1 week Ago
Colorado’s roads are crumbling, with rural areas seeing the worst of these damages. A recent report ranking Colorado 43rd in the nation for road conditions was no surprise to those of us who live outside the metro areas. The state’s failure to invest in road maintenance — especially in rural Colorado — has left us with some of the worst highway pavement conditions in the country.
Meanwhile, our neighbors in Utah rank in the top ten, showing that better roads are possible with the right priorities. For rural Coloradans, good roads are not just a convenience, they are a necessity for our communities and for the state. These are the roads that support the transportation of food and other essentials, tourism, and many Coloradans in their day-to-day activities like going to work or the store.
The policies coming out of the State Capitol and the initiatives being led by Governor Polis seem to be designed solely with urban dwellers in mind, hence the prioritization of mass transit and urban infrastructure. We need to do better as a state by looking at ALL of Colorado and not just the densely populated areas. When the state incentivizes urban over rural, the consequences are clear.
It must be pointed out that Colorado ranked 47th in rural highway pavement conditions, meaning the roads that connect our communities are among the worst in the nation. When roads fall apart, emergency response times increase, businesses struggle to move goods, and families face higher costs in vehicle repairs. Rural residents often do not have the luxury of avoiding bad roads by taking alternative routes (unless we want to add more miles via dirt roads that may be in even worse shape) as we travel between towns that are often dozens of miles away from each other.
When the neglect of maintaining our roads is mentioned, the Colorado Department of Transportation points to recent projects to improve rural highways, but those efforts pale in comparison to the resources dedicated to urban expansion projects. While the state spends approximately $800 million to straighten a stretch of I-70 near Denver, thousands of miles of rural roads remain in disrepair. The reality is that rural Coloradans continue to be an afterthought in infrastructure planning; even though tourism and agriculture are the top two economic drivers for our state.
This kind of short-sighted policymaking fails to recognize that rural Colorado is a key part of the state’s economy, despite the population differences. Rural matters and our rural communities deserve better. We need an infrastructure policy that acknowledges the reality of life outside the Front Range.
This means prioritizing road maintenance over expensive, feel-good urban projects. This means making sure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely on improving roads that people and state commerce rely on rather than throwing money at costly, politically driven projects in the metro-area. State leaders must recognize that all Coloradans — not just those in the densely populated areas — deserve safe, reliable roads.
The time for change is now..
