Colorado’s roads are crumbling, and now voters may get asked to fix them—with their wallets, again. In a July 18, 2025, article for Colorado Politics, reporter Marianne Goodland lays out the early push for potential 2026 ballot measures to address Colorado’s growing transportation funding crisis. Advocates are floating the idea of sales tax increases or other new revenue streams to finally maintain and expand the state’s roads. What’s not being floated? Actual accountability for where the hell all the current transportation money went. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t your pothole.
The Bullet Point Brief
- No General Fund for Roads: Not a single red cent from Colorado’s General Fund goes to expanding or maintaining roads. Your gas tax, fees, and windshield chip are working harder than the state budget.
- CDOT Trust Deficit: Voters might support new funding if they trusted CDOT. They don’t. Turns out, people like to see results before approving more blank checks with “transportation” in the memo line.
- Enterprises, Not Highways: Instead of roads, fees are propping up “enterprises” that study, discuss, and carbon-footprint the hell out of everything but filling a pothole.
- Train Dreams, Road Nightmares: Polis and pals have siphoned money from critical roadway corridors—like Weld County’s lifelines—into the slow-motion fantasy of a Front Range choo-choo train.
- Bipartisan Interest, Uncertain Outcome: Lawmakers on both sides are batting around ideas to bring ballot measures forward. But with CDOT’s rep in the ditch and voter patience thin, any proposal faces a steep uphill climb.
My Bottom Line
As a Weld County Commissioner, I am knee-deep in the gravel of real transportation work, let me say it plainly: Colorado doesn’t have a revenue problem—it has a spending priorities problem. Roads are the arteries of our economy. But under Polis, transportation has morphed into a greenhouse gas therapy session while semis dodge sinkholes. SB23-230? That was a train heist—with Weld County footing the bill. This administration treats actual infrastructure like an afterthought while throwing your money at ideological pet projects that move more political points than people. You want trust? Start with dedicated, locked-down, voter-proof road funding that doesn’t end up subsidizing a train to nowhere. Until then, we’re just dodging both potholes and progress.
