In 2009, the General Assembly passed FASTER, a sorely-needed bill that raises $250 million dollars per year to fix crumbling bridges and roadways, protect public safety (including the safety of pedestrians and cyclists), and support and fix local transit systems.  7,000 jobs depend on FASTER money.

Now, in 2011, legislators are introducing bills to repeal or change portions of FASTER.  Any change to FASTER will kill jobs, make the traveling public less safe, and decrease transit options for the elderly, people with disabilities, and commuters.

• 6% of FASTER money ($15 million) goes specifically for transit projects and to protect the safety of the non-driving public on roadways.  Some legislators want to eliminate this funding.
• This is a small, but very important, stream of money.
• It is allowing communities to maintain or upgrade their current bus or Amtrak service and continue to meet their obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. 
• It is providing parking for commuters who want to ride transit to work, save gas, and ease the stress of dealing with traffic. 
• It is providing transit options for tourists and commuters alike.
• It is funding the important work of the new Division of Transit and Rail within CDOT. 
• It is funding a study on the feasibility of a high-speed transit system in the I-70 mountain corridor to help solve the crushing congestion problems that are causing so many delays and hurting our tourist industry. 
• The money is being awarded to needed projects all across the state, from buses in Loveland and Pueblo, to park and rides in La Plata County and the Denver metro area, to bus stops in Moffat County and Greeley, to Amtrak station improvements in Lamar and La Junta. 
• This is not a question of building bike lanes instead of spending money on safety.  Very little of this money is going to fund bike lanes or pedestrian paths.  Of the funding that CDOT has so far programmed, only 10.4% is going to build travel lanes for cyclists and pedestrians.

• Just as it is important that we maintain and repair our bridges and roadways, we need to maintain and repair our existing transit systems. 
• Our transit systems are badly in need of repair too.  The transit and multimodal safety money in FASTER is going to replace deteriorated pieces of these systems, just as the road and bridge repair money in FASTER is going to repair deteriorated roads and bridges. 
• Just as it costs more later if we wait to repair bridges and roadways, the same is true of repairs to our transit systems.  We save money by taking care of what we have.  This is no less true for transit systems than roadway systems.