It’s unclear what the prospects are for a long-overdue restoration of state highway funding following last week’s announced accord between highway advocates and their adversaries — i.e., ruling Democrats in the legislature and their party allies in the governor’s office.

What’s clear is Colorado’s crumbling and congested traffic grid is crippling our state’s economy and urgently needs help. It’s supposed to be a top priority for our state government.

The two sides in the face-off are saying they have found common ground and that a meaningful infusion of highway funding is finally in the offing. But details are elusive.

To recap: As our news affiliate Colorado Politics reported, a proposed constitutional amendment that would have dedicated transportation-related tax revenue to Colorado’s roads and bridges will be pulled off November’s ballot. That’s the upshot of an eleventh-hour agreement between proponents of the ballot issue and the Democratic lawmakers who tried to stop it.

The proposal would have redirected some $700 million in revenue from transportation-related taxes and fees the state already collects to roads, bridges and highways. 

Not surprisingly, the endeavor was met with enthusiasm by the motoring public. The effort, authored and championed by the stakeholders group Restore Our Roads, easily landed a spot on the Nov. 3 ballot after gathering far more than enough voters’ signatures.

The initiative was a citizen-driven effort to right an egregious wrong by the legislature, which has skimped on funding critical infrastructure needs. Instead, transportation dollars have gone toward mass transit and environmental projects as well as growing other state government programs.

Out-of-touch state lawmakers — bent on elbowing private passenger cars aside in favor of purportedly greener solutions to transportation — hatched a treacherous scheme to undermine the citizens’ initiative in the closing days of the legislature this spring. They rammed through House Bill 26-1430 — preemptively slashing the same gas taxes and vehicle fees the initiative would tap. That way, if voters approved the highway-funding proposal in November, as anticipated, there’d be no revenue collected to fund it, thanks to the lawmakers’ dirty trick.

But the tricksters left the door open to a compromise: HB 1430 would take effect only if voters passed the highway-funding initiative. In a game of chicken, the lawmakers hoped to get the proposal’s supporters to withdraw it before this week’s Friday deadline for finalizing the ballot.

That would spare the legislature the humiliation of the measure passing. Even if it would have no funding due to the legislation, the ballot issue’s enactment would serve as an indictment of the legislature for its neglect of our roads.

It turns out a compromise did emerge, and the proposal has been pulled. Perhaps the lawmakers, who feared the measure’s popularity, didn’t want it voted on and agreed to at least some of the terms of the ballot issue’s proponents.

Questions now include what will the agreement do? How much money will it channel to highways? And will it be binding?

Colorado Politics reports it’s unclear if the deal would be introduced as some form of legislation in the upcoming legislative session, but a source says there are plans for a referred measure on next year’s ballot to address longer-term transportation funding needs.

We’ll have to stay tuned. But it’s hard to put much faith in a legislature that has shown so little regard for Colorado’s motorists. Not to mention Colorado taxpayers. 

Is last week’s announcement a sign the legislature finally is owning up to its responsibility, or is this just another trick?