Your Tax Dollars at Work: Follow Up on 2A

BY JENNIE KELLER
Last November Fountain residents voted to pass a .75% sales tax increase to help improve transportation issues in the city. The ballot initiative passed by 21 votes meaning that for every $100 in non-food purchases in Fountain, an amount equal to an additional 75 cents is now being added to the sale. The city sales tax went from 3% to 3.75%. Not a large increase, but enough to fund several transportation issues over the next 10 years. The money is going to capital improvements such as gutters, curbs, traffic signals, train quiet zones and safety improvements; funding transit services; and finally public street resurfacing.
Duane Greenwood, director of public works for the City of Fountain, is in charge of the way that the initiative is put into use.
“The first payment from the State on sales tax revenue will not come to us until March. But City Council approved an amendment to the city budget so that we can get started on some leg work prior to that,” Greenwood said. “Currently I am in the process of negotiating Right of Ways with several landowners for train Quiet Zones and safer street routes. We are also working with several engineering companies to get designs for many of the upcoming improvements.”
One of the priorities on the list of things to do is the closure of Illinois and the opening of Indiana. Illinois runs next to Aragon Elementary and is a high traffic area. It will be closed and Indiana, just three blocks away, will become the thru street from Santa Fe to Old Pueblo Road near the south end of Fountain. With this opening comes a Quiet Zone for the railroad crossing there. A Quiet Zone means that train horns will no longer be blasted at that crossing unless there is an emergency. Widefield has already enacted these zones. The plan for Fountain is to build Quiet Zones at all of the railroad crossings in the city.
Transit services are a high priority as well.
“We have already come to an agreement with Colorado Springs Mountain Metro for them to continue to provide these services. In the meantime, we have secured three bids from consulting companies to provide a complete analysis of what type of transit system we really need in Fountain. We want to service the community in an efficient manner which may mean traditional bus service or it may mean something more specialized. This is the reason for the model study,” Greenwood said.
The City has also but in an application for a Federal funds that will help improve the bus stops. This is still in the review process.
Fountain Street Superintendent Bill Hughes and Greenwood are in the process of developing a priority list for street resurfacing as well. This list will go to City Council for approval in March with anticipated start as soon as the weather begins to be consistently warm.
Also part of the more immediate improvements will be the addition of the ADA ramps in the downtown area, on Race Street and El Paso Street. Greenwood is currently waiting El Paso County approval on these ramps and then this work will begin. An application has already been submitted to do the ramps in the Southmoor area beginning this fall if all goes well.
Greenwood emphasized that while there may be little visible work going on right now, they are in the process of getting designs, annexations, clearances and approvals. No major construction as a result of 2A will be seen until it begins to warm. But once the approvals come through, many improvements should be seen quickly.