City and County of Denver v. Pike

Mr. Justice Frantz

specially concurring in the result:

Again I concur in the result, and for the same reasons given in Thomas E. Davis v. City and County of Denver, No. 18,293, and related cases, decided this day.

The premise of the majority opinion is that the Valley Highway as it wends its way through Denver is an artery of traffic retaining its status as a matter of statewide concern; that, notwithstanding the fact that it is a matter predominantly of statewide concern, Denver could enact an ordinance regulating speed of traffic using the highway within the confines of Denver, because delegated that power by the state. According to the majority, the City, therefore, “had the requisite jurisdiction in the premises and it was error to dismiss the complaint.”

Assuming the correctness of the premise that the Valley Highway was a general or statewide affair, it would then follow, in view of what I said in the Davis case, supra, that the delegation to the city was ultra vires.

However, I maintain that the question of speed on the Valley Highway is a matter of local and municipal concern, a problem with which the legislature was powerless to interfere. Integrating this highway with heavily traveled streets of Denver by ingress and egress ways, and having it routed through the heart of Denver in *27highly industrialized areas where the traffic population at certain hours of the day burdens the Valley Highway almost to saturation, make it a truly local and municipal problem.

Our decision should determine this case on the basis that we are dealing with a local and municipal problem.

Mr. Justice Hall joins in this opinion.