If you do some digging, you’ll find that behind E470 is something called the “E470 Public Highway Authority,” a boring name meant to dissuade people from digging further. But who’s behind that? The answer is shocking. 3 counties – Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas – and 5 municipalities – Aurora, Brighton, Commerce City, Thornton and Parker – all working in collusion to benefit not only their own communities, but the entire greater Denver area, the state of Colorado, and many of the 82-million-plus visitors who fly into DIA every year from all over the world. A syndicate on the eastern plains, quietly aiding in the creation of 20,000 jobs and $775 million in private investment along the road while people are looking the other way, probably at the mountains or whatever.

Tracing the toll dollars isn’t easy, because after they’re collected, they go into a dizzying web of so-called improvements: surface maintenance, roadside assistance, snow removal, and lane additions. Yet no one knows these improvements are even happening, and that’s how E470 wants it. Instead of wiring the money it collects to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, converting it to cryptocurrency, or diverting it to a private investor, E470 funnels it right back into the road, where it remains hidden in plain sight — as perfect asphalt. Call it what you want: Toll laundering. Reverse highway-robbery. Benefit obfuscation. Whatever it is, it’s unfolding in realtime, beneath the wheels of 155,000 unsuspecting drivers every single day.

Is a highway even a highway without the occasional stalled car on the shoulder? The abandoned mattress that turns an average commute into a game of chance? The random bits of nondescript debris, dancing from lane to lane, giving windshields purpose? And what about the single sneaker that sends a little true-crime-shiver down your spine? It’s the kind of stuff that makes you feel alive, but you won’t find any of it on E470. Nothing to gawk at. Nothing to dodge. Which begs the question: what else are they keeping from us?

Not since Mad Max has the open road felt so ominous. Seriously, how can E470 be the only major corridor in metro Denver that’s barely ever congested? Never at a standstill. No rage in any lane. The whole thing is giving “shadow elite” energy. Like, are they in bed with the map apps, manipulating traffic flows in their favor? Are they exporting cars to other roads with lower standards, like what’s happening with recycling and Big Plastic? Or are they straight up making people disappear, because there’s that space base right off Exit 19 with those clusters of weird white domes? If you think this is just a 47-mile ray of sunshine, it’s time to open your eyes.

Next time you're on E470, take a look around and you'll notice something… interesting. Cameras. Everywhere. In fact, they’ve got enough to surveil nearly every inch of the 47-mile tollway. And it’s all fed to a control room called the Traffic Management Center, where two highly trained operatives, supported by AI, scan and monitor the road for incidents and distressed vehicles. This powers the swiftest, most sophisticated roadside assistance operation in the state. But, still, it just feels like a LOT of watching. Are they lip-reading? Looking for commuter hairstyle inspo? Placing bets on who’ll change lanes and when? There’s no telling. But, until we get to the bottom of it, there are simple measures you can take — like turning up the AC and wearing a balaclava — whenever you drive on E470.

E470 spends more money maintaining and improving its road than any tollway in Colorado, but costs less than most of them to drive. When the tolls actually do go up, it’s at a glacial pace. All this, without a single cent of tax money. You don’t have to be a certified public accountant to see something’s off. Are we really supposed to believe there’s a business that spends almost everything it makes improving what it makes? A business that grows year after year, without someone somewhere getting one of those boats that’s big enough to have other, smaller boats inside it? Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Where there’s no smoke, there’s other bad stuff that somehow doesn’t generate smoke. End of story.