DENVER — Don’t be misled by the two light-rail extensions being built in metro Denver: Passenger-train links between Colorado cities are a long way off, the Rocky Mountain News reports.
“I think it’s realistic to say it will be at least 20 years before we see intercity rail in Colorado, and I support rail,” said David Pampu, director of comprehensive planning and transportation services for the Denver Regional Council of Governments.
About five years ago, when the state was booming with new jobs and new residents, the Colorado Department of Transportation studied a passenger-rail network with three major routes: Pueblo through Denver to Fort Collins; Glenwood Springs to Aspen; and Steamboat Springs to Hayden.
Five years later, the only passenger service is the Ski Train and Amtrak. The Ski Train operates between Denver and Winter Park only on ski weekends; Amtrak operates long-distance but doesn’t provide frequent trains that would help relieve highway congestion in Colorado’s most populated counties.
Intercity trains are still in CDOT’s long-term planning, Executive Director Tom Norton said, but many other projects come first. For the next five years, he said, the focus will be on the mammoth T-REX project to widen Interstate 25 and extend light-rail service to southeast Denver.
“I suspect roads will be the backbone of our transportation system for many, many years to come,” Norton said.
Despite state population growth to 4.4 million, population density along the Front Range “is not even close” to levels that would qualify Colorado for federal dollars for planning intercity trains, he said.
Still, train transportation planning goes on, including a two-part proposal to build rail lines east of the Front Range so freight trains can bypass the cities, and to operate intercity passenger trains over the existing rail lines.
Determined grass-roots groups continue to discuss alternatives to more highways. And engineers for the next two years will be performing an environmental study of transportation solutions in the Interstate 70 corridor between Denver and Eagle.
But the major highway alternatives emphasis is gone. In November, Colorado voters handily defeated a proposal that would have set aside $50 million for a study of a monorail system from Denver International Airport to Eagle County Regional Airport, west of Vail. The monorail generally would have followed I-70.
The Colorado Intermountain Fixed Guideway Authority isn’t giving up its plan even though voters turned down its first proposal, said chairwoman Sally Hopper, a former Republican state senator.
“I think people realize we have to have alternatives other than more and more asphalt for more and more cars,” she said.
Gov. Bill Owens, who has linked his first administration to the T-REX project, opposed the monorail study.
“The governor supports rail transit where he feels it will be effective and viable,” said Dan Hopkins, Owens’ press aide and former CDOT spokesman.
“Rail isn’t always the appropriate alternative,” Hopkins said. “The reality is that we’re probably several decades from when some of these rail projects will become viable.”