Gov. Hickenlooper has signed a major transportation bill. Passed in early May towards the end of this year’s legislative session, the bill will dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars to transportation projects that will go to infrastructure needs over the next decade, according to the Denver Post.
“This is significant,” Senate President Kevin Grantham is quoted as saying by the Denver Post. “When we get to look back on this endeavor, and what happened in the 2018 session, this is what I’m going to remember.”
The bipartisan bill cost the Colorado legislature months of fine-tuning before it was passed, and was one of the 2018 legislative session’s largest policy accomplishments.
Senate Bill 1 puts $645 million aside for transportation projects over the next two years. The passage also means that a 2019 referendum will be sent to voters to potentially issue $2.34 billion in transportation bonds. The state would owe up to $3.25 billion in borrowing costs over 20 years.
There will also be $50 million invested in future transportation projects that would make sure that the state could make a down payment on bonding debt, according to KDVR.
Most of the funding will be spent on state highway projects; 15 percent will go to alternate forms of transit.
Outside groups might push for other transportation funding options on the 2018 ballot. If any of those proposals pass, then the 2019 referendum would be canceled, according to the Denver Post.