Tell your legislators: Increase funding for buses and trains
We need more and better transit options in Colorado.
Colorado wins a $66 million federal grant, kicks in $28 million, to improve the safety of heavily-used freight tracks around Broomfield that could one day handle passenger rail too.
2024 has been the year of transit in Colorado and today’s news only reinforces that.
In the spring, the Colorado legislature passed, and Governor Jared Polis signed, a set of bills that made an historic investment of approximately $170 million per year in expanding and improving bus and train options.
Today’s news means another $94 million will be invested ($66 million from a federal grant with $28 million matching money from Colorado).
At first glance, this money is about safety. It will go to track improvements on a section of freight rail around Broomfield.
For anyone who lives and works along these tracks, you know there are a lot of trains that rumble by every day. Recently, a derailment in Boulder highlighted that this section of tracks does not currently have important safety measures like positive train control (PTC).
So, this money will add PTC to a section of these tracks and will improve railroad crossings at five high-priority locations.
That, in and of itself, would be worth celebrating. We must be using the best safety measures possible to eliminate the risk of derailments and protect communities along these train tracks from Denver up to Fort Collins.
But there is a second win within this announcement.
If passenger rail is ever going to run along these tracks, something envisioned in both RTD’s vision of a Northwest Rail line and the state’s Front Range Rail system, then safety measures like PTC are required (PTC is not required on many freight lines if they are not used by passenger rail).
So these dollars can pave the way and reduce the eventual cost to the state and to RTD of launching a passenger rail from Denver through Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins.
Anytime Colorado can pull down federal money for a project that can reduce the risk of train derailments through our communities and increase our ability to expand transit options it’s a time to celebrate.
We need more and better transit options in Colorado.
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