Front Range Passenger Rail’s Board of Directors on Friday gave the green light to a plan to launch in 2029, with stops in six cities along the way.
The board unanimously approved the 80-page delivery plan that details how the district, with funding from the Colorado Department of Transportation, Regional Transportation District and a potential future sales tax, could connect 12 cities along the Front Range by train and eventually grow to 10 daily trips.
Under the plan, the rail district will start running three daily trips between Denver and Fort Collins, with stops in Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, Boulder, Longmont and Loveland in the next three years.
The district also committed to running “special event” stops near two future stadiums — the Denver Broncos stadium at Burnham Yard and Denver Summit FC stadium near Broadway and Interstate 25.
The first phase requires no new taxes and will be funded by RTD — fulfilling the 22-year-old FasTracks pledge to connect Boulder County and Denver by train — and CDOT.
Design work for the Denver-to-Fort Collins section is underway, and a vote to approve construction will come before the rail district and RTD boards by the end of the year, Front Range Passenger Rail General Manager Sal Pace said.
Approving the delivery plan is the first of several steps required for the Front Range Passenger Rail District to ask voters for a sales tax that will fund expanded service, including twice-daily trains connecting Denver, Littleton, Sterling Ranch, northern Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs and Pueblo on Union Pacific lines. The measure would also add another daily trip between Denver and Fort Collins.
The plan promises to have service to the 12 stations up and running within five years of voter approval and outlines the possibility of more frequent trips as demand increases. Service could even expand to Trinidad to link up with the long-distance line, which connects Chicago to Los Angeles, in the coming decades.
“This puts us one step closer to referring the ballot issue and one step closer to Colorado Connector rail service across the Front Range,” Pace said.
If approved by the board, the ballot measure will ask voters in communities along the rail line to approve a sales tax to fund $1.7 billion in infrastructure. The rail board is set to vote on referring the measure to the ballot at a public meeting in Pueblo next month.
The full service between Pueblo and Fort Collins would cost between $40 million and $50 million a year to operate, with officials planning on $10 million to $15 million in revenue on top of the funding from CDOT and RTD, according to the plan.
While some of the stations already exist (Denver’s Union Station) or just need “modest work” to accommodate the Colorado Connector (Boulder Junction, Littleton-Mineral), district officials said in cities along the route.
The intercity trains will be different from what metro Denver riders are used to on RTD’s light rail, featuring more room to stretch out, bathrooms and even food options. If the new trains are similar to a , each could link five to eight cars for 300 to 450 seats per train.
Officials estimate trips from Denver to Boulder will take around 45 minutes, with another hour to get to Fort Collins. Denver to Colorado Springs would also take about 1 hour and 45 minutes, and another 50 minutes to Pueblo.
Rail district officials say the train service will remove the equivalent of 29,000 cars from the road in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
