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January 15, 2009 05:00 PM UTC

Monorail I-25 & I-70

  • 22 Comments
  • by: Muhammad Ali Hasan

From my latest Vail Daily article:

If you’re seduced into listening to most politicians, you’ll probably think that our good country is headed toward infinite decline that we’ll never crawl out from.

Surely, any positive vision of the future is doomed, especially innovative solutions. And certainly, in our own state, a monorail on I-70 and I-25 will never be seen. But I deeply disagree.

Monorails On I-25 & I-70

From the Vail Daily

By Muhammad Ali Hasan

http://www.vaildaily.com/artic…

If you’re seduced into listening to most politicians, you’ll probably think that our good country is headed toward infinite decline that we’ll never crawl out from.

Surely, any positive vision of the future is doomed, especially innovative solutions. And certainly, in our own state, a monorail on I-70 and I-25 will never be seen. But I deeply disagree.

There are two ways to handle major recessions or depressions. One way is to tighten up all spending, reduce growth, and proactively create a smaller society that will not spend as much money, as we slowly whittle away any available funds. The other way is to disregard all economic indicators, borrow large amounts of money, and spend it proactively, putting all industries to work.

Case studies are as follows:

Facing a depression, President Hoover rationally increased taxes on individuals and corporations, thereby reducing business growth and creating smaller systems of business. The result? Record levels of unemployment, hunger, and poverty.

And then there’s President Reagan, who when faced with the threat of Soviet invasion and a drastically declining economy, seemed to irrationally cuts taxes and spend on arms and new technology. The result? America produced its most active economy ever.

Thus, history is very clear on how to solve recessions: Lower taxes and high investment will create new jobs, develop new industries and ultimately, deliver us better infrastructures and work forces.

We can’t spend our way out of problems, but we can invest our way out. With that said, there is no better time to pursue monorailing I-70 and I-25 than right now.

Consider what the financial crisis has given us, in terms of benefits. The cost of construction materials — including concrete, asphalt and steel — have all fallen drastically due to markets in China and India halting new construction projects.

Labor will likely be cheaper, as well, due to a higher demand for jobs.

And of course, the cost of oil is down, making everything cheaper. What might have been a $15 billion monorail project before could possibly be a $7 billion project now.

Few politicians in our state seem to be willing to downsize our $18 billion yearly budget. Clearly, a one-time fee of $7 billion will not break our budget, and that’s only if the project cannot pay itself off.

Thus, it’s time for our leaders to take advantage of the current situation and make it better. Instead of bailouts and loans, it’s time to borrow capital and invest.

While I can’t stand his pandering toward the notion that things will get worse, I do applaud President-elect Obama for pledging to increase investment in infrastructure. If our president-elect is ready to invest in infrastructure during these tough times, then our good state should be ready to follow his lead.

Colorado, it’s time to build a monorail.

Ali Hasan, of Beaver Creek, ran unsuccessfully for the state House seat representing Eagle County.

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22 thoughts on “Monorail I-25 & I-70”

  1. Then it’s a Cash Fund, and that amounts to under $4 Billion per year in the budget. Where would the fee be coming from?

    And I have to take issue with this:

    What might have been a $15 billion monorail project before could possibly be a $7 billion project now.

    Few politicians in our state seem to be willing to downsize our $18 billion yearly budget. Clearly, a one-time fee of $7 billion will not break our budget…

    We’re $631.9 million in the hole right now. We can’t deficit spend (the only state that can is Vermont). Are we going to expect federal infrastructure matching dollars? Even if we do, that will require most likely a 50/50 match rate, meaning the state is paying $3.5 Billion anyway.

    Even raiding all our current reserves, dipping into Cash Fund balances AND hedging credit against unclaimed property, we’d still need to come up with about $2.5 Billion. Is this where the “loan” will come into play?

    1. I think there’s a lot of ways to create the loan

      The most advantageous method of getting this done though would be municipal bonds, which would allow for bonds to be purchased on the private markets, to be paid off by ticket sales, concessions, etc

      Lastly, the key issue is that that taxpayers vote for this over a statewide ballot — it passes the ballot, then depending on the way the bill is written, there are plenty of innovate ways to create a proper loan

  2. From your editorial it just looks like something to spend money on with no noticeable benefits.

    And what’s the difference between “spending our way out of problems” and “investing our way out of problems”? Which things you’d prefer?

    1. I’m not so convinced about the monorail along I-25…

      The I-70 Mountain Corridor studies have shown that mass transit solutions like monorails and trains are the best long-term performers and volume movers along the corridor, while also being the least intrusive to residents of the corridor.  They’re also the most expensive solutions, which is why they’ve been downplayed.

      I’m not sure if monorail is better than regular rail for the corridor, though there are some good environmental impact arguments to be made for it.

