Colorado is making progress on a Front Range railway. Here's what it will take to make it happen.

[TexasTowelie]

The idea sounds enticing: Instead of battling Interstate 25 congestion, travelers hopscotching between cities along the Front Range could board a gleaming, speedy train and wave goodbye to the traffic.

But while a recent modeling study suggested there’s healthy demand for such a service — forecasting nearly 3 million riders a year along a 191-mile route from Fort Collins to Pueblo — don’t start holding your breath just yet. This railway, if it happens, is likely a decade or so away from welcoming its first passenger.

“In order for us to have a transit system that works in Colorado, this is a key element,” said state Sen. Leroy Garcia of Pueblo, the Senate president and a longtime booster of the idea. “It’s not going to be built overnight. We have to be innovative.”

The Front Range corridor is home to more than 80% of Colorado’s population, and it’s projected to absorb most of the state’s growth in coming decades. Backers point to an intercity train as a climate- and commuter-friendly solution that would make the state more competitive in attracting employers.

Read more: https://www.denverpost.com/2020/09/06/colorado-rail-front-range-denver/

[Laffy Kat]

1. It's so nice to see your posts again.

Thanks for the news.

[TexasTowelie]

3. I'm happy to be back.

One of the most grueling things about being in the hospital was the 4 a.m. vampires that came for blood samples. I joked with them and told them that I was going to take the cross above the door and bring it out so that I could keep them at bay. I didn't sleep that well while I was in the hospital so being awakened was a bummer.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. That would be wonderful.

I moved to the Washington DC area in the fall of 1968. They'd just started tearing up roadways in the district to construct the Metro. I remember people complaining bitterly about the inconvenience and how no one would take it and on and on. Some 30 years later I was back in DC (having moved away in 1982) and was at 16th and K on a Friday afternoon. There were fewer cars on the road than there would have been 30 years earlier. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think the subway made a huge difference.

I moved to Santa Fe, NM in 2008, when the Railrunner was being built into this city. More than once I'd be somewhere and I'd overhear someone saying it was a complete boondoggle, no one would take it. I'd invariably tell my "I moved to Washington DC in the fall of 1968" story. Possibly no one was impressed.

Right now the Railrunner isn't operating, because of Covid-19. However, before this, the main reason it was somewhat struggling to maintain passenger loads is that the people scheduling it somehow don't understand that you cannot just run the four or five trains a day that serve commuting workers, but have to have more service to accommodate tourists and allow people to attend evening events in Santa Fe and still take the Railrunner back to Albuquerque, or attend evening events in Albuquerque and take the Railrunner back to Santa Fe. The essential problem is that it's being run and scheduled by people who have lived here their entire lives and don't understand such scheduling. Sigh.

[TexasTowelie]

4. In order to make public transportation successful it must run on an hourly basis.

That is about the limit that people are willing to wait to catch a ride. They might be able to skip the runs at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. and possibly the 9 p.m., 11 p.m., and 1 a.m. runs which would take the wait time up to two hours. So that means that service is provided from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m., and 4 p.m. through 8 p.m., 10 p.m., midnight, and 2 a.m. That boosts the service to 16 trips a day which is frequent enough that people may ditch their vehicles.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Hourly or more often.

I occasionally take the local bus into downtown Santa Fe. It only runs twice an hour, which really isn't often enough. It needs to be three times an hour, possibly even four.

I am a huge fan of public transportation. In 1969, when I went to work at DCA, Washington National Airport, I didn't have a car. I lived in Alexandria, VA, about two miles from the airport and took the bus into work every day. For seven years. The only reason I eventually bought a car was that I decided to start taking classes at the local community college, and the logistics of getting to campus and back home and then to the airport wasn't very good. So I bought a car. Even then, I frequently took the bus into the airport because it really was easier than driving.

I look forward to living somewhere that public transportation is good and convenient, and I won't need a car any more. Of course these days, there's always Uber of Lyft. But the essential thing is to not have the worry and hassle of a car.

[Vogon_Glory]

6. Colorado once had three North-South Front Range passenger routes

And at least some of the track is still there.

A passenger train ran along that route almost to the creation of Amtrak.

I should think a passenger train along that route has potential—to the South, New Mexico’s rail runner service between Santa Fe through Albuquerque has proven remarkably successful, and that part of NM has far fewer people than Colorado’s Front Range.