The Regional Transportation District just couldn’t resist another round of “Let’s Pretend We’re Chicago,” voting this week to join transit officials in dusting off the Front Range Passenger Rail pipe dream—this time eyeing a Longmont extension that might someday creep north to Fort Collins. Cue the applause, the ribbon‐cutting fantasies, and the pile of studies forecasting a grand 1,100 daily boardings—and operating losses of $12–16 million a year. Because nothing says “commuter solution” like paying $10,000 per rider in subsidies.
A Brief History of Rail-Sized Wishful Thinking
- FasTracks 1.0 (2004–2014): Voters bankrolled RTD for a Northwest Rail line. Decades later, we got a 6.2-mile stub to Westminster—and a price tag that ballooned from $500 million to $1 billion.
- FRPR District (2021): Polis and the legislature saddled nine counties with a probable taxing district for a Pueblo–Cheyenne rail fantasy. Weld County wasn’t dumb enough to stay on board; I helped lobby HB24-1012 to redraw the map and boot ourselves out—after all, the train would never touch our cornfields (read: county boundaries) anyway.
- Bustang Reality Check: CDOT’s bus service already bleeds $30 million a year. Swapping wheels for rails won’t staunch that red ink—it’ll just dress it up in shiny new cars.
The Longmont Extension: Reheated Research
Last week’s RTD vote means the Denver–Longmont Northwest Rail extension (part of the old FasTracks plan) will get a fresh feasibility look, alongside the broader FRPR corridor study stretching from Pueblo to Fort Collins (codot.gov). That’s two decades of “studies,” “public engagement,” and “technical analysis,” all pointing to one inescapable truth: our population density still won’t support a daily express train.
- Projected Ridership: A grand 1,100 round-trip boardings, give or take an over-optimistic environmentalist or two.
- Capital Costs: $650 million just to upgrade the BNSF tracks, build platforms, and install signals.
- Operating Subsidy: $12–16 million / year—on top of Bustang’s $30 million hole (Do you know how many roads we can pave and maintain in Weld County each year for $46 million?!?).
- Break-Even Fare: About $27,000 / rider / year. Got your monthly pass yet? Me neither.
Why It’s a Boondoggle, Not a Solution
- Sprawl vs. Density: Passenger rail thrives in tight urban grids, not suburban strip malls. Denver to Longmont is 40 miles of parking lots and strip-mall mediocrity—perfect for cars, lousy for trains.
- Funding Fantasy: The FRPR District can’t drive a spike until it passes a new tax on voters. Guess which side of I-25 that vote will go? Hint: it won’t be Greeley or Johnstown. At least I feel good about that.
- Fiscal Reality: We’ve already flushed $1 billion into the NW Rail stub and lost $30 million yearly on Bustang. If it bled dollars then, it’ll hemorrhage cash on steel wheels now.
- Political Theater: Jared Polis loves a photo-op with a toy train. But once the banners come down, the budget analysts will sit with their calculators and realize the Guv’s “choo-choo” doesn’t pay for itself.
How Weld County Will Still Likely Pay for This Mess
SB 24-230 was the back-door scheme that raids Colorado’s oil & gas industry—much of it centered in Weld County—to bankroll Polis’s commuter-rail pipe dream. Under the guise of “clean transit,” the bill tacks a new production fee onto every barrel of oil and cubic foot of gas produced, diverting roughly $116 million a year into the Clean Transit Enterprise. Seventy percent of that fee feeds local bus service, ten percent funds competitive transit grants, and a hefty twenty percent is earmarked for passenger rail projects like the Front Range line. In effect, Weld County drillers cough up a fifth of every dollar to underwrite a train that will never roll through our fields—turning rural revenues into metro rail subsidies rather than local economic investment.
If you’re going to tack extra “fees” on oil and gas, invest the money in something Coloradans actually want – roads.
The Only Real Rail We Need
- Bustang Upgrades: Boost frequencies, add express—use a fraction of that rail budget to expand an existing service that is much more scalable and much more affordable to operate.
- I-25 Express Lanes: Finish the HOV-lane extensions and let tolls fund actual congestion relief, instead of fantasizing about a technology (rail) that was innovative in the 1800’s.
- More. Lane. Miles. Reduce congestion, pollution, and make our roads safer by properly maintaining and adding to what we have, and what the majority of the people want and need to use.
Just a final blow of my train-sounding horn…
Politicians promise trains because urban voters in the glorious Denver/Boulder ruling axis drool over shiny toys. Meanwhile, our streets stay clogged, our transportation dollars vanish, and real solutions—roads, buses, broadband—get sidelined. Colorado’s Front Range Passenger Rail is the land of 1,000 studies and zero trains; the only thing moving fast is taxpayer money heading into the pocket of the consultant.
So here’s a novel idea: before launching another rail study, how about we fix the bus we already have (Bustang is losing $30 million/year – they think a ChooChoo will do better?!), finish the highway projects on the books, and remind our leaders that sometimes the fastest, cheapest way to help commuters is the low-tech one – build and maintain roads! Because in this state, the only thing more enduring than mountain views is the eternal fantasy of a choo-choo that actually runs.
