Passes & Canyons Blog

By law, motorcycles are allowed to use HOV lanes at no charge.

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.
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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, “How do we go about giving motorcycles “free access” to the HOV lanes?”

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’ve heard in the past that a bill is sometimes laid over if the sponsor feels he doesn’t 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’t at the meeting so I don’t 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’t 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’t handled soon and SB16-123 gets killed, she would sponsor a bill specifically about motorcycles not needing transponders.

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’s a meeting on Monday, 2/29, with the same people that met Wednesday morning. Since the motorcycle’s issue seems to be separate and already agreed upon, I wasn’t invited to the meeting. I’m sure there will be more compromises offered. FYI, I talked to Andy on Thursday and he said he’d send me an e-mail to the effect that CDOT is working on a solution to the motorcycle / transponder issue. (I haven’t gotten it yet).

There’s other bills happening but I just wanted to bring you up to date on SB16-123. I’ll let you know what happens next week and if we need to contact our Representatives.

Stump

Biker Quote for Today

The only date I need has two wheels, can be full on under $10, always goes all the way, and definitely screams on top.

Tags: HOV lanes

This entry was posted on Monday, February 29th, 2016 at 10:27 am and is filed under ABATE, Biker Issues, Motorcycle legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.