HB 1312

Problem:

Colorado's transportation funding system is backwards. It continues to increase our enormous funding shortfall while encouraging inefficient projects that create more traffic jams. People are driving more miles, causing more congestion for everyone and emitting more greenhouse gases. 

Going forward, we need to ensure that decision-makers have the information they need to efficiently direct our limited transportation dollars to cost-effective projects that will move people and products expeditiously while reducing traffic jams and greenhouse gas emissions.

Solution:

HB 1312 will require transportation planners to consider the impacts of their decisions before they make them, by considering the project's impact in terms of congestion, accessibility by people who don't drive, and greenhouse gas emissions. HB 1312 will not interfere with local land use decisions, but will give local governments the information they need to assess the impacts their choices will have. 

What HB 1312 Does:

Requires the state Transportation Commission, in cooperation with regional planning agencies, to set goals for the transportation system that consider cost-effectiveness of investments, traffic and congestion, and the emission of greenhouse gases.  

Requires Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and the Department of Transportation (CDOT) to evaluate how different transportation investments in combination with different land use scenarios would meet the goals of the transportation system and affect the transportation funding shortfall.

Directs CDOT and the Department of Local Affairs to help local land use agencies understand the impacts their land use decisions can have on taxpayer costs, traffic and global warming.

Encourages voluntary coordination of regional transportation plans and local land use plans.

What HB 1312 Does Not Do:

HB 1312 does not tell local governments how to make land use decisions or how to plan for growth within their communities.

HB 1312 does not require rural areas to do any modeling or conduct analyses. CDOT will do the analyses for corridors of statewide concern and MPOs will do them for metropolitan areas.

HB 1312 does not require transportation agencies to develop new measures for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions. It allows them to use information sources as they become available from the EPA or the Air Pollution Control Commission.

HB 1312 is a Direct Response to the Findings of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Transportation

The Panel's report to the Governor recommended:

addressing the transportation funding shortfall by paying more attention to the cost-effectiveness of future transportation investments;

promoting strategies that decrease the growth in vehicle miles traveled, thereby reducing the cost of expansion and maintenance of the transportation system and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions; and

supporting development patterns that maximize the value and useful life of transportation investments and provide incentives for the integration of transportation planning and local land use planning.

HB 1312 implements these recommendations by providing local land use agencies with analyses and information on how their decisions will impact transportation costs, traffic jams, and greenhouse gas emissions. HB 1312 starts an important conversation on these topics by encouraging land use and transportation planners to understand better the consequences their decisions will have before they make them.