Sure, there may be big, fatty streaks of pork running through the $787 billion stimulus-package bill that President Barack Obama will be signing into law today at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (www.stimuluswatch.org has gone hog-wild finding them). But if Colorado can bring home the bacon for just one project, out of the 201 "shovel-ready" projects included on its $2,447,922,036 shopping list, I'll be grateful.
And so will the empty Shops at Northfield Stapleton, so close to all that traffic on I-70 -- yet so far away. In an attempt to get to the Bass Pro Shop to waste time while waiting for a delayed flight, I once spent a hellish hour stuck in a summer deluge on no-exit 270, which I'd mistakenly turned onto thinking it would take me to Northfield. But no. Because of a planning snafu, this much-touted urban-infill project never got its own exit -- in Colorado, the state where Focus on the Family has its own exit on I-25! You have to get there via Quebec and take a series of unlikely turns.
But stimulate this, Denver! Colorado's wish list includes a $3 million interchange that will finally take I-70 traffic to the Shops at Northfield Stapleton -- if those shops haven't already dried up from the lack of attention.
Too bad Obama's motorcade won't be coming in from Denver International Airport.
