Just so everyone has the details as promoted:
Note the section about how it would be financed by the āBipartisan Infrastructure Lawā. I suspect this is the real sticking point. I read as far as āshared with freight railroadsā and stopped.
Yes, passenger rail in the I-25 corridor will come to be useful in the next 30 years. I donāt think a typical corridor-style startup may be the way to bring it about.
Many residents there are climste-conscious. Also the route includes at least four universities.
I live directly along the proposed route and have been paying taxes toward the Regional Transportation District FastTracks program for going on two decades now. RTD grossly underestimated costs and unfortunately has done a poor job building out the system, particularly in the North Denver suburbs. Folks up north are still bitterā¦no rail service to Longmont or Boulder until 2045? Criminy. I understand why folks are skeptical, though it is unclear how better transit would negatively impact those in Douglas County, as the article states. Traveling I-25 on that stretch negatively impacts anyone who makes the tripā¦the entire corridor north and south of Denver is always pretty miserable.
Disgruntlements aside, the Front Range Corridor is long and relatively skinny, well suited for passenger rail, although the route would have to share the existing BNSF ( former C&S) corridor. The main interstate is a nightmare and a well thought out rail schedule with competitive pricing would be a preferred alternative for many folks traveling along the corridor. Noteā¦well thought out is key, and there are many stakeholders and competing interests. It is doable, but I am not necessarily holding my breath. As for politics, why does rail transit, or any transit for that matter, have to be political? Cars and transit should not be a zero sum game. Local and state governments should be given discretion on how they use their Federal transportation dollars to best serve their communities. Unfortunately that nuance is lost in todayās world of deep red and blue politics.
I think you need to consider the kind of person Rep. Boebert is.
Yes, but thatās precisely the kind of political ad hominem that has no place in this forum.
How the Front Range service is operated in an age of āgreater Federal penuriosityā, and how expansions to reach the full scope of passenger operation are made and budgeted and paid for, are better topics.
I adjusted my post. However she did that in modern parlance or maybe more like 18th and 19th C zUK MPs who jumped around to safe districts
I have no excuse for Boebert, or MTG either. The problem is that in a thread on a railroad forum weāre concerned with the effect of their machinations, not their character as machinator.
I find it amusing that their press release FINALLY gets around to invoking what DOGE is supposed to be doing: establishing an explicit framework for reducing the overall national debt. No oneās listening any more.
Bad news: I just found out two minutes ago that I donāt qualify at Northwestern as a donor. I guess it was the thought that countedā¦
No surprises! I think Boberts character is the greatest factor in her behaviors in regard to the Front Range project. Probably a moot point with the DOGE sledgehammer being headed by a car exec.
All is unfortunately political these days, but major infrastructure projects such as Front Range rail are decades in scaleā¦something that is lost on politicians who operate on 2, 4, and 6 year cycles. Financial stability for these types of projects is crucial and political funding whiplash at the whims of politicians can only serve to delay and balloon budgets (optimistic) or torpedo the project altogether at exorbinant costs and losses (at worst and far too often). I have my leaningsā¦but I really wish major projects like this could be given the support or at least the political abivalence for them to get off the ground.
Transportation should not need to be an ideological virtue signaling badge, but it has been made so by politicians,
I wonder how they will serve Castle Rock where the corridorās tracks are split and presumably directional paired trackage.
I think they sped up that timetable quite a bit:
You sure itās just politicians? Because I read this thread from the first post on down.
I posted before on this and I will post it again. Regardless of if you disagree with someone or do not like their politics (in regards to politicians). Throw battery acid on someone or their political party and you hurt whatever cause it is your trying to promote. I see this all over social media in regards to rail issues and rail advocacy.
Bottom line with rail advocacy, no matter who is in office it is always best to approach with a well thought out and well reasoned argument for a discussion rather than a personal attack on the individual.
Look at the example of WSOR. Mr Gardner didnāt build that railroad via personal attacks or slights on Wisconsin politicians. Instead he calmly had discussion with them. Took them on train rides and showed them his vision. That is what led to Wisconsin changing itās Constitution to support rail freight line grants. He was patient but persistent and it worked.
I had read that too. Fingers crossed they can pull it off. I would love to take the train from Longmont to Boulder and Denver for work and to take in a ball game or concert. The question is whether that limited of service will actually lure commuters. I am curious to see how it is implemented and whether folks bite. I know the scaled down BRT on Highway 36 between Denver and Boulder has been relatively successful. In general, the local Colorado state government has been quite pro-rail lately (the success of the ski train, Moffat Tunnel negotiations, and proposed mountain rail projects) so there is at least state-level momentum here. However TABOR limits how much funding Colorado can take in and Federal funding will be needed though to make much of this a reality. I am hopeful but not holding my breath.
That is a great questionā¦I havenāt heard any details on that. I wonder if that is a case of consolidating freight to one track and passenger service to the other, at least until it goes to single track at Palmer Lake. I am not certain, but has traffic been decreasing on the Joint Line with the conversion of various powerplants from coal to natural gas?
The subject of the thread was about efforts of a politician to block the Front Range project.
What are the plans to fix the track into and out of Denver Union Station? Last I read, Amtrak still has to back into the station. Are they eventually going to fix the track work to be a pull through station?
Unfortunately, with the Union Station redevelopment, all the land south of the station where the trackage historically ran has been developed into high rises. Union Station is back-in only and will likely now forever be. One of many examples where RTD and the Union Station redevelopment team made questionable decisions that appear to have prioritized real estate development over effective transit design.
Itās my understanding that the coal traffic is down on the joint line south of Denver. It is also my understanding that that traffic comes down south from the line thru Sidney, NB, rather than down the Front Range line thru Boulder. I guess thatās why proposed passenger service on the Front Range line North of Denver may have a head start.