I know this is a very sensitive topic for lots of folks along the 36 corridor. From what I understand, 36 is not going to be a toll road. Yes, what Heather is mentioning about the $28 fee as a possibility is correct, but that is ONLY for the HOV lane if you choose to use the lane without the proper amount of passengers in the car. Basically, you can pay to not deal with traffic in the rest of the lanes. The $28 is the cap that has been placed on the fee. That means that is the HIGHEST it could go. The developers have said that the fee would start out much lower (closer to $8). Again, this is only for the HOV lane. The reason for this is because the HOV lane is actually being design and built as a Bus Rapid Transit lane. This is a huge perk for the folks trying to get to Denver from along the 36 corridor! When designed properly, the bus would travel to and from Boulder and Denver faster than the commuter rail and potentially faster than the traffic in the regular lanes, making it a more appealing option to the masses. In order for this to happen, they need to have a very few amount of cars in those lanes, which is why there are fees and high HOV requirements as deterrents. There are folks that argue that we should just be building more lanes to ease the congestion, but there are numerous traffic studies that have been conducted showing that over time more lanes just lead to more congestion down the road (Ha, a little pun there). Creating a multimodal option that competes with individual vehicles in terms of times and convenience is what they are shooting for. I really encourage folks to go sit in on the meetings where this is being discussed by CDOT and other officials who know the real scoop. It is detrimental to the project for the fear and gossip to sway people's opinions before they get the real information. There is a meeting tonight in Louisville where they will be going over more of the details.
