{"id":7161,"date":"2016-02-29T10:27:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T17:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/?p=7161"},"modified":"2016-02-29T10:28:08","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T17:28:08","slug":"hov-lane-bill-for-motorcycles-advancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/hov-lane-bill-for-motorcycles-advancing\/","title":{"rendered":"HOV Lane Bill For Motorcycles Advancing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"HOV<\/a>

By law, motorcycles are allowed to use HOV lanes at no charge.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Stump is the lobbyist at the state capitol for ABATE of Colorado and he has been busy. It looks as though this whole issue with motorcycles being required to have transponders to use HOV lanes<\/a> will be resolved soon. I’m just going to paste in Stump’s latest email on the topic.
\n___________________________________<\/p>\n

This week was another busy week down at the Capitol. HB16-123 (HOV \/ Transponders) is more involved than I originally thought. The part of concern to us, motorcycles needing transponders, is the easy part. Everyone involved, CDOT, HPTE, Senators, and even opponents of the bill at the Senate Transportation Committee Hearing, understand that motorcycles are HOV per Federal Regulations. The discussion now is, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How do we go about giving motorcycles \u00e2\u20ac\u0153free access\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the HOV lanes?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n

The rest of the bill about switchable transponders is a lot more complicated. The bill was scheduled for 2nd reading on the Senate floor on Tuesday, 2\/23. It got laid over to Thursday, 2\/25. I talked to a few Senators on Wednesday, 2\/24, to get a feel for the bill. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard in the past that a bill is sometimes laid over if the sponsor feels he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have enough votes to carry the bill. That morning there was also a meeting with CDOT, HPTE, and a few Senators. After much discussion, a compromise was offered by CDOT, but not accepted by the sponsor. (I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t at the meeting so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the exact offer). Wednesday afternoon, I did have a meeting with Senator Todd, Scott Spendlove (lobbyist for HPTE & E-470), and Andy K. (lobbyist for CDOT). While a lot of the discussion was about the bill, all of us agreed that motorcycles shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need transponders. Scott said he would take the issue directly to the Director of HPTE and work on a solution. Sen. Todd emphatically stated she wants this done ASAP and if it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t handled soon and SB16-123 gets killed, she would sponsor a bill specifically about motorcycles not needing transponders.<\/p>\n

So on Thursday, 2\/25, the bill was read on the Senate floor. Senators Lundberg, Jones, and Neville gave some very strong arguments in support of the bill. (The bill wants to get rid of the switchable transponders and go back to how the HOV \/ HOT lanes operated before July 22, 2015). Senators Todd and Heath opposed the bill. After much discussion and confusion about the ramifications of the bill, it was voted to lay over the bill till Tuesday, 3\/1. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a meeting on Monday, 2\/29, with the same people that met Wednesday morning. Since the motorcycle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issue seems to be separate and already agreed upon, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t invited to the meeting. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure there will be more compromises offered. FYI, I talked to Andy on Thursday and he said he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d send me an e-mail to the effect that CDOT is working on a solution to the motorcycle \/ transponder issue. (I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gotten it yet).<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other bills happening but I just wanted to bring you up to date on SB16-123. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll let you know what happens next week and if we need to contact our Representatives.<\/p>\n

Stump<\/p>\n

Biker Quote for Today<\/h3>\n

The only date I need has two wheels, can be full on under $10, always goes all the way, and definitely screams on top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stump is the lobbyist at the state capitol for ABATE of Colorado and he has been busy. It looks as though this whole issue with motorcycles being required to have transponders to use HOV lanes will be resolved soon. I’m just going to paste in Stump’s latest email on the topic. ___________________________________ This week was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225,7,168],"tags":[718],"class_list":["post-7161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abate","category-biker-issues","category-motorcycle-legislation","tag-hov-lanes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7161"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7170,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7161\/revisions\/7170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}