It’s not your imagination, Every time you get on any of the Aurora metro interstates these days, you’re thankful for stop-and-go traffic because too much of the time, it’s much more stop than go. It really is that way. And it’s getting worse.
State highway officials explain what’s up with that until you beg for mercy, blabbing about complex assessments of speed, lanes, deceleration and — hey, would you look at the time.
I’ll make it easy: There are too many people driving too many cars too much of the time. You’re welcome.
I’m not going to get into how we need more lanes and HOVs and monorails and a new north-south route through the metro area. Because in my lifetime, it ain’t gonna happen. I can tell you with authority that Colorado’s highway system looks, sadly, pretty much the same as it did when I first started sucking Colorado air in 1959. Since then, they took the toll booths off of the Boulder Turnpike, rebuilt the Mousetrap at I-70 and I-25, widened the Valley Highway and added a few token highway spurs. Meanwhile, the traffic since Dick Lamm was governor and we grumpily decided we don’t want all those people moving to Colorado has increased a bazillion times — or something close to it.
Here’s what you need to understand: About 3,000 people move to Colorado every month now, most of them, to the Front Range. If you’re like me, you believe that every one of those immigrants from California, Texas or Florida surrounds your car on the way home from work or up to the slopes on weekends.
We have no choice but to close the borders.
Until we close public schools so we can spend all the money on asphalt and ski trains, or raise gasoline taxes or tolls, we’re going to have to start turning people away. Sorry.
It doesn’t mean that people can’t come visit. Yes, by all means come and enjoy the fabulous food or the stimulating museums. You just can’t stay.
We need to set up a border around the state and border guards along the interstates along those other neighboring states. Everybody who rolls up to the checkpoint gets a 14-day visa, a joint and a tracker attached to their car. People who fly in must be affixed with a GPS ankle bracelet. If you haven’t left the state after 14 days, we’ll come looking.
As to those who want green cards or actual Colorado residency, you have to wait until someone dies or moves out, and your admission to the Centennial State is dependent on references, a driving test and a bank of oral boards.
Think of it, Aurora. No more annoying Floridians in black front-wheel-drive SUVs on your butt at rush-hour during a snow storm. No more Southern California freaks on $5,000 worth of crappy Chinese skis at the top of the mountain endangering every life on hill with their Type-A warrior antics. No more Midwestern morons in flip-flops waiting for mountain rescue halfway up a fourteener. No more New Yorkers stopping their car in the middle of I-70 in Georgetown to gawk at the big-butted sheep or the yellow aspens.
Instead, depending on how interviews with Colorado Immigration Enforcement goes, tourists and greencarders will either be restricted as to places they can go or may even be forced to tour the state with an accompanying guide/agent.
Those highway death yachts that look like train cars being tugged by semis? Nope. Not on I-70. Enjoy your stay in Wyoming along I-80.
There’s no other way, folks. A lot of us have smiled politely for generations as we watched you unload your U-Hauls packed with ATVs, burgundy Cayennes and Rand Paul bumper stickers, but enough is enough. Rush hour on I-25 starts at 5:30 a.m. It regularly takes three hours to drive from Dillon to Denver on Sundays.
The alternative, of course, is to spend more money on real infrastructure improvements. But the first thing people want to do when they move here is not raise taxes. So it’s a done deal. Deportations can start next week. And the lady in the Geo Prizm sporting the Texas license plate with the car covered with ice and snow — who got out of her car at the red light on Parker and Peoria to scrape a little bit off so she could see a some out the windshield, but still nothing out the sides or back — you are the first to go.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.om.
Do you really think its the newcomers who don’t want new taxes. Its the folks who have lived here our whole lives. The state population was 1/3 of what it is now when we voted against the Olympics for cost reasons. Colorado is the home to Tabor. Face it, most natives hate taxes. You can pick your reason. My reason is is the poor track record of government spending.
Ok Mr. Perry, you can tell everybody who owns a business in the Southlands mall that us newcomers from California, or anywhere else, are not welcome. You can tell the builders of all those new homes near E-470, there will be nobody new to buy them.You can tell the city, the county, and the state that our sales tax is not needed. You can tell the grocery stores, department stores, theaters, gas stations and restaurants that they don’t need our money. Furthermore, it was not us newcomers who built the Denver Tech Center with nothing more than the already crowded I-25 and the pathetic I-225 as ways into and out of it. Where is the train to the east or west? The train extension under construction on I-225 will do nothing for eastern Aurora. The next time I see some idiot walking on Malibu beach with Bermuda shorts, loafers, and black socks, I’ll think of you. Never mind those out of state “morons” who can’t navigate the freeways of Los Angeles.
Scott, since you’re new around here and just so you know, Mr. Perry is our local voice of absurdity. I don’t think any of his rantings are serious. Well, at least, I only read his column when I’m feeling low and need a good chuckle. The only response I would have to him is to wait for when he goes on vacation out of state and then close the borders.
I like to read your articles when I need a good laugh. Sure, let’s stifle the entire growth of the metro area because you don’t like the traffic. Ever been to New York, buddy? Top notch plan, right here.