Colorado General Assembly Nears Mid-session
Hello Motorcycle Enthusiasts,
Since the 70th Colorado
Legislative Session is about half
way over today March 15, I’ll
give you a mid-session update.
So far the Senate has introduced
156 bills and the House has introduced 360. Of those 156
Senate Bills, nine have been initially assigned to the Senate
Transportation Committee or are transportation related. Of
the 360 House Bills, thirty-three have been initially assigned
to the House Transportation and Energy Committee or are
transportation related.
The House Bill numbers are a little misleading because
some of the bills are energy related, while the Senate Bills
related to energy are assigned to the Senate Agriculture,
Natural Resources, & Energy Committee. Of the nine bills
assigned to the Senate Transportation Committee, none of
been postponed indefinitely (PI’d or killed) in committee and
none have gone through the entire process yet. Of the thirtythree bills assigned to the House Transportation and Energy
Committee, four have been postponed indefinitely in committee
and three have been signed by the Governor already.
Those are the numbers and you can form your own
conclusions but, I will add that it seems the bills are moving
slower than in past years. If it wasn’t an election year, I would
expect a big rush towards the end of the session, since it is an
election year…maybe not. .
Bills of concern to motorcyclists:
SB16-123 (HOV / Transponders) went to the Senate
Committee as a Whole for the second Reading on 2/25/16
and has been laid-over five times since then. Talking to the
sponsor of the bill, he expects to proceed with the second
reading next week as this has given both sides (proponents
and opponents) enough time to meet and try to compromise
on certain issues arising with the bill.
One thing that has been agreed upon by everyone involved
is that motorcycles are HOV per Federal Regulations and
should be able to use an HOV lane free of charge. Charging for
a transponder is not free of charge. How they will circumvent
this issue hasn’t been decided yet. The easiest solution to
me seems to be that when a vehicle passes through the toll
station and doesn’t have a transponder, a license plate picture
is taken (front and rear). Looking at the front view should be
easy enough to see that the vehicle is a motorcycle and the toll
should automatically be discarded. This seems easy enough
to implement and CDOT says it could take about six months
to a year to implement. We have a couple Senators pushing
to get this done ASAP, and a bill might be introduced to that
effect. I’ll keep you all updated on the issue.
This week, I distributed thirty-five letters to the Senate
Transportation Committee Members, House Transportation
and Energy Committee Members, and a few other friendly
legislators about an Autocycle bill. I had one brief meeting
6 Thunder Roads Magazine® Colorado
with a Representative so far and expect to have
a couple more next week to get an update and
a feel for a possible Autocycle bill. I’ll keep you
updated on that issue also.
Other bills I’m watching are: SB16-122
(More Oversight of CDOT); HB16-1172 (CDOT
Efficiency and Accountability Committee); and
HB16-1231 (Restricting the use of Red Light Cameras).
Additionally, I’m gathering some information about the
elections coming up in Novemb