Dear Editor,

Now that everyone has settled into their summer routine, perhaps there is a chance a few people, including a few elected officials, can focus on the largest single proposal for public expenditures in Valley history.

I’m referring to the Corridor Investment Study (CIS), the basic blueprint for transportation planning for RFTA for the next 20 years. Its adoption will affect taxpayers in seven different jurisdictions for generations, and almost none of them are aware of the magnitude of the obligation they are being asked to shoulder.

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The CIS fills 525 pages, so it isn’t practical to suggest that everyone run out and read it for themselves. Instead, over the next few weeks, I’ll provide some highlights of my own odyssey through the process of dissecting and understanding this inscrutable document.

Context: The Denver Regional Transportation District runs an enormous mass transit system serving a population base of 2.3 million people, at a cost of $128.77 per year for each and every living soul. Here in the Roaring Fork Valley were are currently spending double that amount per person.

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If the CIS is implemented as proposed, expenditures will nearly double again in just the next five years.

Stay tuned.

Jeffrey Evans

Up the Crystal