Who doesn't hate I-70 traffic, especially during the peak ski and summer holiday seasons? Republican state House candidate Ali Hasan thinks high-speed rail could be the answer to drivers' plight, even if the details are, to say the least, a little fuzzy.
The advertisement
Hasan, a charismatic 27-year-old candidate with big ideas and even bigger patriotic belt buckles, staked out his position on mountain rail in a June 11 advertisement in the Vail Daily. Bold letters read, "Hasan = Monorail I-70."
"It would be my biggest goal as a legislator," Hasan said. But in an earlier e-mail to FTS, he writes, "I'm not using a monorail as a campaign issue." So, which is it?
Hasan, who is running for the House after shifting course from an earlier primary bid against Sen. Al White, R-Hayden, sees rail projects as a growing mandate from voters. "People are ready to really change what's going on with transportation."
And the price tag? According to Hasan, most of the cost could be picked up by the private sector and recouped through ticket sales, but the project would still be underwritten by publicly-backed bonds. "Let's say it costs $4 billion to build, and then we end up with $1 billion left, then we're left off with $1 billion in extra taxes," he said.
In 2001, Colorado voters rejected Amendment 26, a $100 million proposal to study monorail technologies for mountain transit. Hasan is optimistic his proposal would be more favorably received. "It's really apples and oranges. we're not asking for a study to be done, we're asking to actually build the thing."
T-REX, the massive roads and transit project to improve I-25 in Denver, cost $1.67 billion but was funded without a tax increase.
While the would-be legislator's plan faces some high hurdles, some mountain communities are warm to any alternatives to widening the highway. Cindy Condon, the Idaho Springs city administrator, says the municipality opposes any widening of I-70. New highway construction would "wipe out more [land] than the first time."
"This isn't a porkbarrel project in Eagle and Summit counties," Hasan said.
Should he win this November, the stage is all his to prove it.