European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 20, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Magazine the glory end serenity at nature Are becoming Mare and More difficult to find in Cela tade breathtaking Colorado vistas now include traffic jams by Iver Peterson new York times c Colorado s tourist promoters unveiled anew guess i d rather be in Colorado Campaign a while Back. It was built around Pic lures of Mountain vistas empty of All but solitary hikers and picturesque wild Lola. The critics scolded clearly wrong. No representation of Colorado is Complete without a Trail la Jam. In the front Range of the Rocky mountains where most coloradans live even the Mountain roads have Rush hour ams. The cities from fort Collins in the North to Colorado Springs below Denver have grown so quickly and haphazardly Over the past 1 5 years of Energy and technology booms that farm roads made to carry cattle trucks now carry Rush hour commuters and commuter roads made to carry 600 cars an hour now carry three times thai number. The result is the kind of bumper to bumper fuming that newcomers had come West to escape. Commuter horror stories abound like the one about the woman who left her car in a traffic Jam on an interstate Highway walked to a phone to Call and Tell her hostess she would be late and returned 15 minutes later to find that neither her car nor the traffic around it had budged. A  of How Suriou. The Denver area s traffic T has become was indicated last month when the state s principal ant tax organization called a news conference to say that the time had come to Able the sme  tax to pay for repairing and pub a expenditure Council an election coming up next fall bul this one is expected to pass. The Denver regional Council of governments a Sis county planning group has been sounding the loudest alarms about the danger of Urban co Horaeio s descent into commuter paralysis while Frallic problems Ere already severe the group said in a report this year they seem insignificant when compared to what is expected in the next is  unless substantial improvements Are made the report went on. This increased traffic will create intolerable congestion intensify critical air Quality problems halt regional economic growth and significantly reduce the Quality of  the Council recently relied an updated version of its 1971 traffic Survey Hal showed among other things that Denver s afternoon Rush hour has grown from iwo hours to three and now starts at 3 30 . The Survey also showed thai individuals Are taking More Dally Auto trips than before. The Rise in congestion the report said can be traced in part to the Denver area s 33 percent increase in population to 1,8 million today from 1.2 million in 1971, and to residents1 increasing preference for private automobiles Over Public transportation. The study concluded that while the population of the Denver area would grow by another 13 percent to 2 million by the turn of the Century the number of vehicle Miles trave Ted per Day would increase by 42 percent to about 47 of lion Miles. Traffic has always been the Bane of mushrooming cities but according to experts Colorado manages to Combine a special Talent for congestion with a physical setting thai pretty much a Clates where the roads go Colorado Law Lor example. Forbids a municipality to require developers to assume responsibility for traffic generated by their new housing or office complexes beyond the limits of Ihler property. This Means thai developers May be required to Widen roads and provide turning lanes in front of their projects bul May not be asked to help smooth the Way for the hundreds or thousands of new automobile trips their developments May generate. So Lincoln Road a live mile strip of country Blacktop leading trom interstate 25 South of Denver of the sprawling suburb of Parker now has two new mile Long sections of Lour Lane divided Highway that Slop Al the edges of their developments and leed Back into Tho same twisting Little Trail that was Buill for ranchers not commuters. Underlying the concern Aboul Ira flip on the front Range is the fear that Denver s traffic problems May undermine the City s reputation As a Lown of wide open business opportunities. Basically that is the  said David a. Pampu. Deputy director of the Council of governments the metro area s potential Lor continued growth is lied to ils mobility and unless we do something to improve our mobility we Are Gold Al to put ourselves in a noncompetitive  the Denver chamber of Commerce with More than 2,000 member businesses in the metropolitan area has also been campaigning for More Money to be spent on roads. The program to be put before the state legislature would among other things immediately increase gasoline taxes by six cents a gallon and then add a Penny each year for live years to bring the tax to 23 cents a gallon. The increase would raise an additional $1 bit Ion a year for Road building at the end of five years. The plan also raises Auto registration fees by $7 a year from the current average of Aboul $30, and it would Grant municipalities the right to extend the 3 percent slate sales tax to motor fuels and apply the proceeds to local Road pro cos. Together these measures would raise an additional $700 million a year for Road building monday january 20, 1986 the stars and stripes Page 13