Transportation Coalition Announces .62 Percent Sales Tax Increase Advances for Signature Collection

The Downtown Denver Partnership supports this imperative mobility initiative and we need your help to drive it forward.

The Downtown Denver Partnership has joined a bipartisan statewide coalition of business leaders, mayors and transportation advocates to announce it will gather signatures to place a 0.62 percent sales tax increase to invest in Colorado’s transportation system on the November ballot.

“This solution to transportation and mobility funding is imperative to the economic health of our state and the future of our residents,” said Tami Door, President and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership, “These funds will support projects and improvements that will strengthen mobility providing access to housing and jobs, increasing the quality of life for all Coloradans.”

Coalition members highlight the decades-long revenue shortage for transportation combined with population growth as driving the need for new revenue.

“Maintenance and construction for our state highways are funded by a gas tax, which hasn’t been raised in over 25 years,” said Tony Milo with the Colorado Contractors Association. “When you combine that with population growth, we are spending less per driver on our highways today than we were in the 1990s.”

According to state budget documents, the Colorado Department of Transportation currently has a $9 billion backlog of projects across the state. In addition to funding for state highways, a key component of the coalition’s plan would provide funding for local projects across the state as chosen by local communities, including alternative means of transit.

“Coalition members said they decided on sales tax to provide the new revenue, in part, because tourists, conventions and other visitors to the state will help pay a significant part of the tax. Every year 80 million people visit Colorado and use our roads; this approach will allow them to leave a little something behind to help us out,” said Kelly Brough, president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.