Kudos to Tunnel 2 Towers for the work they do and for bringing a World Trade Center artifact on tour through Colorado. Colorado Springs is home to several WTC artifacts as well, standing at memorials at Fort Carson, Peterson and Schriever Space Force Bases, Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and UCCS. For security reasons, only the artifact at Fort Carson is publicly accessible; the others are located inside the respective installations.

Each year, Colorado Springs pauses to remember 9/11, and these artifacts help us commemorate that tragic day. The son of a New York City firefighter who died that day also secured an artifact and donated it to the Fort Carson museum. You’re encouraged to visit the memorial and the artifact there—and to renew the vow to never forget.

Don Addy

Colorado Springs

Monument’s annual celebration

Re: Brett Dayberry’s letter about Colorado Springs’ lack of celebration of the United States 250th Anniversary and the Colorado 150th Anniversary. Maybe everyone was in Monument celebrating on the 4th of July where the Tri-Lakes Community celebrates our country every year on the 4th of July and the schools teach our young people how lucky they are to live in the United States of America!

Randy Fritz

Colorado Springs

Roads-only approach to transportation

Jon Caldara recently claimed in the Gazette that the passenger train proposal for the Colorado Front Range cities is a mega-project. It is indeed a large investment in our transportation infrastructure, but our investments in highways dwarfs it. We continue to spend billions of dollars on our roads every year, yet it never makes travel faster. Travel along the Front Range has generally slowed and it is not because of lack of investment in I-25 or Academy and Powers Boulevards.

The reason we so often crawl on congested streets and highways is that we have indulged in a roads-only approach to public transportation. For 75 years we have invested very little in alternatives such as buses and trains, while we have spent zillions on improving our roads. Every dollar spent on road improvements temporarily makes it easier to drive, so we drive more. The result is that after every road widening the road eventually fills up.

The next time you are stuck in traffic, think of Jon Caldara. Think also of the asphalt and concrete industry and car companies. They have spent millions on political lobbyists and public marketing to convince us that roads and cars and trucks are the only decent approach to ground transportation. THEY are the reason you are stuck. Because we adopted their roads-only approach, we are required to use cars to get around. We have no options, no alternatives. We have mandatory car dependency.

Proponents like me of alternatives to driving do not say that we should abandon automobiles. I own two excellent vehicles. I enjoy driving them, when and where the road is not filled up with fellow drivers, which is rarely. But our opponents do say that their way is the only way. Their Initiative 175 would mandate that we spend public transportation dollars only on roads.

We need to end their monopoly on transportation. We need freedom to choose different ways of travel and that can only happen if we invest in more diverse infrastructure. This coming November, vote NO on Initiative 175 and YES on CoCo, the passenger train for our Front Range cities.

Gary Sprung

Boulder

Perserving iconic landscapes

The Trump Administration’s recent dismantling of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments is not just a loss for Utah, it is a warning for all Americans that care about our iconic public lands. Here in Colorado, that’s nearly every one of us. Recent polling found that an overwhelming 91% of Coloradans believe that existing protections for National Monuments should be kept in place. It’s easy to see why.

Having been at the helm of two of Colorado’s most iconic parks — Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Rocky Mountain National Parks — I saw firsthand the love Americans have for these lands, and the value they bring to us all. But National Monuments in particular bring enormous worth. First of all, they help precipitate new parks. Both Black Canyon and Grand Sand Dunes here in Colorado began as monuments. Plus they bring in tourist dollars and spur economies in local communities. So too do they provide invaluable protected habitat for our plants and animals, from the bighorn sheep to river otters to the Colorado blue spruce.

President Theodore Roosevelt himself signed the Antiquities Act into law so that presidents could establish National Monuments and protect our remarkable landscapes. In the century since, Republicans and Democrats have used the law in equal measure, because public lands and connection to nature is our bipartisan American heritage. With this crucial policy now under attack, we need our elected officials to stand up and tell the Administration no—for all of us now, and for future generations of Americans to come.

Sheridan Steele

Highlands Ranch