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One virtue of democracy, as it is practiced with the initiative process in Colorado, is that in November, we will get to vote on how best to subsidize Vail Resorts. That's what the secretary of state's office ruled last week after getting petitions with the requisite number of signatures.
A defect is that we will not be allowed to vote on whether Vail Resorts should be subsidized with our money, just on the method. This November, we can vote to fund a study of a high-speed monorail that would link Denver International Airport to the Eagle County Regional Airport, which primarily serves Vail.
If that passes, then the process has begun for an eventual $4 billion subsidy to build the monorail. If it doesn't, then the pressure will grow to widen Interstate 70 through the mountains so that Vail Resorts can service ever more customers -- and guess who would get to pay for that?
In essence, that's the argument that Miller Hudson made when I heard him last June at an I-70 corridor conference in Vail.
As Hudson explained it, adding lanes to I-70 through Clear Creek County would be hideously expensive, especially in light of the local opposition that would arise in Clear Creek County, where towns like Georgetown and Idaho Springs are not going to welcome more noise and less land. That's a tough political issue, and there are also environmental issues with more wildlife roadkill, air quality, chemical-laden highway run-off going into the streams, etc.
Yet that's what will have to happen, he said, unless the monorail is built.
As a public-spirited citizen, I want to support any project that encourages use of the I-70 corridor. It's a Sacrifice Zone that is already trashed out, and by promoting I-70, we discourage the transients and their franchise strip malls from invading the better parts of the state.
But there ought to be other ways to do this besides spending $4 billion to assist the poor, struggling stockholders of Vail Resorts:
· There's already a standard railroad line that could serve the Vail area: the Tennessee Pass line from Pueblo through the Royal Gorge to Minturn (just a couple of miles from Vail), Avon and Eagle.
Most of that trackage is out of service, but it's all still in place. Passenger service is a remote prospect, but consider that hundreds of tons of food and goods must be brought into the Vail area every day by truck over I-70. Put that freight traffic on rails from warehouses and distributors in Pueblo, and you've expanded the effective highway capacity without expanding the highway.
That would buy some time, anyway, and it couldn't cost nearly as much as either the monorail or more I-70 lanes.
· Hold the ski industry to the same standard as the mining industry. Back in the 1970s, Climax Molybdenum needed to expand its tailings ponds in Mayflower Gulch on the Western Slope side of Frémont Pass. That meant rerouting State Highway 91. Climax built a new road to state specifications at its own expense.
If Vail needs to expand its capacity and that requires road construction, then there's an excellent precedent for telling the company to reach for its checkbook.
· Put Edward Wright's Smart Trains proposal on the ballot, too. He's written a short book proposing that we follow the example of Switzerland, and use meter-gauge electric trains in the mountains, with cog-drive for the steepest sections to avoid expensive tunnels.
There are advantages to this, just as there are advantages for the proposed monorail system (assuming it is technically feasible), and there isn't room here for a comparison. But if we're going to spend billions to assist the bottom line of Vail Resorts, shouldn't we enjoy a lively debate as to which method would be best for our communities and our environment?
· Take our Republicans at their word, and get government out of this process, since government is incompetent and the all-knowing private sector should be perfectly capable of finding a profitable way to get people from DIA to Vail. And if it can't, and Vail Resorts quits showing increasing quarterly profits and investors pull out, well, those are the breaks of the free market. It's not our proper concern, one way or another.
· Do nothing, and maybe the problem will go away. This is one of my preferred techniques (although I have learned that leaky roofs hardly ever patch themselves), but in this case, there's an encouraging forecast from Tucker Hart Adams, one of Colorado's leading economists.
She says the regional economy is slipping, along with the national economy, and there won't be an upturn until 2002 at the earliest. It could be longer. There could be an enduring shortage of people willing to spend vast sums on lift tickets, skimpy meals in elegant surroundings and ski-out-the-door mansions.
The problem of I-70 capacity would go away, all without our lifting a finger or spending a dime.
Alas, that option won't be on the ballot.
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