Katie de la Rosa

Kdelarosa@coloradoan.com

What if you were told we didn’t need to spend $1.2 billion to build a commuter rail from Fort Collins to Denver, that we essentially already have it and at far less the cost?

Incredulous?

Well, that’s not far off.

You see, Amtrak runs mainly on BNSF tracks, which run next to the Fort Collins Downtown Transit Center right through the center of town to Denver. Amtrak doesn't currently run on those tracks but could.

So what’s holding up a commuter rail to connect the two cities and become the first such route in the state?

What needs to happen

Money and someone to spearhead the effort to get municipalities along the track to agree to put their chips in for the route.

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But in this case, the needed funding is a surprisingly small amount, in comparison to other commuter-rail options on the Front Range.

David Krutsinger, a CDOT projects manager who oversaw the recent study for a commuter rail from Fort Collins to Denver, said an Amtrak route between the two cities on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks would cost $320,000 annually if running one round-trip per day.

But for the route to “be convincing,” Krutsinger said, it would need at least three or four round-trips a day. That would cost $1.28 million annually. Krutsinger called it “relatively cheap” given the $1.2 billion price tag to build tracks exclusively for a commuter rail along the same route.

Krutsinger said the $1.2 billion price tag is for the estimated construction cost required for all day, 30- to 60-minute frequency commuter/passenger train service with 22 to 28 round-trips per day.

Currently, there’s no funding designated for the connection. Nearly all of the Colorado Department of Transportation’s funding comes from the gas tax, which is declining because cars are becoming more efficient. Less than 1 percent of CDOT’s $1.1 billion annual budget is allotted for projects. The rest is for maintenance.

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So to raise those funds for the route, Krutsinger said, a new voter-approved tax seems most likely. Krutsinger thinks five or six communities along the route would have to push their voters to approve an Amtrak route.

Krutsinger said, in addition to the tax, funds would likely be drawn from other transit options, like Bustang and FLEX bus services, which run between Fort Collins, Boulder and Denver. Bustang costs CDOT about $3 million annually, and CDOT provides about $200,000 to Flex’s yearly $1.5 million budget.

Mark Jackson, deputy director for city transportation and development, said the city has never discussed the possibility of an Amtrak route specifically, so he can’t say whether the city would or wouldn’t consider pursuing the option.

But the city has been involved in a number of conversations regarding a commuter rail along the Front Range, Jackson said. A commuter rail was suggested in CDOT’s environmental impact study in 2011, and Jackson said the city was part of the effort. Since then, Jackson doesn’t believe any action besides “keeping the conversation going” has been taken on a Front Range rail.

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Across the state, some officials are having discussions about finding funding for an Amtrak route from sources besides a tax, like the marijuana taxes that brought in more revenue than expected, Krutsinger said. But some state leaders are hesitant to shift more funds toward transportation because of funding needs for other equally important issues.

Another issue that remains in flux is how would the Amtrak route work with BNSF, whose tracks Amtrak runs on. Could the railway’s freight schedule accommodate a couple of passenger trains on the route every day?

“We’re certainly considering (this route), but nothing is immediately being done,” Krutsinger said.

All the puzzle pieces

In 2008, Congress passed a bill that said routes less than 750 miles would have to be funded by the states and that Amtrak could operate the service under contract, said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari.

Currently, Amtrak receives funding from 18 states under 19 operating agreements to fund 29 short-distance routes. Under the 2008 bill, Magliari said, Amtrak and states must jointly develop a method to charge the states for the rail service. These state-supported routes are continued only through the annual operating agreements and state legislative appropriations.

More than 14.7 million passengers rode state-supported routes in 2015, Magliari said.

On federal- and state-funded routes, Amtrak runs on more BNSF tracks than any other railroad, said BNSF spokesman Joe Sloan. In Colorado, Amtrak uses BNSF tracks from the Nebraska border to Denver, and through Lamar, La Junta and Trinidad on a route from Kansas to New Mexico. Amtrak pays BNSF and other host railroads to use the tracks.

If the state wanted to contract Amtrak to run along a BNSF track, they would work to negotiate with BNSF a price for access and improvements needed for passenger trains to operate with freight trains, Magliari said.

Across Colorado, there are nine Amtrak stations, with Denver Union Station being by far the busiest. Of Amtrak’s 99,646 riders in Colorado in 2014, 52 percent of them were tourists, according to Amtrak data.

Since last year, ridership for both routes that include Colorado, the California Zephyr and Southwest Chief, saw 2.4 percent and 4.3 percent increases, respectively. This fiscal year, which ended at the end of September, the Zephyr had 375,342 and the Chief had 367,267 passengers.

Amtrak spent more than $14 million in Colorado in operating expenses in 2014, according to data.

Why the Front Range?

The last time Northern Colorado had Amtrak service was in 1997, when a train ran out of Greeley about three times a week, Magliari said. But the trains ran at inconsistent times, which made it difficult for people to know when the trains were coming and ridership suffered.

Amtrak instead decided to invest those resources in the widely popular California Zephyr route, which runs daily and passes through Denver and the Rocky Mountains on its way from Chicago to San Francisco, Magliari said.

In the Colorado Rail Passenger Association’s vision statement, president Jim Souby writes a Front Range passenger rail is direly needed because it would “provide much needed capacity growth, while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the mobility of Coloradans, and providing major economic stimulus to the cities and communities served.”

According to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, the state’s population of 5 million is expected to hit 8 million in 2040, with 6.2 million of them living along the Front Range.

Passenger rails are popular on the West and East coasts because they have high population densities, but now the Front Range is having a population boom, too, Souby said. And cities with access to commuter rails become “major meccas” for investment.

In the vision statement, Souby notes the $1.2 billion to build a commuter rail is the same price of widening Interstate 25 from Fort Collins to Longmont to three lanes. But he argues widening the interstate would come with “far less reliability, much higher energy consumption, lower safety, and ultimately the same problems with highway traffic congestion.”

In the mid-20th century, the federal, state and local governments started investing more into highways and the interstate system, which all but killed private passenger railroads, according to the vision statement. Congress established Amtrak in 1970, but it has never been funded enough to provide high-quality commuter rail service coast to coast.

“They’re much more desirable than bus stations and parking lots, which are also extremely important,” Souby said, “but it’s about having an entire system.” Souby became passionate about the Front Range’s need for a commuter rail several years ago when he worked for the Western Governors’ Association. At the time, the governors from Montana to California recognized the importance of having a reliable commuter rail system, for rural communities and unpredictable weather, Souby said.

If a commuter rail were to be built, construction would take a generous estimate of 15 to 20 years. With that in mind, Souby wonders who will take action and when.

“The time to begin serious planning is now,” he said.