LONGMONT – Colorado leaders ramped up their efforts to launch a passenger train system linking Denver, Boulder, Longmont, Loveland, and Fort Collins within three years, riding a ceremonial first train on Thursday afternoon.
“We’re going to get it done,” Gov. Jared Polis declared before boarding the Amtrak Superliner at Denver’s Union Station and rolling for 44 miles in about 90 minutes to Longmont.
“It will mean getting where we want to go quicker — without having to deal with congestion in traffic,” Polis said, noting that Colorado residents on average spend 54 hours a year stuck in car traffic.
The intensifying state push focuses on securing federal funds, from the $102 billion bipartisan infrastructure pool, approved for “intercity” rail transit. State lawmakers, Colorado Department of Transportation directors, Regional Transportation District officials, Amtrak’s president, and U.S. Department of Transportation railway administrators tasked with awarding funds came along for the ride and saw scores of aficionados huddled outside train windows at multiple points waving up and taking photos.
Polis in recent interviews has cast the push for passenger train service as a “one-time opportunity” to seize federal support, which likely won’t be available in the future. He said Colorado won’t succeed without a commitment from state lawmakers to contribute funding, and Colorado Senate President Steve Fenberg told The Denver Post he will introduce legislation in the coming weeks seeking $50 million a year.
State lawmakers in 2021 created a Front Range Passenger Rail District, which received $1.5 million for “site development” along rail routes, toward a goal of eventually establishing passenger train service along 160 miles of the I-25 corridor from Fort Collins to Pueblo. Polis says that can be done within a decade. This first, northern part of the system has won initial federal approval.
Federal funding in the “hundreds of millions” will be necessary, Polis said on Thursday, sitting with Fenberg as the train approached Westminster and highway traffic thickened before rush hour. Success also will depend on RTD funding. That amount hasn’t been specified.
If lawmakers commit, “what I am looking at is about a three-year implementation” of the rail service linking Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins, Polis said.
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