John Daggett is getting ready to take "Embrace Colorado" on the road and see if it has wheels.

Daggett, regional initiatives and operations manager for the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization, will soon be leaving the employ of the MPO to become director of Embrace Colorado, a regional "visioning" effort to find publicly supported solutions to Northern Colorado's growing transportation problems.

Embrace Colorado is based on "Envision Utah" and other community visioning projects around the country that have found success in tackling local transportation issues. Unveiled in March during a regional transportation summit held at The Ranch in Loveland, the organization is slowly becoming a reality, Daggett said, having received its 503(c) nonprofit tax status in July and assembled the core of its board of directors.

On Aug. 7, the MPO's Transportation and Air Quality Planning Council and the Embrace Colorado board approved a memorandum of understanding to use $200,000 in federal funds to establish a separate office for the new group.

"What we're trying to do is get this outside of government and into a nonprofit," Daggett said. "Basically the (MOU) formalizes the relationship so we can move to the next stage, which is to raise match money for the project."

Daggett is already at work raising about $50,000 to match the federal funds and provide an initial budget for the fledgling organization, which will be located in an office as close to the center of the Larimer-Weld population base as possible.

Daggett said that would most likely be somewhere slightly north of Centerra. "We would just like to be within a quick distance of most of the cities and towns and be centrally located and independent."

Cliff Davidson, MPO executive director, said the plan is to separate Embrace Colorado from the MPO by Oct. 1. "We're setting it off to the side so the MPO can provide funding support but not drive it," he said.



Public outreach effort

Daggett said the organization will likely take "a couple years" to get fully up and running. He said a public outreach program will include 200 to 300 meetings over the next 18 months to find out what the residents of Northern Colorado want their transportation system look like in coming decades.

"Who knows? It could be a train to Denver or passenger rail or 10-lane highways or just maintaining what we've got," he said. "It's an exciting project if we can get folks to talk to each other. The key is to collaborate on a regional level."

Last year, an effort to create a regional transportation authority was derailed when local communities couldn't agree on how it would be funded.

Meanwhile, other transportation improvement efforts are continuing on the state level. The governor's Blue Ribbon Transportation Panel released its recommendations last fall for a $1.5 billion program to shore up the state's failing highway system. Ideas offered by the panel included increasing vehicle registration fees by $100 - which would raise about $500 million - and increasing the state's motor fuel tax by 13 cents per gallon, which would raise about $351 million.

The panel has recently begun meeting again with the goal of fine-tuning some of its recommendations for possible legislative action next January. John Kefalas, a Democratic state representative from Fort Collins, said regional efforts like Embrace Colorado can be part of the solution to the complex transportation dilemma the state faces.

"Regions have to take the initiative for regional solutions, and if they're done properly, they can compliment what the state is doing as well," Kefalas said, adding that "communication is key" to making those efforts work together.

Daggett said the just-launched 34-XPress, a bus service between Greeley and Loveland, is an example of how the MPO is trying to reduce traffic congestion and provide intercity transportation in the region.

Daggett said the basic premise of embrace Colorado is to achieve public buy-in for a Northern Colorado transportation solution.

"The strategy behind Embrace Colorado is you can continue to chip away at this funding option or that option, but until you have a vision for the future you're not going to solve the problem," he said.