Today, just two and a half years after stepping into office, Gov. Ritter signed a bill into law that was 17 years overdue.

FASTER, or SB 108, has created the first dedicated revenue stream of consistent funding that Colorado will have had to repair and maintain our existing road and bridge infrastructure in seventeen years.

While funding roads and bridges isn’t often at the top of our legislative agenda, FASTER was an important exception.

First, directing dollars towards fixing existing infrastructure is exactly the right move.  Colorado has 117 structurally deficient bridges—it doesn’t matter whether you are a diehard lightrail proponent or a bike commuter, if we don’t have safe bridges to transport goods, services, and our citizens we are all going to be in trouble.  Both the cyclist and the driver of the Hummer will be hit just as hard by a chunk of concrete that comes loose from the 1-70 viaduct.

Yet even while working to provide a vital capital infusion to our crumbling highway system, Gov. Ritter and sponsors Rep. Joe Rice and Sen. Dan Gibbs worked hard to ensure that through this bill we are laying the groundwork for a multimodal, 21st century transportation infrastructure in Colorado.

FASTER includes a dedicated $15 million annually to transit and multimodal safety, the first dedicated dollars of its kind in Colorado.  On top of that, it authorizes the RTD Board to ask metro-area voters to approve the necessary funding in order to complete the FasTracks transit system by clearing state statutory barriers to putting such an initiative on the ballot and allows local governments to toll existing roadways if affected communities give their support, creating a revenue tool  for local governments that can actually be devoted to  transit projects.

Colorado really is on the road to a green recovery; even a bill that at first glance just seems to be about tar and asphalt is helping to set up a framework that will help move Colorado into the 21st century.