbers indicate that public transit is estimated to save 3.4 billion gallons of oil, prevent 541 million hours of traffic delay and reduces global warming by 26 million tons per year.

The sheer magnitude of these numbers suggest why Colorado legislators such as Senator Ken Gordon and Representative Claire Levy helped CoPIRG sponsor an event at the capitol Thursday calling for state lawmakers to expand transit recommendations by approving additional funding for public transportation.

“Funding transit saves money,” stated Representative Levy in the release. “The more alternatives that there are to driving, the less congestion there will be on our highways and the less of a burden on our overstretched highway funds.”

One of the unique aspects of the CoPIRG report is that it releases its numbers based on transit agency-specific information. For instance, the report determined that RTD in Denver alone reduces carbon-based pollution by 84,966 tons per year, saving its customers $38,228,263 in gas at the pump.

“This report shows why we need better transit in Colorado,” stated Senator Gordon in the release. “It puts clear numbers on how public transit reduces oil dependence, traffic congestion, and global-warming pollution. Coloradans need better transportation choices; we need to get these projects off the drawing board and into action.”

Kirpal Singh, a staff attorney for CoPIRG in Denver, said that the new report also establishes a guide for legislators on how to better spend transportation dollars by focusing on three things: maintenance and repair of existing roadways as opposed to the creation of new ones, more informed spending habits, and a greater focus on rail and other forms of transportation.

According to Singh, the federal system of allocating public transportation dollars is working against the states that do more to conserve.

“Federal highway trust fund dollars are distributed to states based on three different types of criteria: the previous year's gasoline consumption, lane miles of federal highway miles, and the previous year's vehicle miles traveled,” he said. “This system actually punishes good behavior. A state that does its part to reduce America's oil dependence would reduce the growth of these measures and would actually be ‘rewarded' for their success by a reduction in federal dollars. We need federal incentives to actually award states and localities for reducing the number of gallons Americans consume and number of miles they need to travel.”

Meanwhile, activists such as Nadler are encouraging CU students and local Boulder residents to use the information in the report as a basis to become more politically active in the pursuit supporting mass-transit projects that will be useful in their own communities - from the ballot box to entirely new grassroots campaigns.

“Maybe students on campus here could decide to form a mass-transit coalition and run a petition about a ski train that will take them to Summit County and back,” he said. “If the Boulder representatives were to get a couple thousand e-mails from CU students about a ski train, it might become a reality. Students are just as much a viable political constituency as anybody else, and unless we actually head to the polls and cast our ballots, there's no reason for politicians to care about the issues that we care about.”

Contact Lance Vaillancourt about this story at (303) 531-4951, ext 125, or at vaillancourt@coloradodaily.com.