Tom Norton’s guest opinion in The Greeley Tribune is not pretending to be subtle. It is a direct shot at the direction of the Colorado Department of Transportation under the Polis administration, and it comes from somebody who knows the territory. Norton writes as a former Greeley mayor, former president of the Colorado Senate, and former executive director of CDOT under Gov. Bill Owens. His basic case is simple: Colorado used to treat transportation like a core responsibility, and now it does not.
Norton argues that earlier administrations expanded capacity, improved road conditions, and used financing tools like HOT lanes, public-private partnerships, and bonding to get projects moving before inflation ate the lunch money. He contrasts that with what he says is CDOT’s current drift, citing delayed projects, flat maintenance budgets despite steep construction inflation, longer drive times, more injury crashes, and poor road-condition rankings. He also uses the piece to praise State Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer’s transportation plan, which he says would double road funding over eight years without raising taxes and restore a stronger role for local governments in transportation planning.
Now, normally it is a little funny to offer my opinion on somebody else’s opinion piece when The Scott Sheet and ScottKJames.com are already full of opinions. But in this case, Tom Norton is dead on. I do not have much to add to his core argument except this: people should read it, because he is saying out loud what a whole lot of us working in transportation have been living for years.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Norton says Colorado used to treat transportation as a priority and used real financing tools to build ahead of inflation instead of admiring the problem from a conference room. That sounds like governing, which may explain why it feels so unfamiliar now.
- He blasts CDOT’s recent direction, pointing to delayed road projects, flat maintenance budgets, rising drive times, rising injury crashes, and Colorado roads ranking 43rd in the nation. That is not a transportation strategy. That is a slow-motion shrug.
- Norton backs Barb Kirkmeyer’s DRIVE plan, which he says would double road funding over eight years, unlock over $1 billion sitting unspent, and focus dollars on real road improvements instead of pet projects. Imagine that. Spending transportation money on transportation.
- He makes the case that local governments understand local needs better than Denver-based planners and points to the I-25 North improvements as proof that local input and ordered priorities actually work. Hard to argue with results, especially when crashes dropped along that corridor.
- The piece ends where it ought to: transportation needs to rise to the top as a defining issue for Colorado’s future. Because roads, freight corridors, and safe travel are not side quests. They are the spine of the state economy.
My Bottom Line
Tom Norton is right. CDOT has it wrong. And this issue needs to rise right to the top of the gubernatorial campaign, because the people of Colorado are paying for bad priorities every single day in lost time, rough roads, freight bottlenecks, and safety problems that should have been addressed years ago.
As a county commissioner, I am in this work a lot. I serve on the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization. I chair the North I-25 Coalition. I sit on the Highway 34 Coalition and the Highway 52 Coalition. I chair the High Plains Boulevard coalition. The list goes on. I do not say that to puff my chest. I say it so folks understand I am not armchair-quarterbacking transportation from the cheap seats. I am in the meetings, on the calls, in the briefings, and in the middle of these regional fights for real infrastructure.
And from that vantage point, I will tell you plainly: the executive management at CDOT under the Polis administration has been an abject failure. Their priorities are wrong. They have failed the people of Colorado. That is not a knock on the engineers and planners doing the work, especially in Region 4. I have tremendous respect for those transportation professionals. They are dedicated, capable, and serious about the mission. The shame of it is that they are being failed by political appointees in Denver who seem more interested in ideology than asphalt.
Here’s what matters for Colorado families. Transportation is not some niche budget line for policy nerds. It is how parents get to work, how ag moves to market, how emergency services get where they need to go, how commerce flows, and how rural and urban Colorado stay connected. When leadership at CDOT loses the plot, the consequences do not stay in a binder. They show up in traffic, in crashes, in delays, and in the cost of doing business. You can only ignore the basics for so long before the whole road starts coming apart under your tires.
So yes, I am dropping this one here to bring it to your attention. Not because I need to add much to it, but because Norton said it well and said it clearly. Colorado needs a transportation reset. Not another slogan. Not another glossy plan that treats drivers like an inconvenience. A reset. And the next governor better be ready to answer for that.
Source: The Greeley Tribune
