Boulder County residents want their commuter rail and consider bus rapid transit a poor substitute.
Their sentiments are expressed as part of a countywide issues survey conducted May 7 and May 14 and are based on 605 telephone interviews with voters across the county. Talmey-Drake Research and Strategy Inc. conducted the survey.
Results say 66 percent of voters favor a commuter-rail line along the northwest corridor over a “hybrid” approach that relies on bus rapid transit while rail is built in segments.
People in every corner of the county heavily backed commuter rail over bus lines. In Longmont, it was 74 percent to 20 percent; in Boulder, the result was 61 percent to 33 percent.
Boulder Mayor Matthew Applebaum said he wasn’t surprised at the results.
“You really can’t underestimate the unhappiness and anger out there in the corridor over not getting their fair share” of commuting options, Applebaum said.
In 2004, voters in the Denver metro area agreed to a 0.4 percent tax increase for the FasTracks plan, which called for commuter rail extending northwest into Boulder and Longmont.
But this year, RTD officials said funding problems are preventing the build-out, and the RTD board declined to go to voters for another tax increase to complete the hybrid system.
“Given the choice between getting a bus rapid transit system up and running for the short term, with a delay in building out the … commuter line, or scrapping the bus rapid transit option and building out the commuter line as quickly as financially possible, voters, by a large margin (66 percent to 22 percent) opt for concentrating on what they voted for back in 2004 — building out the commuter line,” the survey said.
Applebaum said most residents don’t understand that a bus system would be far more effective than rail service, at least in Boulder.
“In this corridor, it will move far less people than a good bus- rapid-transit system,” he said. “I don’t think people quite get that.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
