Fred from Westminster writes, “What’s driving you crazy? The westbound on ramp from Broadway to US 36, a crazy camera system has shown up with no signage of what is going on. It doesn’t look like the normal emissions collection. What are they collecting data for now?”
Don’t go out looking for this thing as it has already moved on. You can see from the picture I attached to this story what the contraption Fred wrote to me about looks like. I had never seen anything like it before. I searched all around the base of it which was set on a mobile trailer. I looked at the camera placed on the ground in front of the trailer that was pointed at oncoming traffic. It wasn’t until I looked at the pole that held another camera and large box with a fan inside right over the roadway that I finally saw something that gave me a clue. It was a little green sign saying emissions testing.
I knew then to reach out to Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and they told me their Air Pollution Control Division placed that emissions data collection equipment on that ramp as part of their work to implement a four-year-old state law. Senate Bill 21-260 called The Sustainability of the Transportation System Act requires the CDPHE to identify medium and heavy-duty vehicles that are high emitters of pollutants and ones that are potential candidates for electrification…