Fort Collins, Windsor plan road interchange

By Dan MacArthur
Fossil Creek Current

Following the failure to forge an acceptable Regional Transportation Authority, Fort Collins soon will get the chance to prove up on its pledge to partner with neighboring communities on transportation improvements.

The Fort Collins City Council will meet with its Windsor counterparts in a Sept. 26 work session to review a pair of proposals for funding replacement of the Highway 392 interchange with Interstate 25. The proposals then will be forwarded to the respective planning commissions before returning to the councils for consideration in November, according to senior Fort Collins Planner Pete Wray.

The public also will have the opportunity to scrutinize those plans in a Sept. 11 open house from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Poudre Valley REA building in Windsor on Highway 392 just east of the interchange. The open house will follow a meeting of the more than 30 owners of several hundred acres within the designated Corridor Activity Center.

The property owners for years have been pressing for the improvement of the failing interchange, which is necessary to open their property to development. Both municipalities also are anxious for improvements that would encourage retail development directing sales tax revenues to their budgets.

That in large part is why the two agreed to share the $100,000 cost of developing a comprehensive development plan for the area.

Following a year of study, two preferred proposals have emerged for funding the $25 million project. The first would be completely borne by the private sector with a special assessment and tax on properties within the activity center, an impact fee imposed on the surrounding "travelshed" and a public improvement fee.

The other suggests a funding partnership among Fort Collins, Windsor, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization. That would be combined with a reduced special assessment expiring in 10 years on only undeveloped property within the activity area, a public improvement fee and tax imposed on properties within the area.

The property owners expressed general support for the second option and called for an additional contribution from Larimer County, according to the improvement plan resulting from the study. They also supported creation of the RTA that would have provided two-thirds of the funding to supplement either of the other options.

But the demise of the RTA means that communities now must instead depend entirely on such collaborations rather that relying on regional revenues for transportation improvements.

"We're going ahead on regional cooperation and transportation," said Fort Collins council member Ben Manvel. He was among that majority that rejected the city's participation in the RTA.

In a pointed letter sent to fellow elected officials in the region, Manvel savaged the "incompetence or corruption" tainting an RTA process he characterized as already skewed by the absence of ordinary citizens in its development.

Yet, Manvel added, "I hope that whatever happens with the current RTA proposal we can work together bilaterally, in small groups, or as an entire region, to make progress on our transportation and planning problems in the near future.

"I for one am ready to move forward with Windsor, Loveland and others on cooperative work to address connector problems and regionally to develop transit alternatives and a transit authority," he continued. "I believe the Fort Collins council is determined to continue working on regional transportation challenges, with or without an RTA, and I hope you will join with us in that process."

"We're going to end up with something that looks like and smells like an RTA," insisted Mayor Doug Hutchison, who was on the losing side of the vote.

He remains firm that some sort of larger approach is required to deal with transportation problems. "This is truly a regional problem," he said. "I think it demands a regional solution."

Hutchinson pointed to the Highway 392 issue as a prime example. "That problem is still staring us in the face," he added. "The problem is how the hell do you fund it."

John Daggett, regional transportation planner for the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization, said he's not sure how the resulting efforts will affect the senses. The coordinator of the RTA process on behalf of the NFRMPO, he also declined to predict the potential for developing another proposal.

"My sense is it's not going away," Daggett offered. "I think the conversation will go on, but I don't know when."

If it does, he said, it would be in a different form and more focused on specific projects.

Instead of prognosticating, Daggett said, he first will discuss what went well and what didn't with the citizens steering committee and the elected officials on the organization board.

On the plus side, he said, "I think everybody is clear now how things are and how bad they'll get. I think we made a lot of progress."

Further, Daggett said, it appears most believe the RTA proposal was a pretty good one as evidenced by the close 4-3 votes by the Greeley and Fort Collins councils that effectively doomed it. If approved by voters, the RTA originally would have funded $650 million in transportation improvements across the region through imposition of a vehicle registration fee along with additional sales and use taxes.

But on the down side, "I think what they said didn't go well was the politics," Daggett said.

He attributed it to the Christmas-present syndrome in which siblings fret that "you got cooler presents than mine." He described Owl Canyon as the "poster child" of that malady as a road that clearly requires improvements, but was scorned by others for benefiting Fort Collins most as a truck bypass.

Daggett said he still believes that the governments involved see the value of regionalism. "I think people want to go there, but they're not there emotionally or politically," he said.