"The other thing we're now beginning to toy with, with EPA, and I know many private companies and other government agencies are working with, is telecommuting. [This] will eliminate or reduce trips when we set up our employees to work from home. The Colorado Department of Health has had a telecommuting program for several years, and we have just now begun our pilot [program]. Back to public transportation - a Denver public/private partnership is studying the feasibility of transportation terminals, to facilitate central locations for transfers between various modes of transportation. A big challenge here in the Rocky Mountain country. Especially in the winter, where commuters are extremely reluctant to make a transfer when it's snowing outside, from one bus to the other, or from one mode of transportation to the other. Once again, hopefully, this will get people out of their cars. "Growth is our challenge and the trouble is that growth never pays its way. This is a hard lesson for us to understand. It's a hard lesson for the Chamber of Commerce to accept. But, in fact, we have incredibly different, difficult air quality problems to solve in our fast-growing region, here in the western United States. Pollution is serious, and continuing health research shows that the public may be suffering adverse health affects, even at levels below our current standards. Maybe we are even behind the health curve. Of course, as we've pointed out, mobile sources are the largest part of the problem here in the west, and they will be then, potentially, a major part of the solution. "We've made a lot of progress. We've made fuels cleaner, cars cleaner and [are] keeping them clean. But our other big challenge is providing alternatives to automobiles. So - the question is then, "How shall we do that?" And it's very, very difficult. We are talking about lifestyle changes. Lifestyle changes, once again here in the west, where we pride ourselves on our enormous independence. "I think we have to proceed on the premise that people are influenced and motivated by two primary considerations, if you get right down to it. One is their pocketbook, and the other is their wristwatch. Now, given that reality, we have to then begin to take a hard look at such very distasteful potentials as a parking surtax. 'Why on earth should I not drive my car into Denver when I can park all day for $2?' We need to have high occupancy vehicle lanes at peak travel times. What's the implication of that? We've either got to build a bigger highway or we've got to crowd the rest of traffic into fewer lanes of traffic. We're working on people's wristwatches, of course, and I think we have got to encourage methods like the Eco-pass. Genuine incentives, financial and time incentives for people to leave the car at home and get on public transportation. "Now, back to the pocketbook. People are in denial about the cost of operating their cars, you know. We all think of our only cost being when we shell out our two bucks a day or four bucks a day, or whatever it is, for the parking cost, and we grit our teeth at that, but it's not bad. And when we fill up the gas tank, or we get the oil changed we delude ourselves by thinking those are the only costs of transportation - in fact, they are not. Now, a recent study that we've seen indicates that fully 3/4 of the cost of driving is in insurance, depreciation, interest on the cost of paying off your car loan. These are insidious costs and all together; they're sort of hidden. They don't hit us immediately. I guess one way we look at it is that the feedback loop is entirely too slow - somehow we have to be able to change the situation so that people have direct incentives not to drive the car or, conversely, dis-incentives for driving. "You know the costs by the way, the hidden costs, are not to mention highways and bridges and highway police and the carnage on the highway. That is cost, direct cost to drivers. The days are gone when the solution to traffic congestion is to build bigger and wider highways, and we have to become much more creative about that. That's too costly, it consumes too much space and in the end it helps us not one bit. The key will be the education of the public. The right thing to do in the public's mind has to be that it's cheaper and it's faster to travel by public transportation, mass transportation. That's going to be tough here in the west. "It will be enormously, politically tough. No politician in their right mind (you know I had been one, a small timer, so I know whereof I speak). There's no way in the world that I would step in the lead as a politician, who has to get re-elected periodically every two or four years, or whatever, and suggest some of these hard measures. In fact, it has to come from the grassroots up. Somehow YOU PEOPLE, and all people, have to be able to figure out a way to convince the public that mass transportation/public transportation is the way to go. Politicians just cannot be counted on to make the tough decisions. I'm sorry to be that tough on my own kind, but in fact it's the truth. "So, there are lots of SMART PEOPLE in this room. YOU ARE THE EXPERTS, you are the CREATIVITY in this whole arena. The challenge to you is to be BOLD, IN FACT, OUT-RIGHT FOOL-HARDY perhaps, and design the solution before the crisis. We wish you well. We look forward to the outcome. Thank you very much."