For most of my life, I’ve lived within earshot of Colfax Avenue. I started riding the Colfax bus to and from my summer job at Denver Brick and Pipe when I was 15. As an urban dweller, I enjoy walking Colfax and observing the architecture and the concrete carnival of great restaurants and small businesses.
Colfax has so much potential for economic development, job creation and neighborhood improvement in both Denver and Aurora by creating a livable and connected community along the street. In this politically charged legislative season, I am proud to sponsor a job creation bill to examine the feasibility of using a private-public partnership to install a streetcar along Colfax Avenue from Auraria to the new Anschutz medical campus.
Consider the phenomenal results of the streetcar development in Portland, Ore. (). Since 1997, the city has constructed 4 miles of streetcar lanes in the city. While the capital cost of Portland’s program was $103 million, there has been an astounding $3.5 billion in investments made within the two-block corridor of the streetcar. Further, 5.4 million square feet of office space and 10,212 new housing units can be found within that same area. The streetcar initially began functioning in 2001 and the developers planned for 3,500 riders per weekday. By the winter of 2008, however, it had a weekday ridership of about 11,900 travelers per day.
Now, consider the potential for growth and development of a livable community in our Colfax corridor. It runs about 10 miles, from Auraria to the Anschutz medical campus. As for current public transit traffic, Colfax boasts the state’s busiest routes. Nearly 6 million passenger trips were taken on public buses 15L and 15 along Colfax in 2008, averaging almost 24,000 trips per day (about double the ridership in Portland). The streetcar would supplement current local bus traffic while significantly reducing automobile traffic along Colfax and nearby streets. Whether it is medical students who live downtown and commute to Aurora or suburban residents accessing another public transit route downtown, the streetcar would no doubt attract a lot of commuters.
After examining the outstanding returns on investment in Portland, there’s reason to believe that we could achieve similar success in Colorado. With a 4-mile corridor and a price tag of $103.15 million, Portland saw a $3.5 billion surge in economic development within a decade. Right now, we predict that a 10-mile corridor with an estimated $175 million price tag will revitalize Colfax, bring in business and pedestrian walkways, increase property value and bring prosperity to a lifeline of both Denver and Colorado. Simply put, a streetcar can do for Colfax what Coors Field did for LoDo.
In these challenging times, a Colfax streetcar could also provide quality jobs to Colorado. These jobs could come from the construction and maintenance of the stations and streetcars, not to mention the jobs that will result from the business created throughout the corridor. The streetcar will also likely save citizens gas money by providing another mode of public transit, while simultaneously decreasing congestion and tangibly lowering Denver’s greenhouse gas emissions.
You may be curious, or even concerned, about how we would pay for this project. My bill simply calls for a public/private partnership to explore this opportunity without levying any additional taxes on citizens. We plan on using a small portion of the transit and rail funds allocated to cities like Denver and Aurora from CDOT’s new Transit and Rail Division. Additionally, the study would set Colorado up to apply for as much as $25 million in matching grants from the Obama administration’s Urban Livability Initiative.
Once our study is complete, we will be better able to procure investment through bonds, city and state funds and tax revenue, like the Portland Streetcar project. However, to head toward job creation and a livable community in the Colfax corridor, we must begin the process now.
Chris Romer is a Democratic state senator from Denver.
