Earlier this year, leaders from across Eagle County set an ambitious timeline to bring the formation of a new regional transportation authority in front of voters by the Nov. 8, 2022, election.
And after spending the year working through the policy decisions that come with that formation, the Eagle County Board of Commissioners; Beaver Creek Metro District board; and town councils from the towns of Avon, Eagle, Gypsum, Minturn, Red Cliff and Vail have made it across that finish line. Voters from each jurisdiction will be voting this fall on the formation of the Eagle Valley Transportation Authority as well as on a tax to fund it.
The process to form a new authority actually started in January 2020 when business leaders from Beaver Creek called a meeting with local governments and transit entities to discuss transportation challenges, particularly as they related to the county’s workforce.
However, as with many plans started in the early months of 2020, the pandemic stalled progress on the matter, until the county’s managers and mayors decided to pick the matter back up toward the end of 2021.
“It’s been a very collaborative effort throughout the valley and we’ve been moving in a collaborative direction for a number of years, this being the apex and the pinnacle of it really coming to fruition,” said Chris Romer, the president and CEO of the Vail Valley Partnership, at the Aug. 23 Avon Town Council meeting. “This did start pre-pandemic and did start from the business community with those advisory councils and stakeholders throughout the valley identifying transit and regional transportation as a big priority for our people.”
Romer has been involved with the authority’s formation process through its various committees and is now serving as the registered agent for a political issue committee to support a “Yes on Eagle Valley Transit” campaign.
The proposed new Eagle Valley Transportation Authority would seek to meet the community’s transportation demands — which have grown significantly since the county’s current authority, ECO Transit, was formed in 1996 — as well as meet countywide climate action goals around greenhouse gas emissions.
Overall, these service changes would seek to set the new authority up to meet the community’s transit needs well into the future.
Throughout this year, representatives from each of the eight jurisdictions as well as community partner organizations and stakeholders worked to establish service goals, get community feedback and draft the authority’s intergovernmental agreement, which outlines what the new authority’s participants, organizational structure, service goals and funding sources would look like.
Now, voters in November will be asked to approve this intergovernmental agreement — which would in turn result in the authority’s formation — as well as a half-cent sales tax to fund the new authority. These questions will be on the ballot for Eagle County (representing unincorporated Eagle County such as Edwards and EagleVail), Beaver Creek Metro District, and the towns of Avon, Eagle, Gypsum, Minturn, Red Cliff and Vail.
In order for a jurisdiction to be a part of the new transit authority, voters in that jurisdiction will individually have to approve the agreement and tax. Additionally, in order for the Eagle Valley Transportation Authority to be formed at all, voters from Eagle County, Beaver Creek, Avon and Vail will have to all vote positively to form the authority.
The proposed half-cent sales tax would be combined with the existing half-cent Eagle County sales tax — which currently supports ECO Transit — to fund the new authority. According to the November 2022 ballot question, this new sales tax would bring over $15 million in the first year. This increase would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023.
This funding would go toward not only continuing the existing ECO Transit service but also expanding it and other transportation efforts in Eagle County. Specifically, the intergovernmental agreement outlines the following service goals:
The Tuesday, Nov. 8, general election will be conducted as a mail ballot election, with ballots going out to voters starting Monday, Oct. 17. To check your voter eligibility and registration information, visit GoVoteColorado.com. For information on the Eagle County general election, visit EagleCounty.us/ClerkandRecorder or call the county clerk’s office at 970-328-8715.
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