We’ve spent four chapters documenting the system:
- Part 1: How Colorado got quietly rewired.
- Part 2: The rule that choked our roads.
- Part 3: The advocacy-industrial complex behind it.
- Part 4: How “public comment” became a choreographed performance.
Today, we end where this story always should have begun.
Not in the Capitol.
Not in a CDOT Zoom room.
Not in Boulder conference halls.
Not in 200-page policy PDFs.
But in the real lives of the people who live with the consequences.
Because none of this – none of it – is theoretical.
These aren’t abstract “policy disagreements.”
These are impacts on daily life: on safety, mobility, cost of living, opportunity, and the future people thought they had here.
Let’s talk about what this looks like for the people of Weld County, the North Front Range, and every Colorado community that doesn’t have the privilege of designing policy from a laptop in Boulder.
1. The Commuter Who Leaves Home in the Dark
He’s not a climate model.
He’s not a checkbox on a GHG spreadsheet.
He’s not a statistic in a transportation plan.
He’s a guy headed to work on I-25 –
one of tens of thousands –
sitting in the same miles of congestion he’s been stuck in for twenty years.
He’s paying more in fees, more in tolls, more in gas, more in taxes –
and getting less mobility than ever.
While the Transportation Commission debates “mode shift,” he’s shifting through traffic at 12 mph.
While transit activists say “Just ride the bus,” he’s thinking, “Sure – after you run a bus route to my jobsite.”
He’s the human cost.
2. The Family That Can’t Afford to Stay
Colorado used to be the place you could start a life.
Now it’s becoming the place you can’t afford to stay –
even after a lifetime of working, building, raising kids, and serving your community.
It’s no accident.
When transportation funding gets diverted into transit-first projects, when infrastructure lags population, when regulations pile onto development, when road capacity stagnates while demand explodes – costs rise.
And families get priced out.
My own son had to leave this state to start his life.
Now I’m not sure I can afford to finish mine here.
That is the human cost.
3. The Rancher Whose Voice Doesn’t Count
He works sunup to sundown.
He keeps food moving.
He pays his taxes.
He maintains the land everyone else likes to photograph for Instagram and call “open space” and “view sheds.”
But when it comes time for public comment?
He’s not on the Zoom at 1 p.m.
He can’t be.
The people who show up don’t look like him, work like him, or think like him –
but those voices get logged as “public support.”
When agencies cite those comments as justification for policies that harm rural roads, freight routes, and local authority, his silence isn’t neutrality.
It’s exclusion.
He is the human cost.
4. The Small Towns Cut Out of the Future
Weld County has:
- the land,
- the energy base,
- the ag backbone,
- the labor force,
- the universities,
- the growth capacity, and
- the opportunity
to be one of the most promising regions in the entire state.
But when the state funnels billions into transit-heavy, urban-core projects while tying road expansion to climate scoring, places like:
- Greeley
- Windsor
- Firestone
- Frederick
- Severance
- Eaton
- Johnstown
- Milliken
- Kersey
- Platteville
get left holding the bill while being told to “reduce VMT.”
That’s not planning.
That’s punishment.
These communities are the human cost.
5. The People Who Still Believe Colorado Can Be Better
This part is for you.
You love this place.
You’ve served it your whole life.
And now you’re fighting exhaustion, grief, anger, and heartbreak because you can see what’s happening before most others do.
You’re not the human cost.
You’re the human warning signal.
And a warning is a gift – if people listen.
Where This Series Lands
After five parts, here’s the truth:
Colorado is not broken.
It is being run – by a small network of climate-first policymakers, appointees, and advocacy groups who shape infrastructure, land use, transportation, and energy around goals that do not reflect the daily lived reality of most Coloradans.
But the people who live with the consequences are starting to feel it.
And feeling becomes noticing.
And noticing becomes questioning.
And questioning becomes momentum.
This series isn’t about blame.
It’s about clarity.
Because you cannot fix what you cannot see –
and now, finally, I hope you can see it.
The road ahead belongs to those who actually drive it.
📚 BIBLIOGRAPHY – PART 5: THE HUMAN COST
📚 About These Sources
Part 5 is about the impacts, but the impacts come directly from the same machinery documented in Parts 1–4.
The bibliography below connects the human cost to the documented system that produced it – the laws, rules, appointments, comment processes, and policy designs that shape transportation, energy, and local authority.
These links show the structural decisions that create the daily lived experience described in Part 5.
📚 Sources Used in Part 5
GHG Transportation Planning Standard (root of highway constraints)
CDOT GHG rule page:
https://www.codot.gov/programs/environmental/greenhousegas
GHG Planning Standard slide deck (noting majority supportive comments):
https://www.codot.gov/programs/environmental/greenhousegas/assets/ghg-planning-standard-presentation.pdf
Colorado Carbon Reduction Strategy:
https://www.codot.gov/programs/environmental/greenhousegas/assets/colorado-carbon-reduction-strategy-repaired.pdf
Advocacy Mobilization (impacting public voice)
SWEEP Action Alert organizing GHG rule support:
https://www.swenergy.org/colorado-ghg-transportation-planning-standard-action-alert
Colorado Energy Office funding opportunity (local climate policy):
https://governorsoffice.colorado.gov/governor/news/energy-office-announces-launch-funding-opportunity-support-local-policy-adoption-advance
Key Appointments Shaping Policy (who directs the system)
Transportation Commission – Elise Jones bio:
https://www.codot.gov/about/transportation-commission/commissioners/elise-jones
SWEEP staff page – Elise Jones:
https://www.swenergy.org/staff/
Colorado Energy Office – Will Toor bio:
https://www.autosinnovate.org/events/speakers/will-toor
GHG Roadmaps (context for statewide climate mandates)
Colorado GHG Roadmap 2021:
https://spl.cde.state.co.us/artemis/govmonos/gov112g832021internet/
GHG Roadmap 2.0 – Governor’s Office summary:
https://governorsoffice.colorado.gov/governor/news/what-theyre-saying-greenhouse-gas-pollution-reduction-roadmap-20
Sadly over taxation and regulation has become acceptable many, and many just do not seem to care. For the few that do care and are frustrated with the way things are going they need to take the time to try and educate themselves and others about what is going on. And hopefully start voting some of these corrupt people out of office and positions that continue to run this state into bankruptcy and failure. What you have done here is a good start, thank you.
Thank you Scott for outlining the root causes of what is ruining this beautiful state. I have two children who were born and raised here and now as young adults are struggling to make ends meet. I fear that they too may have to look elsewhere for more attainable opportunities. I truly appreciate your passion and dedication to responsible leadership, I wish more of our electorate would read what you’ve outlined here and act accordingly.