Walcher: The Noble Bill was a noble cause — still is

Building, fixing, and maintaining the roads was the founding issue of Club 20, 76 years ago. It remains a major reason the organization still holds together the diverse communities west of the Continental Divide. Regional and state leaders have devoted their careers to making sure rural roads are not ignored by a state increasingly dominated by Front Range cities. Generations have benefitted from the vision, statesmanship, and determination of Preston Walker, Lyman Thomas, Wayne Keith, Ben Vigil, Stan Dodson, and perhaps especially Dan Noble of Norwood, once the state Senate majority leader and sponsor of what became known as the “Noble Bill.”

Passed in 1979, the Noble Bill addressed a desperate shortage of highway funds by dedicating the revenue from sales and use taxes on motor vehicles, batteries, tires, parts, and accessories to the highway trust fund. That added millions to the revenue generated by gas taxes. Even more significant, the Noble Bill specified that the highway trust fund had to be used for “construction, maintenance, and supervision of the highways, roads, and streets of the state…” Thousands of miles of roads were improved as a result, but it didn’t last a decade and when Dan Noble retired the legislature repealed it. Ever since, millions have been siphoned off every year for mass transit and non-road projects like bike trails, sound barriers, landscaping, and other “amenities.”

Many legislators are sympathetic to the national anti-automobile movement and have continuously diverted money, including sales tax revenue on auto-related purchases, to non-highway purposes, hoping drivers will give up their cars and ride trains, buses, or bikes instead. They won’t. And in large spread-out states like Colorado, they can’t.