        1. SX –

          spending our way out of a problem is giving out billions to trillions in bail-outs that set no boundaries, nor have any checks and balances…. technically, money is being injected into the economy (which is a good thing) but there is no science to it

          INVESTING our way out of a problem is setting a goal and allocating money towards it…. a monorail would take a lot of money, but after spending/investing so much money into the project, there will be a HUGE benefit existing, after all of that investment, that wasn’t there before – a monorail and great public transit system

          I politely disagree with PHX on an I-25 monorail — a monorail on the Front Range would be easy to construct and its ridership would be extremely high

          Despite the fact that, land-wise, we live in a big state, I believe around 90% of our population lives within a few miles of the highway corridors of I-70 and I-25 — a monorail system takes a LOT of cars off the road and definitely encourages better commerce all over the state

          1. I don’t really see a better alternative, to answer SX’s second question

            Additional lanes on I-70 and/or I-25 will only exaggerate the problem by creating more pollution and ruining the concept of people being more important than cars

            More lanes equals more parking garages, more parking spaces, and more sprawl — I think we can afford to start investing in smart growth

            I know I’m a Republican, but from a business perspective, mass transit is the natural step for Colorado to take next

            1. at least mostly. These ideas are not new by any means. The I-70 Coalition and before them the Rural Resort Region have been studying these issues for 5 years. The Rocky Mountain Rail Authority is also a valuable partner as is CDOT. I absolutely agree that the answer to congestion is NOT building more lanes. Build more lanes and they will fill. Then you build more. Then you build new tunnels at Eisenhower and the twin tunnels. The answer, though expensive, is mag lev. It must move people and goods to their destination quicker than they could get there by car. Another part of the answer is for this to depart from the I-70 corridor because there simply isn’t room. I-25 there is room in the median or adjacent to the highway in many instances.

              This is what Colorado should spend the most effort getting from a stimulus package.

              1. …..and I recognize that I’m not the owner of this good idea, but rather, a strong advocate

                The RMRA is doing excellent work on this — I think we will see a statewide ballot initiative on this within the next 6 years and I can see it passing

  3. FDR increased spending, while also increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and produced a healthy economy.  When he lowered spending briefly, we had a recession; then along came WW2 and the great war economy.

    Reducing taxes indiscriminately as Reagan did is not the full answer – and the real GDP numbers show this.  FDR’s GDP growth, pre-war, was more than twice Reagan’s.  Stretching the progressive tax system to bring in more revenue from those that can afford it in times of crisis allows the government to spend more without going into as much debt, increasing the government’s ability to continue spending over a longer period of time.

    1. but I believe our GNP saw its best growth under Reagan

      The main thing I’m advocating for in the article though is the idea that investing, during times of recession, is an excellent way to get out of the recession, rather than reducing investment and raising taxes

  4. If you’re seduced into listening to most politicians, you’ll probably think that our good country is headed toward infinite decline that we’ll never crawl out from.

    usually points to bloated, awful thinking.

  5. .

    What an interesting perspective.  

    The Soviets were going to invade the US, or even Europe, while they were busy straightening out Afghanistan ?  

    As a junior infantry officer, I was required to read “World War III” in 1979, a book about the Soviet sweep across Western Europe.  It was written by a retired British General who was trying to sell missiles to the US.  

    Like “selling refrigerators to Eskimos ?”

    Honestly, at the time, I was convinced of that threat, and feared the 10′-tall Red Army soldier.  While at Fort Carson in 1984, we trained to merely slow down the Soviet onslaught long enough so that bombers from Great Britain could nuke them (and us) before they crossed the Rhine.  

    But we now know that the Reagan-Casey CIA was as polluted and partisan and dishonest as the Bush-Tenet CIA that promised Iraqi WMD.  

    Bush knew better.  Reagan knew better.  and now we all know better.

    .

    2. …please understand that when I say “invasion” I’m taking more about the explosion of Soviet dominance and less about Soviet soldiers actually invading the country, so I agree with you

      Afghanistan was a very important stronghold — the Soviet plans were to invade Afghanistan, and then work with India to invade Pakistan, thus giving them a warm water port to launch submarines and naval ships from — otherwise, the USSR didn’t have a port that was warm enough for such widespread naval operations

      A plethora of Russian submarines in the ocean, in my opinion, would’ve greatly changed the war — I believe the threat of such ‘invasion’ was handled properly

      1. .

        and now, the Pakistanis have permitted the Chinese to build a port at Gwadar to get oil into China.

        That’s where the Chinese boats in CTF 150 (anti-piracy) will be homeported, leading to a Chinese naval base, leading to a plethora of Chinese subs in the Indian Ocean.  

        The Russians still have sub bases at Murmansk and Sevastopol, Crimea, {leased until it can be moved to Stavropol] and on the Baltic, and their biggest near Vladivostock, but having a huge base at Karachi would have been a game-changer, as you say.

        I guess I never really asked myself what was so darn important about propping up Najibullah.  Thanks for explaining.

        .

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